Bonnie & Clyde

Sometimes I wonder am I a very demanding person, or at least I am really bad in judging who I should be making request from.

Anyway, the result is always disappointing.

The story is: during our stay in Japan, we visited Universal Studio in Osaka. After a day filled with fun and thrill, we walked pass this store noticing there were three artists drawing potrait for a fee. Their drawing styles were all displayed on a wall behind them. Bonnie and I decided to get our picture drawn. So we went ahead and checked out the artists' drawing style.

The first one would beautify the person he draw; perfect skin complexion, bright and "romantic" colors, making it looks like the cover of some teenage love novel.

The second one would draw you in a deformed manner: Big head with small body, and over-enhance the details and size of your eyes.

The third one seemed most normal: like a very cartoonish potrait.

Supposedly we would skip the third one immediately, but I realised among most of his ordinary cartoon styles, the third artist also display some potrait with a very unique and, if I would call it, hard to accept by the general public kinda style.

It's a style with many scattered lines and strokes, looks pretty messy and with no sense organisation. Some strokes, on first glance, even looked like were from amatuers. Overall it looks like it was a doodle with lots of "irresponsible" details.

I, immediately decided I wanted that particular artist to draw us. Bonnie did warned me that the few pieces might not be from the same artist I wanted to hire because they were totally different from what he was drawing at that time. Clyde being one stubborn ass refuse to take the advise and insist to communicate with him.

Well, communication in Japan has a minimum requirement; which is to be able to speak in their language. As a result, due to my persistent, we started to try various ways to get our request understood: (If you are an unpatient person, basically can skip the following part)

We talked to the artist, blurred face; we talked to the sales girls beside, she could speak some english; but when come to drawing style, blurred face. Well, at least she's kind enough to try talking to the artist. The artist nodded. We happy, sit down and let hime draw. But when we saw his first layer sketches, it was wrong. We started to talk to the artist again, pointing to the picture on the wall. Blurred face. Talked to girl, girl talked to artist, artist nodded. Started draw again. Wrong. Skipped the artist, talked to girl. Girl talked to Artist. This time artist got frustrated and showed confusion; talked back to girl. Girl tried to explain to us but not enough words in her volcab. We talked to girls again, girl looked at artist, artist starred back. Girl went to look for manager. Manager came, we explained to manager. Manager half blur. Manager talked to artist. Artist talked back. Manager nodded. Then, manager told us, "everything will be fine." I know we had reached a point of no return.

Anyway, I must say that despite of so much trouble we created for him, the artist did continue his job in a very professional manner. Besides drawing the picture, he tried to give some compliments using his limited english volcab; like when he was drawing Bonnie, he kept saying "Kawaii", and he gave compliment on my shoulder and body.

Suddenly, I just felt so much respect on him. Besides just drawing his picture, he also tried to lighten atmosphere so that his customer would feel easier and more relax. At least he tried to make the whole experience a pleasant one and not seeing his job as merely drawing a picture. I do not know how sincere he was, but at least he let me see professionalism in him.

At least, this positive feeling did soothed my feeling when I got the fianl drawing.

It was all wrong.



.
Clyde's self potrait
*This is the kind of style I was hoping for*