I deleted my old tumblr because... man idk why it was covid-times and the prefrontal cortex was not in the room with us!! Anyways, I was reminded by my lovely friend @repecca that tumblr exists, and that some of my work has been going around on here, so I decided to post some of my work up officially!
Starting off with my most notable (?) work to date, here's my LOTR: The Middle Kingdom Project.
Now, it's been over a year since I posted this, and at the time I was... really searchingfor myself artistically, and I decided to go all in on something that I'd been ruminating on for a long time.
So, hello, again. I'm Leia. I do visual development/BG design, and I'm also a writer of things. I love fantasy and transformative work. It's nice to meet you.
Making a mamianqun (馬面裙; lit. horse face skirt). Mamianqun can be traced back to the Song Dynasty and was in vogue from the Ming and Qing Dynasties until the Republican era. The skirt consists of two overlapping sections of fabric sewn together, each with a pleated section and skirt panels on either side. The skirt panels are overlapped to create the front and back of the skirt. This design allowed greater freedom of movement.
A note: Mamianqun are women's wear, but with the hanfu revival movement, men nowadays wear it too.
Since there's quite a lot of interest in Chinese-inspired cyberpunk and adjacent aesthetics, just wanted to share these neat "Chinese style meets the Matrix"-esque looks from popular brand 大青龙肆/Da Qing Long Si. There's also an English website here.
cosplay of daji妲己, a famous ancient chinese beauty transformed from the famous chinese yaoguai, jiuweihu九尾狐, i.e. nine tail fox (coser is shiba chongchuan十八重川)
獨竹漂 (du2zhu2piao1; single bamboo drifting) is a folk skill in northern Guizhou where performers stand on a ~15 cm wide bamboo pole and hold a thin bamboo pole to use as a paddle. Originating in the Qin and Han dynasties, it was used as a form of transportation for the people living on either side of the Chishui River. Nowadays, it has transformed into a folk sport, with performances taking place during the Dragon Boat Festival and events held in various sports competitions.
OP (杨柳/Yang Liu) has practised the skill for 18 years now, combining traditional practices with modern performances for her shows.
(See my other post here for an idea of what her shows look like and my tag for bamboo drifting here for more)