FASHION IN MANHUA (CHINESE COMIC): Zheng Shuyi's outfit in Accidental Love/ Only For Love manhua

I happened to read it randomly a couple of months ago on website for this interesting Manhua named Accidental Love /Only for love. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to pronounce the original title in Chinese language. 

It was released since last year in 2024 by author Qiao Yao with genre a mixed of romance, comedy, office, drama, and josei. This manhua is an adaptation from the novel which previously already adapted into live action drama played by Bai Lu and Dylan Wang in 2023. However, some people said the manhua has a bit different approach in storytelling. 

 

I was instantly hooked since the first time I read it in English version. Starting from the art, the story, and most of all the fashion wore by the female lead character, Zheng Shuyi. I would give the art a French kiss of 9.5 out 10, simply awesome. As for the story, although it might be a little cliche or cringe office - rich handsome young guy vs ordinary but pretty girl -slow burn romance, I still love it. The thing that I admire the most is the fashion. It seems like the author does really take her time in doing it to be able to show some great office attire examples for the characters, most of all the main girl. It ranges from coats, dress, blazers, casual clothes, hoodies, bags, etc.

 

I put some of the reference pictures from the original Manhua which belong to the rightful owner and not mine.

MOVING - The Superheroes Disguised as Ordinary People (Korean Drama 2023)

 

    Moving is a 2023 Korean drama which aired on August 9 - September 20. The story is about Kim Bong-Seok, Jang Hui-Soo and Lee Gang-Hoon who attend the same high school.    

   They look like ordinary students, but actually they have special abilities that they inherited from their parents. Kim Bong-Seok has the ability to fly with sharp senses. Jang Hui-Soo has excellent athletic abilities and she is able to rapidly recover from injuries, like being shot or stabbed. Lee Gang-Hoon has uncanny power and speed.

    These three students try to hide their special abilities from other people, while their parents struggle to protect them from being used by other and it is related to their past with secret government agency. 

    Based on webcomic "Moving ” by Kang Pool (published from February 2 to September 21, 2015 via Daum). I decided to watch it after I noticed the drama and the actors got a lot of awards in several occasions. I was pretty curious of what it had to offer in the story and It was indeed one of a great and out of the box Korean drama although I can't say if the theme or the idea of super power people is something new or original. It kind of reminded me a lot of marvel X-men mutant superheroes even some of the background story, school and such. The only thing different would be in this drama there is no flashy and colorful superhero costumes. Just special people with normal appearances.

   

    I give it 8.5 to 8.9 out of 10 and highly recommended to watch for adult. Beware the gory and bloody parts that might not be uncomfortable to watch. And the moral value would be: be kind no matter what. This is my fan art drawing based on one of the official poster.

ANAGLYPH ART: 2 Colors with Optic illusion look / 3D effect result with Special Glasses.

A couple of months ago, I participated in one competition to create an Anaglyph art poster for a shop. It was something new for me, or rather unknown at first until I saw the reference picture of what Anaglyph art is looklike. Actually, as I saw it, it was rather familiar but I just did not know the name of the effect. So, this was the final illustration I drew for the competition and managed to reach the final round but not win it in the end. 

What is Anaglyph? Anaglyph art is a 3D effect or optic illusion effect which was created by combining two slightly offset drawings in contrasting colors on a single image. Mostly it uses bright blue (cyan) and red. When  the artwork or picture is viewed through specially colored filters or special 3D glasses with the same colors, the brain fuses the two images together to create a stereoscopic 3D image.The eyes will see the artwork or picture in 2 different pictures separately.

Here are several things to know about Anaglyph art in short:

1. Colors:The colors used in Anaglyph art are typically red and cyan, which are chromatically opposite. 

2. Brief History: Wilhelm Rolan invented the anaglyph in 1853, and Lou Duraron first produced printed anaglyphs in 1891. 

3. Viewing:To view an Anaglyph, you need to wear special "Anaglyph glasses" that filter each image to the correct eye. 

4. Adjusting the image: You can adjust the depth of the image by changing the distance between the red and blue. For example, if you want the image to be in the foreground, move the blue to the left. 

