Bunny Dance!
After how emotional and personal my last piece was, I made it a goal this time around to draw something fun and have fun while doing it; in this case, I drew some fan art for a community I'm in.
Fan art is a rare occurrence for me, as while I enjoy working on it, there's always some repressed guilt that comes with it. It's not because I'm drawing anything inappropriate, but because doing so causes my inner art snob to resurface; it yells at me about how the only way I'll get far as an artist is if I draw my own characters and stick to them while fan art should be reserved for gifts and warm-up sketches. I know that there's some truth to that, but not indulging in fan art or any kind of self-indulgent drawing at all can cause art to feel like a chore, which is the last thing that I want my art to be.
That said, this drawing was a LOT of fun for me, and I enjoyed every moment of it. I set the piece on a stage because I wanted to challenge myself with the curtains, because it was natural for characters that were dancing, because I wanted it to look as funny as it felt, and because I had "It Just Works" by The Chalkeaters stuck in my head while drawing this. It took a while for me to get the curtains right, but once everything was said and done, I'm happy with how they turned out; the hardest part about them was finding the right color palette, as I alternated between shades of red and blue a LOT in addition to where to place them while finishing up the piece.
Since this is a piece of fan art, neither of the characters in the piece belong to me; The idea for Shiny The8BitBunny (left) comes from a friend of mine while The8BitBunny (right) is one of The8BitDrummer's mascots. My designs for the bunnies were inspired by SeviYummy's and RunningSumErins' interpretations of the character, with the former drawing emotes for the community and the latter animating the YouTube outro. Additionally, while the idea behind shiny was inspired by a friend of mine, I wanted to make them more than just a palette swap of The8BitBunny; I gave them diamond paw pads, star-shaped eye shines, a star bow-tie, and curlier fur. Differentiating them visually will help me if I draw them more in the future.
While it may appear that the bunnies were the hardest part of the piece, that honor goes to the 8-bit heart and arcade lettering in the background. I chose "Love More" as the phrase on the sign because it's on one of the community's T-shirts and I thought it would work well as a vanity plate for the theater. I even tried replicating the lettering featured on the shirt for a while before choosing a different font because I struggled to recreate it. The pixel art was much easier, however, when I discovered that Clip Studio Paint had a grid view which, when combined with the ruler and line snapping tools, significantly reduced my workload by allowing me to draw more faster and more accurately than I could without the grid in play.
I'm not sure if I'll post more fan art here, as I want to keep this place focused on my own characters, but I had so much to say here that it was hard for me to not include it here. Most fan art I draw will likely be on my other social media pages from here on out, and this piece will be posted there with some additional commentary on Saturday.
I want to give special thanks to The8BitDrummer for not only the characters, but also for hosting the community that inspired the piece and making some awesome drum covers for me to listen to while drawing; to Sandwichvamp for being one of the most dedicated artists involving The8BitBunny; and to okwendy for providing the idea behind Shiny The8BitBunny and her interpretation of the character. That's all I have to say here, it's time to prepare for my next piece!