View allAll Photos Tagged yokai
(Ink on paper, 2008)
This is one of two pieces I will be showing in the "Yokai In Your Eye" show @ Bear & Bird Gallery on June 14th.
This piece is based on the Sagari character. Here is the explanation:
Another spirit born from a precise turn of events, and a strange one even by Yokai standards. A Sagari is the ghost of a horse that has died beneath a tree, and is now bound to it. Appearing as a disembodied horse's head, it dangles from branches by either its ambulatory mane or a single humanoid arm, depending on the story. Kind-hearted humans have the power to release these spirits, but not all Sagari are interested in passing on, preferring the comfort of their tree to whatever awaits horses in the afterlife. Though eerie, they are not known to attack people.
Poster image for the Degenerate Art Ensemble's upcoming show, Sonic Tales, at the Moore Theatre on Halloween in Seattle. Costume and wallpaper drawings by Mandy Greer.
Marker and airbrush freakout for the annual Monster Beach Party art show in Vancouver. I was on a big-ass Shigeru Mizuki kick at the time, so I went down that particular road. I also used it as an excuse to draw my '78 Iceman for some reason. 2008
The souls of particularly evil people are cursed to be trapped for eternity in flaming wheels, spreading chaos and death wherever they go.
The ghost of a woman who died while pregnant, or giving birth, or shortly after childbirth, or related to her baby in any other way, Ubume is one of the more tragic Yokai. She appears as a woman – sometimes pregnant, sometimes bloody, sometimes with bird talons, but always holding a baby. Her desperate need to help her child is the undoing of any mortal she meets, as she will beg you to hold her baby for her. But once you do, the child becomes a heavy stone, and often crushes the life out of the poor, good-natured victim. There are a few ghosts like this, including one variant of Yuki-Onna whose baby will freeze you to death. Basically, if you’re in Japan, never hold anyone’s baby for them. Just punt that little monster (don’t actually kick a baby).
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2016/05/25/life-in-plastic-yokai-part-5-yes-...
While they were definitely not pleased in my badgering for descriptions on their experience, they eventually relented and gave me the details that I otherwise would be incapable of describing.
The skeletal fingers that had once been their own, they...er… explained, at first felt like their nerves and muscles were clustered together. Much like being flexed, beginning to grow intensely more warm as this happened. The pain of the bone just barely poked through the discomfort of the growing, burning sensation. Something I believe to be related to the tar.
The skeletal mass seemed to collect coagulated bits of this and torn muscle from its struggle, gentle as it might be, through the fleshy tube their arms had become. I watched as the other arm cease its struggle. They said it was being forced. While they felt nothing guiding them, their hand moved of its own accord. Delicately gripping the finger tips, it began to tug and guide the flesh off.
I still remember the horrid noise of syrupy suction, a squicky squishing sound that sent me shivering. Stuck shocked, I was forced to watch my partner’s shoulder suffer a similar fate to their fingers. Rolling and working towards the throat like a sweater, the arms folding and shifting as they squirmed towards the throat.
My friend might have been screaming at this moment, should a torrent of that black mucus not have been rocketing from their lips. It was quite unseemly, I am sure they are happy I was too shocked to work a camera properly (though I had accidentally taken plenty of blurry swashes of colors, images of bushes and trees, and my finger in this mess) as the sticky mess of black and blood, i couldn't even think of where to start on my theories of what might be the likely candidate for the sudden increase of red in the strain slurry dribbling over their collar bone.
I might have actually started taking pictures at that very moment, had it not gone down hill from there. Instead, we have a picture of what had been our intended target cornering me in an oddly placed shipping container. I had snuck into it at a moment I had believed it hadn’t seen me, thinking the purple eyes covering its torso of coagulated pitch were simply decorative. A bit of camouflage meant to throw off predators and prey, I have seen plenty of examples of eyespots in insects and amphibians I had taken photos of. Prey animals.
This was a poor judgment call. A prey judgment call! Journalism shouldn't be making prey judgment calls, JOURNALISM SHOULD BE THE PREDATOR!
