Hello, everyone! It’s 7th July today, which is the day for the Tanabata festival in Japan. Happy Tanabata! Here’s a Tanabata illustration of my characters Tenko and Rhyme!
Tanabata (七夕 / Evening of the Seventh), also known as the Star Festival, is a summer festival which celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi. The deities are represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively. In Japanese and Chinese legend, Orihime and Hikoboshi are lovers separated by the Milky Way, only allowed to meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month.
In Japan, people set up festivals across the country, and decorate the festival areas with lanterns and streamers. Food stalls and stalls for carnival games are also set up during the celebration. Some people would go to the festivals wearing their yukata. The custom during Tanabata is to write your wishes on a strip of paper and tie it onto a bamboo tree (You can do it in your nearest shrine or temple. I remembered my landlord also providing a tree in the lobby of my apartment). Tanabata’s also a popular motif among artists and people would draw pictures of their characters or fanarts depicting it.
Either way, I think Tanabata’s a beautiful and special festival and it’s one of my favourites! So I drew the above picture for it. I had fun designing Tenko and Rhyme’s yukata. (It was quite hard to look for decorative yukata references for males, since they tend to be plain and simple. I decided to use a little artistic license~). To convey the festive atmosphere, I also used a lot of bright and warm colours. (The star lanterns were particularly fun to draw!)
For those celebrating, I hope that everyone has an enjoyable Tanabata. May all your wishes come true!
