“Moonlight given freedom... burning, golden chains of betrayal.” I had a whole debacle on if I should translate this into Chinese or Japanese. I was half way done writing down the Japanese when I realized it needed to be Chinese. :’D Since I actually don’t know either language, I had to use google translate so it might read more like: “moonlight give freedom.. burn the golden chains of betrayal” or “Moonshine gives freedom... Burning, betrayed golden chains.” It’s not supposed to do that. If anyone knows traditional Chinese or simplified Chinese, I would like assistance. It’s supposed to be in traditional Chinese but I used Google Translate, so yeah. Uh, I tried being fancy and referencing Zhao’s lore. It’s a jump ball certainly on how well I did. But then I missed this huge world building chunk called the story is set u n d e r w a t e r. Which is cool and neat, but I realized this like right as I was finishing up so there’s four versions now. One with water and text, one with water and no text, one with no water and text, and one with no water and no text. I would’ve left it the way it was, but since @buttercinnamonscotch is still figuring out the world building, I decided to just do both. :) Also, space/click to look through them. Zhao is actually so cool though, like, he’s just a neat little man. I actually speed ran this, because I had the lineart and flat coloring done like a week ago and then proceeded to say “ah, I have time.” I then proceeded to remember the day before the due date, so I had to do the background, eel, shading and then hurriedly add the water in. First time drawing water is such a thing, am I right. Honestly, that chain is like the most detailed thing. Not to sound stereotypical but like, how do I say the eel’s patterns could have come straight out of Disney’s Moana. But shhhh, it’s fine. They look cool. The eel and chain is also another reference to Zhao’s lore. Actually I have a bunch of random lore symbolism things I tried to include. First off, parallels. The text is respectively black and white to symbolize Yin and Yang which I know is a big part of Taoism and thus, Asian cultures. Also, the night and day parallel in the text and the picture. This one’s pretty easy to spot, but the chain around the eel’s neck symbolizing Zhao’s imprisonment. Also, the “burning, golden chains of betrayal” symbolizes his family betraying him. The “golden” part kinda symbolizes the fact that his family was royalty and the “burning” part symbolizes how it was very ouch if you get what I mean. Go read about Zhao right now: Do it DO IT Anyways, I had a lot of fun entering and trying out new stuff! The non water version is like much brighter which is why I wanted to include it. I honestly love Zhao now, I really have an attachment to him. I love his earrings so much, they fit him really well. He’s just so cool in general honestly! <333 Also, please go inside the project to get better quality! This bad boy took like fifty something layers, I think procreate hates me now. ‘:)
@buttercinnamonscotch for her DMC and Zhao, but also credits to @flooorboard for designing his reference. Google translate for trying it’s best to do a good job. 쉬운 답 by 데이브레이크 X LUCY is the audio, I kept it in there because I didn’t have time to find a song and I preferred it over silence. Disney technically. Oh yes, myself for actually drawing this. The internet for references because man did I need help.
