ILLUSTRATE AGGRETSUKO IN WATERCOLOURS

Discover how ANNA SOKOLOVA paints a kawaii character from the Netflix anime series Aggretsuko using a range of watercolour effects

- ANNA SOKOLOVA

The first time I met Retsuko, a 25-year-old anthropomorphic red panda, was when I worked on my dream project for Netflix. I created a series of murals featuring original films and series in the hand-painted Delft Blue style.

Aggretsuko, aka Aggressive Retsuko, is an animation based on the character created by Yeti for the mascot company Sanrio.

Frustrated with her job, Retsy lets out her emotions by going to a karaoke club and singing death metal.

No matter the subject or brief, I always try to experiment as much as possible. Japanese art has a particular appeal to European artists, and I was amazed by coloured woodblocks the first time I saw originals in the museum in St Petersburg. Naturally, I turned to my biggest inspiration – a tiny home library that I’ve built up over the years.

For this project, I browsed through an arrangement of Japanese woodblocks and an anthology of patterns from the English artist Aubrey Beardsley. I inspected the treatment of drawing fire and magical effects by Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen. I even read a few La Fontaine tales searching for cues about how various animals are perceived in fables.

In this workshop, I’ll be using various watercolour effects to add a unique look while keeping the musical comedy vibe of the original. I’ll be leaving the simplicity of design and compositional aspects inspired by the term ukiyo (“floating world”) that originated in Edo-period Japan) and adding intricate patterns and bold strokes for contrast.