=========================
=/=/ LOCATION /=/=
Ironwood Hills, Lost Boys
*~*~* BODY *~*~*
Shape by Me
Skin: + Fallen Gods Inc + Obsydian, Red Elemental, Shaved
*~* Head *~*
+ Aii + DreamWeaver (Rage) // Copied and Cobbled into the void in his head.
Hair: Magicka Things
Head: DRD / Death Row Designs | Faces Of Death / F.O.D | Blind Venomous Carnage
*~* Torso *~*
Ro / Remarkable Oblivion - Azrael Bone Wings - Red
Ro / Remarkable Oblivion - Broken Heart Necklace
- Cobbled and Copied by me over Torso and Arms -
+ Aii + DreamWeaver's Eye (Dream)
[ni.Ju] Cheeky Chompers
Yellow JesteR - Jeepers Peepers
*~* Arms *~*
+ Aii + Sinner Hands
*~* Waist & Hips *~*
+ Aii + Gluttonous Orifice
*~* Legs, So Many Legs *~*
+ Aii + Centipede Body
*~*~* CLOTHING *~*~*
*~* Head *~*
Tamagosenbei Purple Eye Yokai Pet
[ The Forge ] Witcher Headpiece, Gold
*~* Torso *~*
.aisling. Fangarth Necklace
.aisling. Ragun
DRD / Death Row Designs | Zombie Apoc - Zombie Arm
PFC / Pucca FireCaster creations ~ Bones - Choker
20" x 20" illustration for Kult design agency in Singapore. Its for a book about fears. my assigned fear was Gephydrophobia - (Fear of crossing bridges). Some people with this affliction imagine monsters under the bridges they must cross. I thought this would a great time to illustration some Japanese themed stuff i've been wanting to draw. They are all based on the original Japanese design but with my twist of course. I sourced some real life disturbing looking animals for some of these. The melting face guy in the back is based on a blob fish (truly disturbing). The red oni is based on a Chinese girl in my Japanese class hahaha. the bug eyed furry guy is based on a Tarsier (some kind of monkey with huuuuge eyes). Jizo are little stone statues that are the protectors of travellers and children. they often are decorated with red clothing. Ravens are bad omens. There is a whole encyclopedia of Japanese monsters (Yokai). Here are 6 (and a raven, so i guess this continues my Japanese crow series too). Seen here is a kappa (turtle like thing that will do bad things to you but has a hole in his head with water in it so if you bow to him he must bow to you therefore losing the water in his head and disabling him so you can run away), an oni (demon/ogre, you throw beans at people wearing these masks on setsubun day), an umi bozu (sea monster), a Hitotsume-kozo (one eyed monster that resembles a bald Buddhist priest) a Suushi Nuppeppo (animated lump of decaying human flesh), a Kijimuna (a forest sprite from Okinawa). All Yokai have crazy stories that are super strange and intersting to me as a westerner, for example the Kijimuna bug-eyed monster on the right, here is an excerpt "a kijimuna may offer to carry a human on it's back as it leaps through the mountains and over the seas. The kijimuna dislike people passing gas on their backs, however, and will immediately throw the human off their backs, no matter where they were at the moment." this illo almost didnt happen. That bridge took like 8 hours to complete and i had to do it all over again because the photoshop file got corrupted when i was halfway done with the whole illustration! then my keyboard stopped working and more time was wasted finding the fix for that. This is acrylic paint, pencil, japanese patterned paper, chinese ink, and photoshop. I used a sponge for the tree leaves and moss. What a monster it was completing this. I'm sorry to say I logged 60+ hours on this one.
The "Legend of the Yokai" has risen! I'm very proud to share my new piece as part of the "Legend of the Yokai" experience inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This is part of Paramounts Official campaign to promote the new movie coming to theaters August 8th. You can check out the first wave of art here: www.legendoftheyokai.com/
More of a Yurei than a Yokai, Onryo are the ghosts of people who have been wronged in life. Rather than seek specific vengeance (though they won't pass it up if the opportunity arises), Onryo take out their wrath on all living people. They are not necessarily female, but the idea of an Onryo as a romantically-wronged woman or murdered child captured public opinion early and well. As for their appearance, the stringy-haired woman in white came about because of Kabuki shorthand (Similar to why ninjas dress like Kabuki stagehands).
