Last updated on June 15th, 2025 at 12:46 am
It’s been a decade since Legend of Korra ended and I just had to do a fanart to celebrate. Avatar is one of my favourite shows for many reasons to long to list out.
The key goal for this artwork was to display team avatar and leave room at the top or bottom for text. For the setting, I thought it was appropriate for it to be one of the last scenes in the show: Zhu Li and Varrick’s wedding.
Doing an artwork like this, there were a few composition ideas I wanted to avoid. Those being mainly extreme angle of far away shots. The goal was to depict Team Avatar, draw their facial expressions, and in addition, capitalise on the idea that I can draw different faces and not fall for same face syndrome.
The sketching phase went well, quickly followed by a coloured thumbnail. I already had a good idea of want I wanted so I had no problems starting out.
All is good so far as I start to introduce colour. The most important aspect is the faces and I want to get them right. I had little issues with Mako, Korra and Asami. Bolin on the other hand was giving me anguish. I just couldn’t get is face right. I don’t know if it’s because I need more practice with facial expressions or if something was greatly off with his facial anatomy. His face was entering uncanny valley territory and I just wasn’t having it.
After spending time on everyone’s faces, I tried my best to get the anatomy right. I simplified the form of Bolin’s face a bit and I think that helped making him look better. The angle of Korra’s head began to give me some trouble when I recognised something was off. I found some references for the form of the head at that angle and I think it doesn’t look too bad now.
Towards the end, I remembered a video by James Gurney in where he paints a night scene with brighter colours one normally would use. As long as background is somewhat dark, the foreground can be brighter and more saturated than normal to trick the viewer into believing it is a night lit scene.
Now on to the positives. I enjoyed painting the details of their costumes, especially as Korra’s and Asami’s. The background came out nice, however the spirit portal might be a tad too bright. I have been attempting to improve my values this year, and I think it shows in this artwork just how much my value control improved when compared to my first artwork in 2024. In my opinion, I think the krew look great in my more realistic style. There are many errors within, but I tried my best at my current skill level and gave it my 200%.
Even though Legend of Korra gets criticism for not being on par with its processor, I enjoyed it a lot. I even enjoyed the Book 2 because it felt like a slice-of-life. Book 3 in my opinion was the best, with Zaheer and the Red Lotus being the best villains in the Avatar universe. I vividly remember watching the finale the moment it aired and telling my friend and cousin about it. I was the edge of my seat thinking Mako was going to die and gained huge respect for him in the end. Just as everyone else, Korrasami was a huge surprise, but it was a great way to end the series and sow the seeds for the start of a new journey. I’ll be grabbing Mystery of Penquan Island in 2025.
