It is currently Tue 06th Jan,2009 05:00 am The Banners of PLDH
Eventually I will get to covering all of the banners that have been previously used on this website. If you are interested in seeing some of the older art used here, for the time being, have a look at our History page. I have provided links to older versions of this website there and with those come the ability to see several old banners.
For now this page will explain the story behind our current banner, Gyarados of Kanagawa.
Displayed to the right is the original work of art and then beneath it is the revisitation of that piece with Gyarados appearing in it. Click the images to see their enlarged versions.
"Gyarados of Kanagawa".
The banner "Gyarados of Kanagawa" is based off of an older piece of art entitled "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa." I simply took the Gyarados drawn by Ken Sugimori and, with multiple copies of it, severed it into several pieces. From there I took The GWOK and spliced it into several layers, which then overlaid the Gyarados, giving it on overlapping or 3-D feel.
I saw the original work, by Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1829-1832, in an art history course that is a requirement for my degree... I thought that it was a badass picture and after using a historical piece of artwork for our splash page [see JOE] I figured, what the hell? Note that I flipped the canvas horizontally as well, to obtain the effect of the wave and Gyarados overtaking the website's title. The bottom portion of that painting was placed, without modification, in our footer as well. It created a very cool effect :D
What a good decision using the GWOK piece of art in tandem with Gyarados turned out being. The colour scheme in the work actually matches this website's established colour pallette very well and to top that Ken Sugimori's Gyarados actually looks as though it were drawn to fit into Hokusai's picture... Perhaps not where I placed the Gyarados, but they admittedly paired together very well.
As was done with the JOE splash page I will provide the backstory to this piece of art in honor of its inspiration and use here, on PLDH.net.
Katsushika Hokusai did a series of colour woodcut prints depicting Mount Fuji in Japan. This particular woodcut was done in 1832 and was the first woodcut in Hokusai's series of 36 views of Mount Fuji. The series shows Mount Fuji being depicted in various views and in different conditions. Here you see the mountain as viewed from the Kanagawa province during a storm at sea.
As it stands The Great Wave Off Kanangawa is the most famous of Hokusai's works.
I hope you enjoyed the read as well as the art we use here!
