Well, this isn't quite PSO fanart, but it's art and among the best stuff I've ever drawn (sad, I know), but here's some recent work I've done.
But first, the background. Currently, I'm enrolled in a college course called Cross-Cultural Arts. It's basically a study of the places where two cultures have intersected in art, no matter how it happened. One such case is the opera, Madama Butterfly. An Italian man by the name of Puccini was inspired by a theatrical performance he saw put on in Japan. He decided to translate the story into an Italian opera, and did so. The story goes something like this (very loosely paraphrased): an American soldier named Pinkerton is staying in Japan following a tour of duty. A "marriage broker" named Goro has convinced him to invest in a "rented wife". Pinkerton goes "hey, cool!" and goes for it, winding up with Madame Butterfly (a.k.a. Chio-Chio-San) for a wife. And this is all so fantastic because he can just up and say "kay, I'm heading back for America" whenever he wants and the marriage is off. Pinkerton's consul friend Sharpless goes "uhh, dude, I think she thinks this is for real". And this is true; Butterfly actually goes so far as renouncing her religion and Japanese citizenship, claiming herself an American for the love of her "husband". Pinkerton goes "ah, whatever". Later, he leaves, as planned, for three years. Butterfly and Suzuki, one of the maids, slowly become destitute in his absense as Butterfly clings to the hope that he will return. After three years-- he does! But only because he remembers that, oh yeah, he left Butterfly pregnant! See, he got married for real this time in America, and now he wants to claim the son he sired. Butterly gives up her child and goes off to kill herself because it's just not an opera without a good suicide. Suzuki goes "You idiot!" at which point Pinkerton goes "Wow, she really did think it was for real!" Sharpless shows up to say "I told you so" and Pinkerton rushes in to mourn the dying-- oops, dead Butterfly. Angst ensues and the curtain goes down.
So where does fanart come into this? Well, our assignment on Madama Butterfly was to take the story and translate it into yet another new culture, genre, mode of delivery, what have you. On my partner's suggestion, we chose to conceptualize Madama Butterfly in Beijing Opera, which is essentially the Chinese version of a song-and-dance show, to put it in the most culturally insensitive way possible. Since my partner can't draw, I, mediocre doodler that I am, was stuck with the task of costume design. What you see below is the result.
Pinkerton was cast as a jing, or a male actor with a painted face. The color of the facial paint is significant; red stands for goodness, white for treachery, black for loyalty and military might, and blue for wildness. I chose to give Pinkerton a red and white-striped facial pattern to tie it in to the American flag, and also to represent the fact that Pinkerton means well but totally wrecks the people he loves. The headdress is meant to simulate an eagle's head; it has a gold beak, the feathers on both sides, and the prisms on strings are meant to symbolize claws. Pinkerton carries a bo staff because all good beijing opera includes an acrobatic fight scene of some sort, and Pinkerton would, of course, be joining in. I won't bore you with a full summary of our revised plot, but suffice to say that Pinkerton saves Butterfly from a gang of bandits.
Speaking of whom, let's discuss her outfit. Butterfly was cast as a qing yi, or a female role of dignity and honor. Blue face paint on a jing means wildness, but a qing yi's blue dress is meant to symbolize the tranquility and beauty of water. The antennae on her hat and the wings, probably made out of a metal framework and some translucent film of some sort, are not meant to imply that Butterfly is actually part insect, but rather to reinforce the motif of her name.
And here's everyone's favorite American consul. Sharpless is a bit big compared to the others because I drew him first and didn't have the dimensions right yet. Sharpless was cast as a lao sheng, or an honored male role. I tried to make his robes look as much like a business suit as I could, with a few obvious abnormalities such as the huuuuuuge red tie as potential cultural "mistranslations". The other important part about Sharpless is the little flap things on his hat. On a lao sheng, the size and markings on the hat-flaps are important indicators of the lao sheng's importance. I decided to simply put American flags on the flaps to denote that he was an American rather than Chinese. You might notice that the flap on the right has one stripe fewer than it should. In that case, you are being too critical of my work.
And finally, the last major player in our revision, Suzuki. Suzuki is a dao ma dan, or a female warrior role. Rather than being a maid, in our version, Suzuki is Butterfly's personal bodyguard, hence the bo for whacking people. I tried to make Suzuki's dress as ornate as I could to make an effective contrast to Butterfly. The flags or pennants on her back are typical of the dao ma dan costume; I don't know what they're for, just that they always have them and there are supposed to be four of them. By the time I realized this, I was well into the coloring process and had no interest in adding two more flags, so I prefer to explain her half-flaggedness by the fact that she is a bodyguard rather than a famed general, which is more typical of a dao ma dan. By the way, the fact that Butterfly and Suzuki both have white skin is not an error; almost all women's roles in Beijing Opera have their faces painted, hence why a jing is marked as abnormal among men for having a painted face.
Okay, sick of typing now. Hope you enjoyed the show!
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