Twitter Page and Logo

Before I go into the new image I want to show, I want to let you know right now, I have a Twitter account now: @RyuKageChroma.  For a long time, I did not sign up for Twitter because I was not fond of the tight limits on what you can type per post.  However, I decided it would be a quick way to share some of my thoughts on games or events happening, as well as one more outlet to share my artwork with a wider audience, both originals and fan art.  I will be posting there and here, as well as my personal Facebook page whenever I can motivate myself to do so, and I plan to use them more frequently than I have been.  Hopefully, I can keep that promise this time.  Ha ha.

Click here to see my Twitter account: @RyuKageChroma

In the meantime, let me share a revamp of my old logo, the Mark of the Red Dragon.

In case you have not noticed, I have been using a similar logo for my artwork for a long time as a personal insignia.  A winged dragon's head breathing a "crown" of flames.  In my early days on the Internet, I would frequent online quiz sites, especially quizzes asking about your element.  The elemental quizzes would usually claim me as a Fire-element, which makes sense considering I am a Sagittarius (one of the Fire signs of the Zodiac) and my favorite color is red.  I also feel like I have an odd affinity with dragons, which could be due to being born in the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese Zodiac, but I still find myself fascinated by dragons (especially the ones from Pokemon).  I kept these interests in mind for a long time.

Eventually, when I realized I wanted to draw for a living, I knew I should have a signature.  My name would work, and I sign my name on my work sometimes, but I wanted something a bit more unique.  During my YouTube days, I found one guy (who was kind of a hothead) using a mark he made as his avatar on YouTube videos.  It was a simple design, but colorful and sharp, so there was no mistake who this guy was.  I was already calling myself "Ryu-Kage" online at the time, a name partially derived from the Pokemon Charmander (Japanese name is "Hitokage"), so I thought it would be cool to use a dragon as my mark.  Ultimately, the mark somewhat resembles Charmander's final form: Charizard.  I thought the mark looked a bit wide at the time, so I added flames from the dragon's mouth to round the design more.

What you see above is only the latest version of this mark, but I have been using this symbol at least since my junior year of college (if not my sophomore year).  Check out these two versions.

I decided I wanted a sprite for this mark at some point in junior or senior year because of my interest in pixel art.  This is not even the original version: the original was only 32 x 32 and a single color (orange, then red).  It is, however, closer to how I draw the mark in the material world.

This is the latest version of the "pixelated" version of the mark, now with "Ryu-Kage" along the bottom (even in katakana).  This was also the first version where I started using the blue shadows.  You see, while "Kage" originally came from Charmander's Japanese name, "kage" is also the Japanese word for "shadow".  I wanted to take advantage of this trait, so I added a blue shadow to the red dragon.  I know, blue is not exactly the opposite of red (cyan is the true opposite of red in terms of light), but it is the color which typically appears darkest and most "shady" to me, and it still provides a bold contrast to red even without directly opposing it.  Honestly, I still like this version of the mark, but I wondered if it would work as an insignia when pixelated.

Thus, I decided it was time to smooth this image out and see what I could do along the way, leading to the result above the break of this post.  I had been experimenting with a program called Inkscape, a freeware vector graphics program (basically, a free and functional but slightly awkward Adobe Illustrator).  I have wanting to master Illustrator (or a reasonable facsimile) to work better on logos or symbols like this, and I figured this would be a good test.

Although I traced the pixel versions of this mark to make the vector version, you will notice the vector mark is not an exact replica.  I attached the wings to the head to make it clear what they were.  I also decided to change the flames to yellow instead of red, figuring the flames would be intense and bright compared to the red scales of the dragon.  This way, I could also use the flames as the source of light casting the shadows on the head and the name below.  I filled the eyes of the dragon, too, partly for the same strike as the flames, but also because I did not think the shadow would show well through the blank eyes (at least, not how I set the shadow).  Thus, we have the latest version of the Mark of the Red Dragon.

Whatever changes I make to this logo, I have been happy using the Mark of the Red Dragon for a long time, and it will most likely appear on my current and future artwork in one form or another.  Do you have a preferred version of this symbol?  Please, let me know.

Remember, you can follow me on Twitter @RyuKageChroma for updates on my life or just my general thoughts on games or anything else which catches my interest.  Currently, I am playing Fire Emblem Fates, so maybe I will start talking about that more often in the future.  Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day.