(this figure is actually a Walking Dead zombie, but it loos so much like an Onryo...)
If you're gonna do some Forced Family Xmas Fun, ya might as well have a Sculpey Yokai Christmas Tree Ornament Contest!
I made the corpse-eating rabbit (mouryou), my wife made the kappa and my spawns made the rolly-cloth/eyeball daddy (ittamomen/medama oyaji) and the potato-head guy (abura-sumashi).
My expedition partner, at the time, couldn't quite fight their own skeletal arms. This was not an issue I felt I would ever have to worry about. Ever since this event, I have been doing my best to think up scenarios where I might when should the same happen to me.
I fear that I would suffer the same fate should I so much as touch them or the sinister concoction growing in front of me. I wasn't even certain if they were even alive, at least not conventionally given their body was continuing to wiggle and gyrate. Their arms hung from their sides, flopping about like a dealership’s inflatable arm-flailing tube abomination either from my partner’s struggle against their own skeleton or the skeleton’s struggle against their confining meat suit. The fingers were beginning to look oddly long, but given the nature of finger bones, judging items against a draping of flesh, and my own body-trembling terror my eye for detail might have been a little skewed.
The monster’s claw tips soon made their way to my associate’s mouth. I must admit, they would have made a wonderful journalist. They had quite a bit of tenacity, snapping and biting at even these grotesque digits. While I was still certain they were once a part of my partner’s skeleton, given I had just witnessed their horrible journey, the noxious assumed mix of torn muscle and sinew, tar, oil, bile and coagulated blood had hardened along the first two digits of each finger and thumb to create the beginnings of the claws seen in the picture. They were not quite as hard as the picture implies, least not at the time.
Another sharp bite caused one to rupture like a spoiled banana, spewing a mixture and scent that words could not describe. My desire to coat every physical printing of this article with a scratch and sniff portion failed. Not for lack of being able to implement the scratch-n-sniff itself, but try as I might nothing can match that scent. A wooden barrel of a butchered cow, pig, and their organs along with sewer run off left to bake in the sun while marinating in petrol, limberger juice, and cat urine and STILL I couldn’t find something close to the body binding horror that was that damned scent.
From how quickly my friend’s jaw went rigid, I am going to imagine it tasted much like it smelled. The sound of their clogged heaving was masked by, what Doc insisted I called, the Chuckling Chorus. Muffled somewhat by still being in the bubbling and pulsating self. Harmonized like a haunting song, the series of snickers and guffaws echoed from my buddie’s growing glower with a hoarse scratch that reminded me of a phonograph.
I like to make weird connections when I am nervous and afraid. Don’t judge me.
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In the picture, I have bounced back to my feet with camera in hand! Bravado and black-out rambling to confuse the target. The more it stares in confusion at my ranting, the more time I have to take a photo!
Even with it momentarily dazed by my wily charisma, I had some issues getting a picture of what I assume are its main eyes. The purple one on its body seem to be taking in the environment and the ones inside the hood surrounding this special pair might occasionally all focus on the pair’s target for dramatic effect, but otherwise they seem to suffer from the same hyperactive ADHD tendencies my own do when I have a firm grasp on my camera. A vast void of endless eyes might similarly extend off into infinity like a starscape, but these two particular eyes just above the tendril like tongue seem special.
They seem to focus on me, on the camera. They have a intensity to them the others lack, that anyone I can remember lacked. It is hard to place the.. Feeling of this intensity, but it is quite clear. It forces me to focus on them in the chaos of ocular attention seekers in a way the pictures can not fully describe.
It was a bit impressed, or confused, by my reaction of quick pics and quick words, most too blurry or covered in a gloss of similar to the twinkling starscape in the beast’s hood. Doc theorized this interference was its way of removing ny pictures it considered to be of its bad side, or terrible.
As it seemed to wait for me to get the above picture and a close-up, I began to believe it might actually be friendly and photogenic.
