This is the only photo I have of version 1. It was more of a proof of concept. I wanted to make something that represented Fai that I could wear to keep with me, and I wanted to use a splash of dripping blood to represent Kurogane's impact on his life. I ended up liking this one a lot because of how good it felt to wear, which inspired me to make a version 2.
Version 2. I expanded a lot on what I wanted to do for Fai in a necklace, and the expense of its durability. in order to fit some of the nicer beads I wanted to use, I used very fin elastic cord. This made me especially wary with the weight of the chains and such and I didn't wear it very often despite liking it. I wanted to invoke a fun feeling of party magic and "spark of life" in the first half, then transition into using darker blues, blacks and whites after the bloody section. In order, they're meant to represent his narrative arc with the latter half being Acid Tokyo, Infinity (black and white), and Ceres (white and dark blue with sparkles, to represent snow and the amount of myserious magic there that's controlling Fai's life.) I knew I wanted to include some chainage as well, for visual flair and to represent duties and actions he's "chained" to. They hang a blue teardrop for Fai and a red magtama for Kuro, as well as a little silver charm that makes me think of a ball and chain or a cat bell - both fitting. I also include some dripping black charms tainting the blood. Those are his curses.
I used a shell filled with a handful of beads as a color guide for all of these necklaces. I tend to use what I think of as an abalone colour pallette for Fai: pearlescent whites, deep dark blues, pastel pink, blue, and yellow with a little black. You play chicken or the egg over whether or not that's because of the shell because I certainly don't remember. Some of those colours are explained above. To Fai, pink means Chi (his mother) and Sakura (his daughter). It represents unconditional love and his fascination/familiarity with femininity. Blue, specifically baby blue, is the other half to the pink motif. It represents Fai (the real one, and him), his magic, and masculinity. Historically, the reason twins were considered bad luck in royal families was because they confused the first born/second born order of heirs. In a patriarchy that observes a king (as Ceres did), it is specifically twin boys that would be considered bad luck. This is where I start to stem some of Fai's gender envy from, the idea that being girls might have saved them. As a trans person I think that's an idea you can hold onto, and an idea that can hold you back. The yellow represents Yuui. It completes the trifecta of "baby" colours, with a light yellow often being used as a third option for indeterminate genders. It's also the a color that is uniquely Yuui's, not shared with his twin and earned through living and choosing to live. I use this colour the most sparsely.
In this version I chained the blood and a blue eyeball bead together to tie the acid tokyo section up nicer. It now visually details his eye getting torn out, the catalyst for his (unwanted) vampirism as well as Kurogane's blood commitment to keeping him alive, punctuated by a black heart. I bought jewellry wire and crimps for this very project - I wanted to make a sturdier necklace I could wear more often. Unfortunately I didn't do a very good job. I remember trying the jewellry wire for a few projects around this time and being very bad at crimping it securely. I later moved onto the cord I use in most of my necklaces nowadays. This was less of an overhaul and more of a refresh of v2 and I'm definitely ready to move onto a v4... I think I want to make the core beaded motifs less cluttered and focus on creating intricacies adorning or hanging from the main pairt of the necklace. Being confident to keep iterating on big ideas while allowing myself to call something done and being comfortable with a margin of error because there's always the next version has felt very fulfilling as an artist.
v4 coming soon.......
First of Fai in a long time. Drawn from the heart on 6/13/2024
In the Hanshin Republic. Go Tigers!
An ugly or unfinished Kuro is cut out of most of these ¯\_(*-*)_/¯
There he is! He's being treated well, don't worry ;)
Acid Tokyo. A vow for some kind of wedding.
Ōto arc - you can do anything in this game! Hence the pixel vibe.