HelepolisH said: Well the clothing is for sure pretty good. Often when you see cosplay cloths, they look like plastic or colours being off.
Agreed.
Though you'll note that whoever this is has gone with ordinary "human" type shoes, probably because Shamemaru's actual "tengu geta soled" shoes (in thier various styles) are all but impossible to actually stand/walk in
Though you'll note that whoever this is has gone with ordinary "human" type shoes, probably because Shamemaru's actual "tengu geta soled" shoes (in thier various styles) are all but impossible to actually stand/walk in
Which is probably why Aya is always seen flying/hovering about the place. The way i see it, her tengu shoes are practically more for landing and take-off rather than regular walking.
Tetsamaru said: Which is probably why Aya is always seen flying/hovering about the place. The way i see it, her tengu shoes are practically more for landing and take-off rather than regular walking.
Actually they're pretty useless for that too, unless Aya is in the habit of taking off from a standing start straight up (which tecnically you can't do with wings placed like that they'd have to be able to rotate 90 degrees at the joint to pull that off.) As for landing, why would one want to make the landing surface SMALLER?
Basically Aya wears shoes like that becuse she is a tengu and shoes like that are like the tonkin hat, the leiderhosen like harness the staff with the rings on it and the beet red skin are parts of what visually makes a tengu a tengu. As a spirit/monster/ what have you biopysical logic does not neccarily apply.
I'll even go so far as to suggest that at least some of Aya's shoes appear to be human pairs she had modified. In a few pics (#560976) is a good example) aya's shoes have a normal low heel in addition to the tengu one which probably means they started life as a pair of ordinary red loafers then ahd the heel added on after aya purchased them (yes, I know that treating random sumissions on the site as canon accurate is questionable but it is a fun speculation)
Its comment likes this that make me come to Danbooru, Good show dude. And ya i also noticed the fair bit on the shoes. In alot of doujins too, though that might be more on Artist depictions.
Though I do admit, Momiji doesnt wear the "High shoes" that Aya wears. Thus proving the fact that they would be hell to walk in. Seeing as Momiji is a swordsman and all. Youmu said it herself, One of the most important aspects of a swordsman is footwork.
Actually in a fantasy novel I once started (where due to the nature of the story I actually had to provide reasonable biophysical expinations of HOW the varios non humans could do what they do) tengu almost never wore high shoes and being seen wearing them was for tengu an extremely embarrasing thing. In the context of the story high shoes were basically corrective footwear, for use by tengu who were deficent in thier balancing skills (a well trained tengu in my story would have no difficulty balacing his entire weight on an pencil stuck upright, really good ones can do it on a single pine needle. They're cosidered appropriate for practicing in private but being seen wearing them in pubic would be akin to a marathon bicycler showing up a the Tour d' France on a bike with training wheels.
I think it may be to emphasize thier otherworldly quality, the fact that they can walk and do feats of amazing coordination in shoes that a normal person would not be able to even stand in broadcast the "Hey I'm not like you, I don't have your limitations thing"
There is also the fact that, as I undersand it, a lot of what we would consider "tengu costume" (the tokin hat, the shakujo staff, the straps over the shirt with the pompoms and the puffy hakama trousers) comes from the way that the Yamabushi (Buddist mountain hermits)dressed, and the Yamabushi often wore pretty high getas, to keep their feet clean on the muddy mountain roads. Going from the two platformed human geta to the single platformed tengu geta is just to mark the division ever further.
Wearing high getas was also often considered a mark of nobility, much as wearing high heels was in 17th and 18th centuruy europe; wearing shoes that were hard to walk in showed the world that you could afford to take methods of tranportation (carriages, palanquins) that meant you didnt have to walk. Remember in some consmologies Tengu were supposed to be the reincarnations of nobles and samurai that, in thier lifetimes had be arrogant or full of themselves (hence the old Japanese idiom "Tengu ni naru", (don't be)"a boastful tengu")
In fact, some pictures I've seen make the shoes ever more difficult to stand in, by replacing the flat board platform with a round bamboo one (even smaller surface area).
Actually though I forgot to include it in the above in certain periods in China some women's shoes were made with a hemispherical "heel" placed right in the middle of the sole. These were designed for the women of families that had "made good" (started out in humble working class circumstances but then became wealthy) the hemispherical heel made walking almost impossible on purpose; its purpose was to allow the lady wearing it to mimic the gait of upperclass women who had had their feet bound since childhood.
I wonder what's easier to draw, tengu shoes or normal shoes..idk, i never tried. But i swear, one day, i'm going to try and upload the pic on this site! ( However, i may end up in the 'Poorly_Drawn' section T.T )