Deer Santa
| Originally released 7 January 2025
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(IMG) [...]
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Disclaimer: I am not a Christian, and I do not observe Christmas
to any extent further than a commercial festivity.
This started from me hearing a Japanese Christmas song
"Awatenbou no Santa Claus" (lit. "Hasty Santa Claus")
the second time, from an old-technology Internet documentary show
featuring old Yamaha ING'S karaoke machines.
It has been the first time I actually tried to find out
what the lyrics actually meant. From what I gathered,
this song is a relatively-recent kids' Christmas song from 1967,
composed by Asei Kobayashi, with lyrics by Osamu Yoshioka;
depicting Santa in a rather unflattering down-to-earth fashion:
a bloke who has to be in constant hurry because he is
behind his schedule from shirking off to dance with kids,
and being a bit of klutz. Loads of onomatopoeia in there...
(HTM) A Vocaloid version I first heard this song from (at 00:02:19)
(HTM) A version on Yamaha ING'S HK-10 karaoke machine
(HTM) A 1984 version with vocal by Saeko Shuu
(HTM) An animated version
(HTM) A simple duet version with English translation in description
Reading through the Santa's misadventures in the lyrics
made me wonder: what if the Santa himself wasn't magical,
but rather his companion was? Also, what if the Santa himself
was a total newbie, and it was up to his colleague
to lead him the way and show him the ropes? This scene was already
playing in my head at the time I was asking myself that;
so, why not make it happen then?
It turned out to be a really difficult scene to do
a proper composition on. I actually had to scrap a prior
one-third-finished version drawn in my new art style,
because the original perspective I chose was
not looking powerful enough; and my newer style
took forever to draw- sticking to it might mean
releasing this drawing on Christmas 2025 instead.
This marks the first time I actually finished a drawing
with cervitaur, and also the first time I posted an artwork
which I deem "finished" by a predetermined deadline
rather than by reaching a state of unimprovability.
Both characters were last seen together in
(DIR) [2023-04-22] Walking into the Sunshine
though it was way back in
(DIR) [2016-06-03] Knotted Mess
that the character in the front was last seen in any
demi-human form.
Happy belated new year everyone.
Copyright (C) 2025 xwindows
This is a free illustration, you can modify and/or redistribute it
(TXT) GNU General Public License
or...
(TXT) Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0 Unported
or...
(TXT) Free Art License 1.3
P.S. While this was drawn for 16:9 aspect ratio, some effort
has been expended to make this not look completely terrible
under 4:3. If you need the 4:3 version, crop for the leftmost part
of this drawing.
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Downloads:
(IMG) Deer Santa (PNG)
^ 1920x1080 pixels; 415 KiB
(IMG) Deer Santa (SVG Original)
^ Scalable, nominally 1280x720 pixels; 253 KiB
More from Eventful Scenes:
(DIR) [2023-04-22] Walking into the Sunshine
(DIR) [2022-06-25] Shaky Cameraboy
(DIR) [2022-06-19] Departure From the Gallery
(DIR) Eventful Scenes
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(DIR) xwindows' Art Gallery