The Versatile Master Artist

Illustration doesn’t take much time.

Over at the Villerein Studio, they submitted the cover illustration to the group on Monday.

The entire printing project cycle was already tight, and they also urged Detective Cat to hurry up.

However, Anna did not convey this message to Detective Cat.

She hadn’t even mentioned the major event that ”Villerein Illustration Studio will be entering the competition” to her artist.

As long as Detective Cat performs normally, she doesn’t see the possibility of losing.

Anna believes that a competent agent should withstand the pressure at such times and not let such trivial matters affect the artist’s creative state.

”No worries, just follow your own pace, paint with peace of mind, and leave the rest to me,” Anna replied calmly.

After Gu Weijing hung up the video call, he stared at the sketch of the protagonist, the Little Prince, which he had just completed, and contemplated in silence for a few minutes.

He didn’t rush to start painting immediately.

With the foundation laid by those previous fairy tale illustrations, Gu Weijing was already very familiar with the entire painting process.

Mr. Tree Sloth would read to him, he’d draw the line sketches of the characters, and then turn these pen drawings into expressive paintings knife paintings on canvas.

As long as he followed this assembly line process.

Gu Weijing could quickly produce a finely crafted painting knife painting of the [Heartfelt] level.

However, after creating so many painting knife illustrations, Gu Weijing felt a bit dissatisfied with this level of work.

He once again recalled Elder Cao using a brush stroke to bring the mundane wall painting to life, like the Buddha opening his eyes and causing a retreat of ghosts—a mystical effect.

This masterstroke didn’t need any Calligraphy and Painting Identification Skill to assist.

Any spectator witnessing that scene could clearly feel a stunning visual impact.

Even monks clad in robes sat in meditation and achieved enlightenment.

This is the Grandmaster Level painting skill, where greatness lies not only in technique but also in thought and emotion.

Gu Weijing believed that with the Legendary Level painting knife painting enhancing him, his technical skill was no longer a barrier to expressing such moving effects.

His weakness was still emotions.

To imbue the paintings with enough emotional impact, merely using the empathetic [Heartfelt] was not enough.

Gu Weijing needed more moving emotional ratings.

He opened the virtual panel and looked at the next stage on the emotion gauge, [Sweat and Blood].

Sweat and blood...

Ultimately, what is sweat and blood?

Gu Weijing went to the studio, placed the Little Prince sketch aside, and prepared the drawing board as usual.

But this time, he didn’t start painting right away. Instead, he stood silently before the blank canvas for a long time.

Thinking,

Constantly thinking,

Gu Weijing hesitated as he gazed at the Little Prince’s line drawing, then took a sketch of the King, the Rose, and the Fox, then the Alcoholic, Baobab, Astronomer from the sketch folder in the cabinet.

He centered them around the Little Prince, laying out all the accumulated sketches one by one.

The characters in these illustrations appeared either dignified, charmingly awkward, or shy and sensitive.

The works were arranged, surrounding the Little Prince. Every figure on the sketch paper seemed to be communicating something to the Little Prince.

The protagonist of a fairy tale,

is always the richest in story, the most profound in theme, and the most challenging to capture.

A book’s essence, seven or eight tenths of it would focus on the main character.

”The protagonist of a fairy tale is the sum of all the intersecting characters in the storyline.”

This sentence, told to him by Mr. Tree Sloth, repeated in Gu Weijing’s mind, gradually giving birth to new creative inspiration.

Gu Weijing slowly picked up a painting knife.

He wanted to switch to a different painting method to depict the Little Prince who liked to wander from one star to another.

Just imagine,

This little boy lonely roams in the vast universe, meeting strange and peculiar strangers on tiny planets no bigger than village cabins.

The King who wanted to make the Little Prince a minister, the sensitive and shy Rose who secretly liked him, the Little Fox who longed to be tamed...

Each has their own quirks, and each their own loneliness.

Every encounter and farewell with the Little Prince left traces of themselves on him.

When the little boy sat in the desert gazing at the stars, what did he miss?

His home on the small asteroid code-named B162? Or among those shining stars, his friends?

Gu Weijing dragged black paint across the paper to create the sky using a painting knife and used the side edge of the knife to dab light-colored paint for the stars, then moved to the distant sea of sand.

The desert was like gold dust, the stars dazzling as silver.

The Little Prince sat sideways on a sand dune, looking up towards the universe, the silver starlight cascading from the sky, casting elongated shadows on the sandy sea.

While reflecting on his earlier feelings when painting the inhabitants on the stars, Gu Weijing repeatedly layered the thin, delicate layers of paint, pressed by the painting knife, over the Little Prince’s shadow in the starlight.

Previously, when painting characters in the ”Little Prince” series of illustrations, he would focus entirely on a single emotion of the character.

Be it pride, sensitivity, or confusion...

These emotions were Gu Weijing’s empathic connections with the character’s particular mental state, and also the foundation for the work’s ability to communicate with the audience.

Like a beverage that might be sour or sweet.

But real living characters will never have a pure emotion like joy or sadness, which can be summed up with a single word.

Everyone’s mood at any moment is a fusion of various compound emotions.

Like a cup of tea, with the bitterness, astringency, and sweetness of herbs... wove into a fragrance.

The Buddha speaks of the five aggregates and seven emotions of mortals—joy, anger, worry, thought, sadness, fear, surprise—always entangled by the seven emotions and six desires like a skein of yarn, finding no release.

Psychology holds that emotions are actually a complex state like an onion, with layers upon layers.

Gu Weijing tried to blend the impressions of all previous characters into the silhouette of the Little Prince,

just like in the fairy tale,

these characters left their projections on the little boy.

So,

this painting seemed to come to life.

As Gu Weijing painted, the emotion gauge on his unnoticed virtual panel quietly started climbing, moving out of the [Heartfelt] area and slowly rising once more.

On the sand dune, the Little Prince was imbued with a ”liveliness.”

In the painting, the person sitting on the sand dune was still the little boy gazing at the starry sky.

But the Little Prince seemed to become more dynamic, as if there were an illusion that he might turn his head to speak to you at any moment.

People often describe a painter’s high skill as ”vivid and lifelike.”

Reality isn’t animation, and artists aren’t magicians; of course, their creations can’t really come to life.

However,

The sensation that a work feels alive, like it has a soul ready to emerge, truly exists.

Art textbooks tell you that the painting of the ”Mona Lisa” in the Louvre, viewed from any angle, seems to have the woman with crossed arms gazing at tourists.

The peculiar visual effect of the ”Mona Lisa” also forms part of Da Vinci’s legendary stories.

Illusions induced by paintings or sculptures,

have been classic themes in urban legends and paranormal stories from East to West and throughout history.

Figures in oil paintings speaking to you, opera house sculptures singing at night, spirits of wild foxes and ghosts dwelling in wall portraits as described in Pu Songling’s ”Strange Tales.”

All these, of course, arise from the richness of emotions creators impart to their works.

Meticulous modern science explains these phenomena as visual deviations caused by the artist’s exquisite composition and proportions.

And various auditory and visual illusions are the result of a chemical reaction between the viewer’s inner emotions and the artist’s emotions, sparking heartfelt reactions, mistaking an artwork for a living being.

This is also why some patients with mental illness, delusions, autism, or those who have just experienced heartbreak, are more likely to enjoy an art exhibition.

Their emotions are more tumultuous and more easily touched by the vitality of an artwork.

At this moment,

there was a liveliness budding like a sapling on the canvas in front of Gu Weijing.