Barring the horrific nightmare the tag-along endured, of course.
=========================
=/=/ LOCATION /=/=
Ironwood Hills, Lost Boys
*~*~* BODY *~*~*
Shape by Me
Skin: + Fallen Gods Inc + Obsydian, Red Elemental, Shaved
*~* Head *~*
+ Aii + DreamWeaver (Rage) // Copied and Cobbled into the void in his head.
Hair: Magicka Things
Head: DRD / Death Row Designs | Faces Of Death / F.O.D | Blind Venomous Carnage
*~* Torso *~*
Ro / Remarkable Oblivion - Azrael Bone Wings - Red
Ro / Remarkable Oblivion - Broken Heart Necklace
- Cobbled and Copied by me over Torso and Arms -
+ Aii + DreamWeaver's Eye (Dream)
[ni.Ju] Cheeky Chompers
Yellow JesteR - Jeepers Peepers
*~* Arms *~*
+ Aii + Sinner Hands
*~* Waist & Hips *~*
+ Aii + Gluttonous Orifice
*~* Legs, So Many Legs *~*
+ Aii + Centipede Body
*~*~* CLOTHING *~*~*
*~* Head *~*
Tamagosenbei Purple Eye Yokai Pet
[ The Forge ] Witcher Headpiece, Gold
*~* Torso *~*
.aisling. Fangarth Necklace
.aisling. Ragun
DRD / Death Row Designs | Zombie Apoc - Zombie Arm
PFC / Pucca FireCaster creations ~ Bones - Choker
The "Hungry Ghost," originally the "Preta," comes from Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jain texts, although most of the tradition behind it is Chinese in origin, and most modern cultural references are from the Japanese concept, the 'Gaki." A Hungry Ghost is actually pretty simple - if you are a glutton, you will be reincarnated as one of these creatures. The original concept has it as insatiably ravenous but incapable of actually eating, usually with a throat too narrow to swallow. Modern popular culture, of course, just turned it into a spooky cannibal monster. I mean, one of them is even a character in the Samurai Shodown games (But then, Alexander Hamilton is also a character in the Samurai Shodown games, so make of that what you will).
And the most interesting thing about this? The little fellow pictured here has a loop under his feet, and is thus perfectly functional as a cell phone charm. Don't you want one of THOSE hanging from your phone?
Artist: Daniel Brown
轆轤首 is a Japanese ghost whose neck can stretch out, usually at night, allowing it to spy on or scare people. I've been reading about yokai lately and I thought I'd make a couple in origami. The other one should show up soon.
This design is basically a kite base with the tall part thinned out and the bottom, wider part wrapped around to make the body.
Film photography series.
Zenit-E, Helios 44-2, Kodak Vision 2 500T.
See more of my works:
Boosty - boosty.to/natalieina
Instagram - www.instagram.com/natalieina.photography
Behance - www.behance.net/natalieina
For all questions, as well as for the purchase of photo prints and about the collaboration, please write to my mail:
natalieinatree@gmail.com
This figure looks extremely simialr to King Enma/Yama, so much so that I mistook him as such for years! But as it turns out, it is Michizane Sugawara, a real historical person. Sugawara (August 1, 845 – March 26, 903) was a great scholar from the Heian period, who founded schools, wrote some of Japan’s most revered poetry, and was also an excellent politician. Sadly, he ended up on the wrong side of a major power struggle, and was exiled. He died alone. Legend has it that his rage was so great he became a powerful and angry ghost, and a god of disaster, thunder… and learning. Lightning strikes devastated the capital upon his death, and there are shrines worshipping him to this day – the man turned Yokai turned god! This story is actually fairly similar to Raigo/Tesso.
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2014/08/13/life-in-plastic-the-night-parade-...
The tale of Kiyohime and Anchin is one of Japan’s most beloved love stories, appearing in everything from literature to Noh Theatre, and enduring for over a thousand years.
