How Tattoos Affect your Relationships in Japan

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Editorial Illustration

"How Tattoos Affect your Relationship in Japan"

by Jalexa Loke Qi Yan

Article Illustration, Article Mockup, Figma Prototype.

Rationale

The selected article is about "How Tattoos Affect your Relationship in Japan". As there are not many Japanese people who accept tattoos as art on the body, it is considered a taboo in Japan.

In my artwork, I want to bring out the visual of how other people react to people with tattoos. People will stop and stare with their fingers pointing, whispering around like you're some kind of monster. Japanese people just isn't up for that. When we think of Japanese art, the most famous art style is Ukiyo-E, which I implied in my artwork below. The angle of the buildings and people are off, and the characteristic of the faces are always visible as there is no backside of head.

For the concept, I want to bring some fun and interest into the illustration itself. By using the famous Spider-Man posture, which is the three men with the tattoos on them, easily they become the focus point of the illustration. Other woman are surrounding them, judging their tattoos. The three men are startled and they all point towards each other, like they themselves isn't the weird one there.

As for the colour and texture, I used a muted yellow tone towards the whole illustration to create the Ukiyo-E art style vibe. The textures of splashy paint are also visible on the clothing and building for extra detail to represent the Ukiyo-E style, but with a different approach.

The mood is also set during the evening, when the lights or candles are starting to be lit up and we see the streets full of people walking around where this fun and interesting incident has happened to the three poor men.

Article Link

Title: How Tattoos Can Affect your Relationship in Japan

https://japantruly.com/how-tattoos-can-affect-your-relationship-in-japan/

Illustration Development (Stages)

The following grid of photos are the progress and development of the final illustration outcome. Starting from the original idea, the montage to sketching out the bigger picture of the illustration.

The stages go from left to right, up to bottom.