5. Creating Anaglyph art: You can create Anaglyph art using tracing paper, light tables, windows, or transfer paper. 

 

 

 

RED SWAN (K-DRAMA 2024): A Confusing and Predictable Bodyguard & Chaebol Story

   Red swan is 2024 Korean drama which aired and has finished just recently. The story revolves around Oh Wan-Soo (played by Kim Ha-Neul) who reached the top of her sport career as a golf player despite having a rough life background. Her life is nearly perfect as she managed to live a life within the upper class by marrying the successor of the Hwain Group. Now, Wan-Soo retired as golfer to work as the chairperson for Now family foundation and has gained worldwide fame through her charity work. 

   Her life suddenly changed and always in danger right after her father in-law died. She then has Seo Do-Yoon (played by Rain) as her new bodyguard. Do-Yoon graduated from the police university. He joined the security team for Hwain family for a certain reason. One by one, both of them eventually find out the dark secret within this chaebol family they live in. 

   That's a short spoiler about this drama. after finished watching the whole 10 episodes, I would personally rate it as 4.5 to 5 out of 10. this came from an awful plot and characterization also lack of chemistry. It was a total failure and mostly predictable too. Unfortunately, I would not recommend it to watch for it's not worth the time. To be honest, I felt disappointed to waste my time on it. Anyway, this is my random fan art drawing based on the official poster. 

As for fashion sense, the main female lead wore some expensive branded clothing from gown, dress, blazer, work suit, etc as shown in the photos above. The poster and photos belong to the rightful owner and not mine. 

FASHION STYLE in webtoon 2: Royal Family's Couple Matching Costumes (Remarried Empress/Second Marriage & Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story)

   The most common bed time princess story   began with 'once upon a time..' and ended with 'they live happily ever after' when the lucky ordinary girl or true princess finally found her happiness with the prince or rich royal or noble family man. 

   

   However, these manhwa (Korean comic) webtoon series took a different approach in their stories. I took two out of many manhwa out there and will only discuss based on their choices of costume designs rather than the story itself since it should be explained better in my other blog, My Little Sekai by noodlemie. Remarried Empress/ Second Marriage and Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story are the titles  of these royal manhwa story.

   Firstly, Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story (NYTRS). It is a story of a woman who lost her life in real world as she fell down the stairs and given a second chance to live but as a character in a novel she read. Unfortunately, she woke up  as the 'villain' girl character Edith in the story who supposed to have a tragic ending. She was forced to marry the 2nd son of her family's rival noble family, Killian, out of both family agreement. Surprisingly, some things changes along the way. I guess that's for a little spoiler.

   What caught my attention the most was their couple costumes. The designs are quite complicated with intrinsic details as it should represented royal western family, but the colors were calm instead of shiny bright colors with glittering gold to show the elegant and rich aura. The chosen colors also complimented each other to both their characters and costumes themselves. I applaud the author for taking their time to put this into thought and showing it gracefully in their story.        

   As for the second royal manhwa story is Remarried Empress or also known as Second Marriage (RE). The story revolved around Navier, a noble-born woman turned queen -  turned ex queen and then became a queen again in new country. Basically She married twice and the story explained why. 

   Her royal costumes with her new husband Heinry, also represented royal, elegant complicated designs which unlikely to be available in real life. Since both of them have blonde hairs, the designs are mostly using less gold color and only lighter close to earthy color tones. Nonetheless, it is still quite an eye-pleasing imaginary designs as seen in these reference pictures both both series which obviously belong to the rightful authors and not mine.    

   One of the main reason I like manhwa lately, it is because the comic pages are colorful and page positioning which defied general comic page arrangements aside from amazing illustration art. Once again, the pictures belong to the rightful owners and I only use it for reference only in this article.

