Horimon
Horimon is a series of artworks inspired by Japanese traditional tattoo. I have been fascinated by Japanese tattoo culture since I was a teenager and this is a little love letter for it. Like a lot of western tattoo symbols have special meanings, a lot of popular animals, symbols in Japanese tattoo have meanings, stories and background and people get those tattoo wishing for something special for them.
Making Horimon was also a great opportunity for me to learn how to model the characters. I used Cinema4D for box modeling and rendering using Redshift, Zbrush for sculpting and sometimes I used blender for retopo. I used substance painter for texturing.
I minted Horimon on HicEtNunc in 2021 and it was great for me to connect with a lot of other NFT artists on Tezos community. These artworks are available on HicEtNunc and Objkt.com.
Horimon 001 TIGER - Physical strength, Wealth
The tiger as a tattoo is a symbol of physical strength and wealth, and it's a very important motif because my name is based on an ancient tiger proverb and I have small tiger tattoo.
Horimon 002 鯉 Carp
Meaning ; Success, Growth, Power of spilit
In Chinese mythology, carps swim upstream against the waterfall to reach the dragon gate. Few reach the top to leap over the waterfall and become a dragon. The carp is a very popular motif, especially the ones swimming upstream, which is traditionally believed to bring you success
Horimon 003 龍 DRAGON
Meaning ; Spiritual Strength, Power, Success, Protection
In Chinese mythology, only the few carps which reach the dragon gate at the top of the waterfall can become a dragon. This makes the dragon tattoo a symbol of success. The dragon rising into the sky (looking up) means great success, and the dragon descending from the sky (looking down) means it will protect you and your family from any bad luck.
Horimon 004 鳳凰 PHOENIX
Meaning ; Beauty, Elegance, Peace, Love
Ho-Oh translates as phoenix but technically they are a bit different. The European phoenix is a fire bird which never dies, but the Asian Ho-Oh is a bird that looks like a peacock and is very colorful. Ho-Oh is believed to appear before something very good happening. Therefore, Ho-Oh is a symbol of luckiness and happiness. Ho-Oh is also an ambisexual bird, having both male and female in one body making Ho-Oh a symbol of peaceful marriage.
Horimon 005 蛇 SNAKE
Meaning ; Life, immortality, fertility, reclamation
Snakes shed their skin and grow bigger, they can also go a long time without eating. This makes the snake a symbol of life. Snakes are a very popular tattoo motif all over the world, like ouroboros or Asclepius' cane.
The lotus also has a meaning of life, since it blooms beautifully from muddy water.
Horimon 006 麒麟 QILIN
Meaning ; Smartness, Loyal, Protection, Peace, Lucky
Qilin is a legendary creature that appears in Chinese mythology. Qilin is a symbol of peace and it appears when the next great king who will bring peace to the country is born. Qilin's head looks like a dragon, it's legs like a horse, it's tail like a cow and has scales. It's about 5m long however it's a very calm and peaceful creature and never kills any insects or flowers even when it walks.
Horimon 007 唐獅子 FU DOG
Meaning ; Protection, Strength, Courageous
Karashishi, also known as lion dog or Fu dog, has a very long history. It is not a dog but a lion (獅子shi-shi means lion), which was a protector of Buddha. Originating in India, it came to China and Japan, and changed shape to it's current design with colourful curly hair and dot patterns.
Karashishi has a strong power and eats your bad luck. However it holds bugs in it's fur which may eat Karashishi's body and kill it. But water drops from peonies can kill these bugs, so Karashishi always sleeps under the peony flowers. There are not many motief rules with tattoos, but when you get a Karashishi tattoo, usually you get peony flowers too so they can protect Karashishi. It's call Karashishi-Botan (Fu Dog and Peony)
Horimon 008 金魚 GOLD FISH
Meaning ; Money luck, Protection, Strength
Goldfish is a symbol of luckiness or charm by many means. As it has "gold" in the name, goldfish is traditionally treated as the charm or lucky symbols for money luck in China and Japan. Goldfishes are also symbol of having lots of succession, since they lay many eggs. They are not tasty fish no matter how you cook, which make them also a symbol of strength. Black goldfish have a power of protecting you from bad luck.
Horimon 009 鬼 DEMON
Meaning ; Strength, Power, Protection
Oni is a Japanese demon who has horns and fangs. They have colourful skin and wear pants made from tiger skin. They appear in a wide variety of Japanese folklore, kids songs and festivals, sometimes as a bad goblin and sometimes as a god-like good creature.
The famous image of Oni is that they are living in hell, working for Yemma who is the god who judges the people, and Oni punishes them.
As for tattoos, you might have seen a Hannya mask, which is also a type of Oni but Hannya is originally a lady and became Hannya because of anger and jealousy.