Uchiha Itachi Wall

For once, I wished to be in Sasuke's position and be the receiver of that beautiful poke...

This week has been spent slogging away to create a tribute to my man Itachi, and I've decided to document and share the process to make up for the lack of figure photography.

Rather than buying anime posters (both official & fan-made), I've always preferred doing it myself, one to save molah, and I'd like to look at the wall and feel impressed by my skills lol-

You know that kick when someone praises and acknowledges your hard work-

Hand drawn just feels a ton more sincere, so if you can do it, why not?

And it's Itachi we're talking about, I can't be halfhearted about this!

...Besides, I desperately needed a channel to funnel my deep-seated admiration & adoration for this man... That is definitely my number 1 fuel for drawing.

Oh, what I would give to be poked and be the receiver of that affectionate smile...

Round #1:

As usual, I began with researching the perfect possible arrangement of wall collages on Pinterest, and after some serious moments of pulsing my lips and eroding my screen protector, I've settled on using this:

How To: IKEA Ribba Frame Gallery Wall, taken from Pinterest

Round #2:

Commerce idea cramming and instead of arranging random shots of his handsome existence (oh how tempting), I've decided to use the collages to tell a story, make it more meaningful 

From top, clockwise: 

• Various frames for some shots
• O <--- Y (Old <--- Young) Starting from his childhood, when his brother Sasuke was born
• Numbers denote the sizes of the 'canvas'

Round #3:

Random drawings in various stages of completion - starting with penciling, fine lining, filling, and line shading

Round #4:

The Death Valley of Errors & Tools Malfunction

This $15 masking fluid was the death of me when it not only failed to be peeled off...

...It went ahead and stained and broke my paper (red arrows)... Danzo, Shisui's already dead, cut him (AND ME) some slack!

As I attempted to savage this drawing, the water droplets from making the foliages dried up and had the nerve to stain the white spaces (blue arrows)... This despite using all self-proclaimed waterproof markers! After some serious investigation, the culprit turned out to be the black Copic markers zz

Round #5:

Repair & Last Minute Fixes

Of course this nonsense had to happen when I'm almost done with everything, and being the last piece, naturally I was compelled to redo... and redo it is.

Above: Spent a great deal of time taping the edges... This wouldn't have pissed me off so much if I didn't own the tool precisely to substitute these tapings

...Came across this cool way of creating realistic foliages on Pinterest (great space for inspiration!)  by dabbing black paint (top left, Pentel tube) on a damp sponge (bottom right), hence the tapings.

Can you spot the difference?

Round #6:

Canvas building

Since the whole point of doing it yourself is to save on cash, going out and buying pre-made canvas and frames would defeat the noble mission, so I've picked key drawings to pop up on the wall. I would love to elevate everything onto these canvas (above photo), but do you know the amount of paper I've used just to build these?!

Round #7:

Hanging up these without any guidelines (besides that scrap paper) was nerve-wrecking and fun

I teared as I was drawing the crying scene, how did the animator do it?

It was tough using eye power alone to gauge whether all frames are parallel...

Can you make out what's going on from this arrangement?

• For those who have watched Naruto, his favourite gesture of poking Sasuke's forehead shouldn't come off as a stranger, and I've used that as the common motif to represent his fondness and commitment to protect his brother across his lifespan on the wall.
• While Sasuke was the motivation behind many of his actions, many of those encompasses sacrifices - his clan, citizenship, reputation, acting very much like a double-edge sword. His brother's existence pulled him into the depth of hell and hence their scenes, no matter how blissful and genuine, were at the bottom (of the collage)
• His cousin Uchiha Shisui, on the other hand, was not only his one and only close friend, but his mentor, confidante, and someone he aspires to be (hence allocated at the top)
• The 3 biggest frames in the centre, from right to left, represents Hardwork, Suffering, and Decisions
• I picked two representative moments of Sasuke's 'interactions' with Itachi - his first encounter with him since he left the village (bottom, behind crying Itachi), and him visiting Itachi's grave (most left) to show the states of their relationship across his timeline

...And this is just the amount of space I have above my bed. How I would love to go on and cover more of his life in Akatsuki and edo tensei!

It's my dream to marry build an ultimate Itachi shrine in my room
#monogamy

xoxo