This post is for anyone curious about the inspiration behind the story of this work. I was inspired by an ukiyo-e print that is part of Katsushika hokusai's manga; a portrait of a woman with a seated tengu. I wanted to see if I could animate with something close to a woodblock print style. As far as challenges go, I don't think I'll be doing something with such thin brush strokes in flash again (I was at zoom 200 brush 2 on BG and 4 on CH for any old school flash nerds out there). I did some compositing on the linework by exporting the layers separately to try to match what an ukiyo-e print edge would look like. See original here, hopefully posting this is okay since the artist is cited and also long deceased:
It was possible to find the story of this image by doing a reverse image search online, This is a depiction of a legend from Heian period of a monk, 真済, (possibly pronounced Minshake, or known as Masao Kakimoto) who turns into a blue tengu demon from lusting after the emperor's woman. Allegedly he died from a broken heart and his blue demon ghost haunted the lady. I was not able to find any information in English about this legend,but here's a link to the source material that I was able to find on Japanese Wikipedia, and also the blog where I found the names:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9C%9F%E6%B8%88
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/caneteregardepas/e/d4f0d8562fb2bcfb0894d3fde682c241
It seems as if the monk in this legend was a real living person as there is a lot of information on him, the temples, and who the ruler was at the time. (check out the translation function on your browser for more, my command of Japanese language is not good)
One of the temples that the monk was associated with was called Jingo-ji 神護寺, a buddhist temple in Kyoto. However, The emperor at the time could have been possibly residing at Ninna-ji 仁和寺, so I thought perhaps the ghost might have decided to haunt that area instead since the object of his affection may have at one point resided there.
The shrine that the Kappas are taking care of in the beginning is based on the Kamo shrines 賀茂神社 in Kyoto. Even though Kappas are demons, and these shrines in reality are meant to prevent demons from entering the city, their association with the Kamo River that runs through Kyoto made it feel like an appropriate place for benevolent Kappa exorcists to reside.
The music for this was recorded on a kalimba with a pickup inside, and the drums were recorded digitally played on a Akai MPK 249. The woodblock sound is from real Taiko Bachi, which I own exclusively to play Taiko Drum master and not to do any sort of real drumming.
Overall this animation took me 1 year and 4 months to complete, mainly due to the choice of line and higher level of detail on character design than I usually do. I try to be more economic with lines and this animation is a perfect example of why.
Thanks for checking out my work and reading all the way to the end!