Near the Dojo-ji temple, there once was a well-to-do family who would lodge monks on their pilgrimage, giving them a place to stay before they crossed the Hidaka river to the temple. One such monk, Anchin, was quite handsome, and the family’s young daughter, Kiyohime, developed a crush on him. Anchin jokingly told her that, “Well, if you’re good, I suppose I’ll marry you someday.”
Of course, Kiyohime took this seriously, and waited patiently over the years. Finally, she came of age, and Anchin’s yearly visit… when the same as any other. He stayed the night with the family and then went on his way. Kiyohime got rather angry and chased him down to the shore, fuming about how he hadn’t kept his promise.
When Anchin saw her and realized why she was angry, he said, “Uh… Anchin who? I don’t know anybody named Anchin. WHo are you? I’ve never met you before! You must be talking about, um, some other really awesome monk named Anchin, and… uh… oh, look at the time! I’ve got to go! OH BUDDHA PLEASE SAVE ME!!!”
And wouldn’t you know it, Buddha did rescue Anchin by knocking Kiyohime unconscious (there’s a mental picture for you). Anchin quickly boarded a boat and began to cross the river.
BUT… Kiyohime woke up, and realized that he was escaping her. So she jumped into the river and swam after him. And, in fact, she got so angry that she turned into a fire-breathing snake monster! Which is something that happens, apparently, When women get angry, they turn into fire-breathing snake monsters. Don’t blame me, this story is over a thousand years old.
Anchin saw the Kiyohime-monster swimming after him, and panicked to the boatman, who also saw her. Thus, they paddled faster than they had ever paddled before, and made it to shore. Once there, Anchin ran into the temple screaming, “Help me! There’s this girl, and she likes me and I rejected her, so she got reallyangry and turned into a giant fire-breathing snake-monster (which is totally normal thing that happens all the time)!”
And the monks of the monastery said, “Well, that sounds like a perfectly normal sequence of events that happens all the time. Here, hide under our big iron bell so she won’t find you.”
So, they hid him under their gigantic iron bell. Kiyohime slithered into the monastery, breathing fire, and sniffed out Anchin’s location. She wrapped her coils around the bell and breathed fire all over it, until it turned white-hot and Anchin died.
And thus, now that she had turned into a giant fire-breathing snake monster (happens all the time) and murdered the man she had been obsessively crushing on for over a decade, Kiyohime promptly plunged herself into the river and drowned.
And that’s the whole story. Sometimes it is titled, “How a Monk of the Dojo-ji in the Province of Kii copied the Lotus Sutra and Brought Salvation to Serpents,” which is not what happens in the story at all.
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2016/05/25/life-in-plastic-yokai-part-5-yes-...
Greek mythology has the Chimera, a creature with the head and body of a lion, a second head of a goat, and a serpent tail (with its own head). Iraq (Persia) has the Manticore, a creature with the body of a lion, the face of a man, the wings of an eagle, and the tail of a scorpion. The Nue is often called “The Japanese Chimera,” though the only connection is its mix-and-match nature. Nue vary from creature to creature and account to account, but most often they have the body of a tiger, the face of a snow monkey, and a snake’s tail – with its own snake head, too. They make bird cries as they fly in the night, concealed within dark clouds of their own making. The Nue is also one of the oldest recorded Yokai, with descriptions and legends strethcing back well over eleven hundred years ago.
The Nue are truly terrible and dangerous. When they appear, they create nightmares, spread curses, and people die. One famous story from AD 1153 involves the emperor himself falling deeply ill under both physical and spiritual ailments, as well as nightmares. One night when a storm struck the imperial palace and set the roof on fire, the samurai Minamoto realized that it was a creature, and he fired an arrow directly into the center of the storm’s black cloud. This killed the Nue, who fell dead to the ground. To avoid its death curse, the inhabitants of Kyoto sent its body to the village of Ashiya, which gave it a proper burial. A nd you can actually visit the mound today, though I doubt anybody will let you dig and excavate the Nue’s body.
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2014/06/20/life-in-plastic-special-the-night...
This is the gorgeous dark blue with green and blue spray Yokai Daimon vinyl figure. He's 9 inches, made in 1997 by M-Ichigo-Toy, nicknamed M-1 or M1-Go.