I asked my brother what the grand nephew and nieces’ animal totems happened to be, figuring I would draw some lion, and tigers and bears for presents this year. Oh my, no. Anime characters supersede beasts of all kinds and Pikachu rates highly in their fertile imagination. But just on one side of the family back east. 

So I set about to create dreaming Pikachus, with baseball caps that have the Lake Monsters logo (a local Burlington baseball team) and a vision, not of sugar plums dancing in their heads, but Al’s French Fries. This gustatory delight is on most locals’ minds when around South Burlington and even when someone (me) is across the country in Seattle. Burgers are just average but fries, very real and outstanding. 

[The two clothing outfits come from original Pikachu images by Ken Sugimori, Pokémon Art Director : Picachu Libre and Picachu Pop Star.]

For the other niece and her kids, there was no need to duplicate an image in order to keep jealousy tamped down and rivalries at minimum. 

On this side of family, one child is fascinated by foxes. The fox really has become a totem animal for her. For the older teen, all I could glean from my sources was that he was intrigued by the style from the 70’s and 80’s. After reviewing way too many psychedelic images of flowers that popped or feverish landscapes that made my head spin, I fixated on the weird wonderful world of Warhol. Without any trippy drugs, I managed to recreate a set of his animals…though I am not sure what trip he was on when he envisioned this menagerie. He was definitely thinking outside of the box…the Animal Crackers box. I do give him credit for focusing on some endangered species in his animal series.

On my wife’s side of the family, most relatives reside in the Northwest around Seattle, and my instructions were more explicit. For one niece’s three year old – cuddly cats or rabbits, and anything with Wogira (anime sea monster) for the seven year old. Since both kids had joined us for a tour of the Hokusai exhibit at SAM (Seattle Art Museum), and we were giving The Wave Lego set to the family, I contemplated rolling Wogira into a scene evoking the famous rogue wave.

No subtext with the cute bunnies, but my version of The Wave carries some undercurrents. Cartoon characters from my past confront the upsurge of modern anime with defiance…or nonchalance or perhaps a fair amount of resignation. Snoopy will always ride the curl. And then there is the threat of authoritarianism rushing in to overwhelm all…but this is not the place for diatribe, just hints of swelling concern. (By the way, I switched Mt Rainier for Mt Fuji, for local flavor.

Two more young ones, children of another niece on my wife’s side, had very specific interests: unicorns and turtles.

For the unicorn, I did find an image of the unicorn horse head (partial) and mane, on the internet and then added mouth, legs and wings ,storm clouds and rainbow to complete the mythical creature. Most unicorn drawings/paintings are just too saccharine for words…or images, so I focused on one that showcased power. And for the Flat Earth imagery, I just riffed off of the classic ancient Hindu portrayal of the earth and cosmos, without “…turtles all the way down.” 

Some friends have requested reproductions…so if that ever happens, I will post about the opportunity to get some of these images provided I am not stepping on anybody’s copyright toes.

[I used fabric pens and then cleaned up the images with Procreate later.]