 

 

CHROMADEPTH Art Design effect

   A few months ago, I got an offer for a project. They asked whether am I familiar with chroma-depth effect and I told them no. Then they showed me some examples of this art and asked again would I show them my work for it as a sample. In other words, they want me to do free sample for this type of art and so I refused since it is not my way of doing project without any guaranteed down payment in advance. In the end, unfortunately, we did not agree to the term and condition and cancel it. 

 

   However, I got more curious after that and started digging more into this art and I put on colors matches to this effect on one of my available in stock art to replace the previous ones. As you can see in the reference picture above. This art effect is truly interesting and bright provoking colors reminded me on psychedelic type of art too.

   Here are some of the explanations I could find from the internet about what is chroma-depth all about. Firstly, as quoted from Art of dave.com; chroma-depth 3D is a stereoscopic effect based upon differences in the diffraction of color through a special prism-like holographic film fitted into glasses that give the illusion of colors taking up different positions in space, with red being in front, and blue being in back.   And the last one, chroma itself is the departure degree of a color from the neutral color of the same value as basic color red, blue and yellow with a bit black and white mixed in the process into somewhat strong, vivid and high saturated colors in art presentation.

 

Therefore, the conclusion is, chroma-depth is another form of art by mixing basic colors similarly to psychedelic art with bright, vivid and strong outcome but in strangely unique way on its own.

The illustration is AVAILABLE FOR SALE. Feel free to contact me on e-mail: thedreamernoodlemie@gmail.com if you are interested.

FASHION STYLE in Webtoon: 1. Serena (Serena) and Leyla (Cry or Better Yet, Beg)

    Lately, I've been caught up reading some Manhwa (Korean comic) in my spare time and I was amazed with its art and colorful illustration. I've been in awe in how great the artists' efforts are in pouring their heart and mind into their creations which for me were shown as I read through each page. The stories they offered in it also brought me to another new world which are totally different from any other type of comic I've read before. But let's skip the story part since I will discuss only what's related to fashion here.

   These two manhwa featured in this article are some of the examples. 

   The first one would be Serena Serenity from webtoon Serena. Serena a rich noble girl in earlier modern world, perhaps in the late 50s-70s era if I may guess it or even way earlier era. Since there is no technology tools appeared in the story. She lives in a huge castle with all the luxury life style she can get and a lot of high class costumes to wear. 

   I applaud the author for bringing such beautiful depiction in each outfit she wore in it. It truly shows that the author put huge efforts to provide an eye-pleasing illustrations of the clothing. From casual work suit to night gown or simply everyday dress with a fashion designer-like's touch. I bet the author really did her home work in researching the proper costume designs for this character in big amount of time or else she adores fashion world and somehow had a good sense in it too. 

   As for the 2nd webtoon, Cry or Better Yet Beg, I will discuss about Leyla Llewellyn. She is the main female lead in the story which came from a commoner background who lives in a rather simple and ordinary life as an adopted daughter of the gardener in one noble family household. 

   The outfit she wears mostly pretty simple and went back to the world war era to semi modern world. With short sleeve shirts, skirts and sometimes with overall dress and rather plain night dress, she was depicted to be a truly modest girl and lives her life as she doesn't have much choices. The author draw her beautifully and successfully shown her costumes did not cover her bright character instead it made her appearances just hard to ignore. One time she wears a beautiful dress for a party that unknowingly to her came from the duke himself, it was surprisingly and effortlessly gorgeous  I felt as if the author spoiled me with these amazing illustrations as I follow what is going on in the story. 

   In short, These two manhwa /webtoon series will show you an interesting stories and at the same time, great drawing or illustrations to enjoy while reading. I  rate the art as 9 out of 10 and the story so far is 8.9 for both.     

All the pictures belong to the rightful owner of both manhwa /webtoon and not mine. I only use it as references to be shown in this article.