Yohey Horishita illustration

Alice’s Secret

Title: Alice’s Secret

Client: Personal

Description: Re-creation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I took this story into “50 Shades of Grey” and “Eyes Wide Shut” aesthetics.

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The Highest Rapture

Title: The Highest Rapture

Client: Personal

Description: One of the series of illustrations for an old Japanese folktale, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. This scene, the princess who was raised by a old couple is finally picked up by her moon people. In the story, she forgets everything what happened on her during her stay on earth when one of the moon people put their robe on her.

Comment: I wanted to beautifully capture the movement of a robe (or scarf) from the sky.

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The Goddess with Moonlight Patters

Titile: The Goddess with Moonlight Patters

Client: Personal

Description: One of the series of illustrations for an old Japanese folktale, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. This is a scene of moon people come to take this princess back to the moon. The princess was sent to the earth for some sort of punishment (however, there is no clear descriptions of the reason why she was sent to the earth on the story.) Anyway, the night of full moon, they come to take her home.

Comment: I want this moon goddess to be graceful and divine, yet powerful and majestic. I love all the details of patterns and textures, and I hope you see that on the image.

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The Five Princes

Work: The Five Princes from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Client: Savannah College of Art and Design, Prof. Goni Montes

Description: A scene of the five princes trying to get their own tasks in order to be given a permission to get married to the bamboo princess. The stone begging bowls of the Buddha, a jewelled branch from the Horai island, the robe of the fire-rat of China, a jewel from a dragon’s neck, and a cowrie which born from swallow. Unfortunately, these five princes were all failed to get their tasks.

Comment: I wanted it has a sense of claustrophobic heaviness, yet keep the busyness of movement. Textures and line works are always fun to mess around with!

Sketch

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Taketori Monogatari

Work: Taketori Monogatari; The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Client: Savannah College of Art and Design, Prof. Goni Montes

Description: A series of four illustrations for a story. The first illustration (which is this piece in my case) will be a conceptually visual that will intelligently describe and introduce the story. The story of “Taketori Monogatari; The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” is basically a story of this princess from moon sent to earth, how she was found and was raised, how beautiful she was, and eventually she was taken back by her moon people later.

Comment: I really love all the beautiful patters of kimono. Some painted kimono patterns are absolutely breath-taking and actually it tells story. I took the idea of a pattern itself being a story teller, and working on motif. The first scene of “an old, childless bamboo cutter came across a mysterious, shining stalk of bamboo. After cutting it open, he found inside it a baby the size of his thumb.” is where this pattern came from. There is a scene later that she cries and looking at the moon because she knows she will be going back to the moon soon and have to say good bye to her foster parents on earth. If you felt some sort of her nostalgic feeling, then I’d be able to say that it’s successful piece!

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Love Is…

Work: Love Is…

Client: SCAD Connector

Description: To illustrate visual voice responding to LGBTQ marriage equality.

Comment: It was such a pleasure to work with my school and its magazine; especially for LGBTQ related subject matter. Also, it was such a timely subject matter “marriage equality” when I got a phone call because the week was for the Supreme Court to hear cases from Proposition 8 and DOMA. I wanted this illo to be feminine as possible and almost Greek goddess sort of feel to it. I still think marriage is supposed to be spiritual, beautiful, and ritual… not by a drive-thru sanctuary and get a blessing from a fake pastor. Do I support LGBTQ marriage equality? Of course! I want to be able to marry whoever I would fall in love with!

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Lovers’ Utopia

Work: Lovers’ Utopia

Client: Unpublished, prof. Goni Montes

Description: To create an illustration which contains several figures.

Comment: I was inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. My initial thought on the color palette of this piece was really night and almost blue base. When it came almost to the end, it was too heavy and didn’t produce any happy atmosphere. You may know this feeling if you were an illustrator, sometimes colors of flat layers you chose randomly look nicer than actual colors of your piece… Well, that happened! Anyhow, I’m so happy on this piece.

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The Dutch Wife Story

Work: The Dutch Wife Story

Client: Savannah College of Art and Design, Prof. Goni Montes

Description: Create an illustration of 18×24″ contains 1) action, 2) minimum of two figures, 3) dynamic perspective.

Comment: I took this open assignment (well it was a final project for his class) as my great opportunity to expand my comfort subject matter. I have done some illustrations with little “dark” flavor like “I Want Your Heart,” and “A Missing Child,” but never illustrated such an aggressive action in it. I really thank my friends encouraged me to do this when I showed them some ideas and thumbnails. The subject matter is obviously read as a domestic violence (or could be a child abuse.) I had such a hard time trying to figure out the right perspective for the guy (or the mannequin,) and yeah I changed him from a male figure to a mannequin in the last minute. I did want to have some sort of whimsical spice in it even though the subject matter is pretty much hardcore. Anyway, I enjoyed the every moment of this creative process! Thank you Goni!

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The Attraction of Honey

Work: The Attraction of Honey

Client: Savannah College of Art and Design, Prof. Rick Lovell

Description: This is an editorial illustration for an article from Harvard Business Review Blog, Big Business Increasingly Supports Gay Rights, written by Susan McPherson and Laura Clise. The article is basically saying that how beneficial for major corporations to openly support LGBTQ rights, and attract more business into them as LGBTQ marketing. About the article, click here.

Comment: My eyes got caught the words of “attract” and “open” while I was reading the article. From there, I took some time to imagine what other words come after. “Attract – butterflies, bees, color, flowers, smell, light, moss, fish, boat, fisherman, net,,,,” or “Open – mouth, eyes, flowers, elevator, file, door, package, computer,,,,” Then I picked up some ideas from these texts. I enjoyed the process of coloring to exaggerate the perspective and the main focus of the flower!

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Harley Davidson Pt.1

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Harley Davidson Pt.5

Work: Harley Davidson Project

Client: Harley Davidson

Description: Create a series of five iconic illustrations for Harley Davidson .

Comment: So I was asked to work for a collaborative project among other different departments in SCAD for Harley Davidson. They needed my illustrations to be in Black&White, no background, something spot-like illustrations for opening every chapter of their Harley Davidson history book (or website.) I had no idea about motorcycles, bikers, and those mechanical structures they have. Well, after huge amount of researching, I really think that every motorcycle from HD is just breathtaking, beautiful lines and presence. No wonder people love HD so much!