Artist's commentary
Okami Hill Autumn
This is an early work from my now discontinued Oasis series. The white wolf in the picture is called Hikari (Hikari Okami). The background is a hill pass to a Shinto shrine during autumn. Hikari is the shrine’s maiden.
You can clearly tell from the name and settings that I was heavily influenced by Japanese culture, namely a video game called Okami developed by Capcom at the time. Over the years, I would lean increasingly towards Chinese culture to align with my national identity.
In my early works, I usually drew heads too big. But for some reason, Hikari never suffered from this problem. She looks tall and balanced in this picture, as I intended her to be. Although my art skill was primitive at the time, the picture still looks okay as a whole. Maybe I was able to focus on the creative process, unlike later in 2012 – 2022 during my low period.
The Oasis series started around 2000. It featured cute anthropomorphic animal characters, detailed backgrounds where civilization mixed with nature, and a relaxed atmosphere.
My art skills were severely lacking at the time. Most artworks in Oasis series failed to reflect what was in my mind, and they looked terrible today. Only a few good ones were kept in the gallery.
Oasis also lacked world building, and there was no story. Its focus on cute characters and relaxed life felt like a project of escapism.
At the beginning of 2024, Oasis was replaced by Spirit Animals in Disguise, a project with much clearer intent.
I never drew Hikari again after 2008, because I thought it was inappropriate to use the name of other nation’s genesis god in my characters. I also didn’t want to pay such a heavy homage to Okami the video game. But Hikari’s design elements were later split and developed into many new characters including: Hikari the Spirit Dog, Tianlu the Spirit Lion, Qiuye the Spirit Dhole, Yanhua the Spirit Wolf, etc.