This is another one that took a while for the idea to come. I definitely wanted to do a lioness but wasn’t sure how I could make it feel unique. My daughter said, “Why didn’t you put a pink crown on her?” (she’s four), which I liked, but it just didn’t feel quite right (or me) then the idea came...
We are all very obsessed still with KPop Demon Hunters in our house. I absolutely adore it, and my kids do too, particularly my girls. ("I love my girls" IYKYK). Anyway, we were watching it (again), and at the very end you see Zooey in a yellow jumper with the face of the cat from the film on it, and bang, that was my inspiration. (According to Google the cat in the movie is known as Derpy Tiger.)
It was one of those really quick visual moments that just sticks in your head and suddenly unlocked the whole direction of where I wanted to go with this.
So I’ve drawn my lioness to look like a Korean folk tiger. I was a bit concerned people would still automatically assume it’s a tiger, which I would totally understand, and perhaps niave of me to hope 'Leo' will help direct viewer thinking back over to lion / lioness, but I was so happy with the concept I've took the risk.
The Leo constellation is also layered over the top of the face and the Leo glyph is hidden on the edge of the mouth into the whiskers.
Fire sign triangles are included throughout the composition as well. Plus the 5 stars in the 'chin'?! not sure what to call that area - represent the 5th sign of the zodiac.
I liked the idea of building these zodiac specific elements into the structure of the design rather than just placing it as an obvious symbol like I have done with some of the others.
I initially wanted this whole collection to be done as biro line drawings, as I really loved the biro sketch style I used for my angel numbers collection. But for this design, it was absolutely crucial that it was symmetrical, so I created it in Illustrator, printed it off, traced it, and then scanned it back in.
At that point I didn’t really like it as a line drawing, and I also just couldn’t resist adding colour because it was so easy as I’d already created all the shapes in illustrator for the printout. So basically, colour was added to the whole collection because of Leo (and Cancer)!
Other Easter eggs to note: we have the sun (Leo reference), a Hello Kitty hair bow, gems on the teeth, and diamond eyes inspired by the film (all reference to the actors at the end of KPOP, or the film itself).
I love it when movies have hidden details that you don’t necessarily notice so was fun to incorporate these into the design.
I hope you love my lioness as much as I do!
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