#bake danuki

Nanao's coat colours, texture and chest markings were inspired by Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro! I like that Totoro's fur is drawn with a lot of individual hairs. Him being drawn like that really shows that he's also genuinely fluffy besides being rotund, and I wanted that feel for Nanao as well.

I took a lot of inspiration from Pom Poko too, naturally. Really it's quite a beautiful film about environmental awareness! I really liked that their anthro forms had different markings from their more realistic feral forms, so I applied that to Nanao too to some extent!

Nanao is linked to fire in various ways, so I wanted that to reflect in his design too. For that I looked towards Avatar the last airbender and how they drew clothes for the fire nation. I really like how DARK their clothes are despite being an element of light. I especially like how they put the yellow as a middle ground between those dark colours and the other accompanying warm colour, so I snatched that idea.

His feet have the same colour as his big, bushy tail, so to make them more readable I went with a simple leg wrap inspired by what they did in Kung Fu Panda, tho without the actual sandal. Love you Kung Fu Panda character design forever and ever...

Then for the scarf around his neck I took inspiration from folks who put scarves around their pet's neck (which is really cute/innocent), but it also doubles as a thief disguise and wrapping cloth for when Nanao is up to no good. The pattern itself is the karakusa pattern.

and lastly, before I ramble on more :oP Nanao's face pattern resembles 2 axes, which is Nanao's weapon of choice! His axe also has cosmetic ginkgo leaves on it and a bag inspired by the one the DM always carries around lol.

Anyways, thanks for reading! I tried to do as much research as I could for this character/design, since I'm obviously not Japanese lol, but I'm really happy with how Nanao turned out honestly!

Bake danuki 🌳