Flamaiko

About a year ago I was minding my own business, hard at work in the Basilian priests' kitchen and thinking about Book 3 of Avatar which I was in the midst of watching for the first time, when the cook played the album 'Sympathique' by Pink Martini, with many Spanish-sounding songs, and in my head, Zuko and Mai started dancing to them. And the pun was begging for it. (I'm little surprised I was unable to find it having been done before.)

So I borrowed the CD, collected references and watched videos of flamenco dancing, and ran off a sketch, but didn't finish the final picture till just now. As I colored it I tried to stick with listening to the Pink Martini, but that ran out so I moved to any other Spanish-sounding type music I had... but ran out of that... so in the end I somehow ended up with 'Rhiannon' over and over. Go figure.

Despite my fair amount of research, I'm sure it isn't totally accurate flamenco-wise. If you're a flamenco expert, sorry, but nitpicking about it won't do any good.

The faces were soooo hard to get right, and I'm not totally convinced that I did with Mai. But I really like the coloring. (which, of course, looks way better in real life ) I did all the coloring in one night- starting at about seven p.m. and going solid to three a.m. It's hard to use alot of red and have it still be vibrant rather than wearying. I hope it is; I think it is. Also I had gotten into the habit of coloring really fast and scribbly, which sometimes gives really good motion and feeling, but, well, it's like free verse. It's easier, and when it goes right it can be something really awesome. But it very rarely goes right. (Poets, take note! Not having to worry about rhymes is no excuse for unpoetical stuff! XD) With this I tried to be more controlled and yet still have a sense of swirling motion, and I'm pretty pleased with how that went.

I was at first planning to airbrush flames for the background, but realized that would look like they were on the hood of a hot rod.

Characters copyright Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko,
Picture copyright me.