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Sketch

Inspiration – Birthday Tarot

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Recently I have been obsessed with Western astrology, Chinese astrology, and tarot because I am desperate to know my personality and future career. Although astrology is often regarded as pseudoscience or even nonsense, for now, I imagine it is possibly the only way to understand spirit, something beyond the science.

Then I figured out my birthday tarot is the Hermit and the Moon. The Hermit means introspection, loneliness, and inner guidance. The Moon means dream and obscurity which needs a guidance to find true inner. (For more information, visit https://www.tarotschool.com/Moon_Hermit.html) The Hermit holds a lantern so he guides himself (perhaps also other people) to find his (or other people’s) path. The Hermit also carries a long staff which means he has a long journey. I did not include staff in my project though, because I care more about the light: the light and the darkness are also related to the Moon. Since currently, as I have mentioned above, I really need to find myself, my birthday tarot inspires me that I should not be intensely stressed about my problem right now because it is a proper life stage where everyone will stand at a proper age.

The Hermit (guidance) is more essential to me so I chose a monk as my main subject but I did not highlight the role of the Moon. However, I explicitly include the Moon in my background because moon only shows up at night. As we all know that moon only reflects the light of sun in order to shine so moon itself is not illuminating. Therefore, the light at night is much weaker than at daytime. The light of lantern is also trivial, compared to the light of sun but the light of lantern is crucial for people to survive at night because it can drive away fear and darkness. The light of lantern also figuratively depicts the characteristics of the Hermit – the light is most needed in the darkness while the guidance is most needed when people are in trouble- the Hermit is indispensable because he guides people when he is most needed.

At first I used Cinema 4D to finish the modeling, and then I used Adobe Photoshop to betray a slightly stronger contrast. I decided to use glass to make up the figure of the monk because I wanted an effect of reflection. Different to the sketch, the background has a light circle which portrays the Moon.