Cygames Calendar, December 2022: The End of the Year
Liven up your PC or smartphone with the Cygames Calendar! We have one of our illustrators create a uniquely themed image each month and ask them to tell us about their creative process. The theme for December is the End of the Year!
Personalize your device with the finished piece, available in horizontal and vertical orientations.
Click here for this month’s calendar image.
- Illustration TeamMari
- In university, Mari specialized in nihonga, or Japanese painting. At Cygames, she’s in charge of the creation, coloring, and supervision of stand-alone images for existing titles. She’s particularly good at drawing female characters and colorful illustrations that are visually busy and filled to the brim with objects.
December is chock-full of potential topics!
Getting into the mind of an illustrator
Can you elaborate a bit on how you decided this month’s theme?
- Mari
- For artists, choosing a theme for December is no easy task… There are so many things I’d like to draw that I get overwhelmed. So I figured, why not draw just that—an illustrator who isn’t sure what to draw.
That’s quite the twist you put on the problem! Could you tell us a bit more about the image itself?
- Mari
- It’s about an artist who’s wracking her brain thinking about what to include in her end-of-the-year-themed drawing. This time of the year features a wide variety of events, including Christmas and other holidays, so I showed them all mixed together. Outside the window, you can see Santa Claus and the Joya-no-Kane, a bell that is rung on New Year’s Eve in Japan. The nutcracker doll in the image is also holding a feather duster, symbolizing the Japanese tradition of doing a thorough clean-up of one’s home during this time. All sorts of ideas are scattered around in the frame, just like they are in the character’s head.
It really makes the viewer look carefully at all parts of the image. The girl in the center—with her sweatpants, hanten jacket, and contemplative expression—really contrasts with the rest of the image’s poppy and flashy aesthetic. It’s quite interesting to look at.
- Mari
- At that moment, she’s more focused on pouring her heart into the drawing than looking good. Since illustrators tend to prefer more comfy, relaxing clothes while they work, I went with that for her outfit. I think artists that see this will be able to relate on a personal level.
The small items in the picture look so realistic. Do you often draw those?
- Mari
- Yes. A lot of my usual work consists of coloring images, creating backgrounds, and drawing smaller items like those. With this image, I really focused on making the food look as visually appealing as possible. One technique I used was to include cross-sections of the strawberries.
Do you compile references when working on an illustration?
- Mari
- Yes. I make sure to look at a lot of different references when drawing. I had to do that to figure out how exactly the fruits and cream were laid out on the cake. I tried to infuse my own interpretation into the image and really bring out this month’s motif.
What parts of the picture gave you the most trouble?
- Mari
- The hardest part was fitting all of these motifs into one image. I had to make sure the girl didn’t blend into the cake, which is why I made her jacket and the kotatsu (a low, heated and blanketed table often used in winter) a different color. I also had to adjust the tiger—which is meant to represent how 2022 is the year of the tiger in the Chinese Zodiac—by making it somewhat more cartoony. Doing all those things helped me work out the overall balance of the picture.
Have you always liked drawing?
- Mari
- Yes. I’ve loved it ever since I was in kindergarten. I used to draw anime characters all the time.
What made you want to pursue becoming an illustrator?
- Mari
- I decided I wanted to make a living off my art, so in my university days I started my own serialized manga and worked as an assistant to other artists. Over the course of working as a manga artist, I realized that I enjoyed drawing more than I did coming up with plots. At that point I was set on committing full time to becoming an illustrator, and I decided to change career paths.
Did you major in art at school?
- Mari
- Yes, I studied it in both high school and university. In high school, I focused on learning a variety of techniques, from oil painting to nihonga. That opened my eyes to how interesting Japanese painting was, and I took a liking to the way, for example, ukiyoe (woodblock paintings) featured stylized depictions of people. That made me decide to major in nihonga in university.
When do you feel most glad you chose to become an illustrator?
- Mari
- When people view and get enjoyment from my art. When someone says my work resonated with them, that really gives me a burst of creative inspiration.
Do you draw in your free time as well?
- Mari
- Yes, I do. At work, I don’t usually draw illustrations of people, and I often have to prevent my own personal taste from seeping into the art I draw professionally. When I draw on my own time, I often try to recall those tastes as I go.
Is there anything else you want to share with our readers?
- Mari
- I hope you find the more humorous, messy feel of this image entertaining. Also, if any fellow artists out there were able to relate to my depiction of this character, I would be very happy.
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