Hong's Oekaki

Oekaki?

However, recently there have been a new kind of communities where online-drawn pictures play the key parts, sprung up in Japan and Korea (even in other parts of the world, it seems).

Oekaki (pronounced "o-eh-ka-ki") is a plain Japanese term literally meaning "picture drawing": "o-" is a prefix (its usage is a bit out of scope for this page :p), "e" means "picture", and "kaki" means "drawing" (from a verb "kaku", "to write" or "to draw").

In this case, this means "picture drawing" online, usually with a simple MS-Paint-like interface (usually a Java applet, but there are also Painter-like applets as well [an example from OekakiPoteto]) and a mouse (some use digitizing tablets with pens). At first, you might think that you won't get much good stuff out of it, but surprisingly a lot of people are quite talented at this. Sometimes, they just mimic some famous illustration or comics, but sometimes they tell their own stories, expressing themselves in a way that no texts or photos can.

I was recently introduced to this medium by my friends in Korea at CyWorld). I always thought that I had no talent whatsoever in drawing. Actually, it was one of my most dreaded subjects at school. But somehow, I managed to create some drawings that looked okay.

So, here are some of my drawings...

My Drawings

I admit this isn't something I drew. I can't be this good. :p

This is done by a friend of mine, Lim, SeungWon, from one of my recent pictures.

Another theme... Memories from my childhood. I used to walk to school when I was in elementary school. And in winter, I walked across the rice field after the harvest. It was in Seoul but was on the outskirt of the city, so there were quite a bit of rice fields (I heard they are all gone now, though).

Anyway, whenever I walked across the havested fields, I always tried to step on those stumps left over from the harvest. When you stepped on a fresh stump, it felt as if you were stepping on snow. And I tried to step on every fresh one... :)

The new theme was things you want to throw away in the new year. And this is what immediately came to mind. I strongly protest that this is just a caricature and certain parts are drawn exaggerated (believe it or not). :p

This is what I do often at work... Instead of going around to talk to the next-cubicle neighbor, I like to just peek over. :)

Even before I started the Salsa, I kind of knew that the Waltz had to be blue. And I decided to stop here. Tri-colors, three dances... It seems good enough.

Someone's comments for the previous one gave me the idea to continue the series on the same theme with different dances and colors. So, I chose Salsa and gave it yellow.

This is the first of what became the Dance Series. I have been and still am fascinated by Argentinean Tango. I wanted to draw it. Since I couldn't draw realistically, I ended up with this, starting from stick figures. I kind of liked how it turned out. I gave it the red tone because I think Tango is the most sensual dance.

As a series, it should have been titled, "Tango", but at the time, I wanted to emphasize the posture.

Another drawing of an instrument I have. It was also rather complicated than I thought. I also wished that if the pictures can make sounds as well.

The theme was "Your Secrets". On my right foot, the third toe is actually longer than the second one.

The second self portrait I did. I usually wear a T-shirt and shorts with sandals (it's too cold to wear shorts these days, though).

From the diary section... It had rained for couple of days. I noticed the street lamps on the way home.

This was also a community-theme drawing. The theme was "Chirstmas Wish" or something like that, and I wanted to wish a lot of my single friends something. :)

The hands were extremely hard to get right. I had to look at my own hands from various angles and start over several times to get this far.

They had a theme, "spaceman", and this is what I drew. I think the original theme meant "alien", though.

This is the second one I drew. This kind of drawing was too much work... :b