OVERVIEW
For April Fool's Day, VIZ Media posts fake manga titles they plan to "announce" as a fun joke to their fans. They provide me with a brief which I bring to life. The main thing is to create a convincing illustration that can pass as an actual release. After getting the art approved, they take my final illustration and format it into a 3D book which they post onto their social media platforms.
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my capybara soulmate
April 1, 2024
April 1, 2024
This illustration was a challenge to draw since I usually stick to full-human characters. However I took this as a new and fun opportunity to illustrate something along the inspiration of Japanese otome (story-based dating games with female protagonists). With over 14k likes, my cover illustration received the most engagements in all the years they have done this campaign.
Harem no Lettuce
April 1, 2023
April 1, 2023
I was influenced by the types of food and character tropes they had in their brief. Depiction of food in anime is also very popular, so I spent more time to make it look delectable. Since the food characters were the bachelors, it was fun to think of ways to make them look attractive as well.
Harem no Y2K
April 1, 2022
April 1, 2022
Inspirations were based on early 2000s "emo" fashion and MySpace layouts. Pink and black colors were used as the main colors to bring a girly look to fit the publisher's comics line "Shojo Beat" ("Shojo" is a Japanese genre of comics and media aimed at girls). The main font used is "Papyrus," to further emphasize early typography, and the accent font used for the "Y2K" text is reminiscent of the "Jokerman" font.
Harem no Mole Rat
April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021
An important aspect of the brief was to make the anthropomorphic mole rats look like "bishonen" (beautiful boys). A key characteristic of "bishonen" is having nice hair that fall around the face, so I made sure to give them that. Accessories like the construction hat and mysterious safety glasses provide more human characteristics. Soft lighting was used to create a dreamy, soft atmosphere to contrast the rocky underground environment.
Neko Sushi Kiss Kiss
April 1, 2018
April 1, 2018
For this brief, I was given examples to base my illustration off of. One of the main things to focus on was to lean hard into shojo manga tropes. To bring that out, I added a lot of sparkles, bubbles, flowers in the background, and soft lighting. A school girl with pastel pink hair was also very trendy at this time.
