Chinese Zodiac Inspiration

Lame title I know, but I'm not feeling very creative today. Is it too late in the month to blame Day Light Savings Time? Anyways... on to the more pertinent content of today's blog. =D

The Chinese Zodiac Badge set is one of my oldest sets--it's right up there with the major arcana from my anime tarot card set. A couple of months before Anime USA 2008, I discovered Fruits Basket. I watched the anime--loved it. I then found the manga and read it in less than a week--finished it on mangafox.com because I couldn't wait to find out what happened. I fell in love with the manga; the anime is hard to stomach after the manga--not that the anime is really that bad, just that it is disappointing when compared to the manga. They could have done so much more with the story. Roughly, for those not familiar with the series, Fruits Basket tells the story of Tohru Honda and the Sohma family, in which certain family members are cursed to change into an animal when they hug someone of the opposite sex.  The curse was based (loosely) off of the legend behind the Chinese Zodiac.

First and foremost, as great as the story is in Fruits Basket, what really sold me on the series were the characters. I loved Kyo--he is the Six of Swords in my anime tarot set. That card stands for frustrated. After reading/watching Fruits Basket I couldn't imagine a better character to use for that card. I loved how Yuki developed in the manga. Rin and Hatsuharu were my favorite characters from the series; I was really sad that they weren't more involved in the anime--I don't even think Rin appeared at all. I did feel a little sorry for Momiji by the end of the manga, but I can't really argue with it--I won't go into too much detail. ;) Don't want to give out spoilers.

After consuming both the Fruits Basket anime and manga, I, of course, wanted to make something related to the series--isn't that what all good fans do? Tohru won a place in the major arcana set as the Wheel of Fortune; that was one of the characters I put my foot down on when planning the set with my husband, although I can't even remember who the alternative choice was anymore. Having Tohru in the tarot set wasn't enough; I wanted to do something else. The result was the Chinese Zodiac badge set featuring the animal versions of the cursed Sohma family members. The set has undergone a couple of changes since I first put it together for Anime USA 2008. The original versions had plain borders and white backgrounds. Since then I've embellished the border a little--make it prettier, but still keep it simple. I've also added a little color to the backgrounds.