CHOICE OF SWEET:
 

Ichigo Daifuku are made of a small round mochi (a sugary rice cake) stuffed with a sweet filling, most commonly anko, sweetened red bean paste made from azuki beans. In the case of Ichigo Daifuku some genius person thought of putting a whole strawberry inside the bean-paste.
 

THOUGHTS ON THE CONCEPT:

As you can see on the photo, I chose Ichigo Daifuku as the sweet that I wanted to humanize. It might just be me, but when I see Gijinka of sweets, there’s a great lack of male representation. Especially when it is a Japanese sweet. At least it seems like that, so I chose early on that I would like to do a male version of the Gijinka.

 

The second thought I had that popped up in my head and that wa a traditional clothed person - as Mochi is a traditional sweet, I found Kimono and Hakama most suitable. Although my first idea wasn’t a shintou priest like boy like this one. I first thought of a Kagema, a male Geisha-ish prostitute. Of course the sign back then was like this one completely safe for work, despite his “job”. If you are interested, you can see the first attempt here: First Gijinka

Then I secondly thought of a young happy and lively child who is a little chubby, but I soon discarded that idea because Mochi are simply not “lively” sweets. They don’t have strong or vibrant colours, they seem calm and subtile, so I rather chose the priest-like appearance.That’s how this one was born in my head. In his hands he has a wand of shide for all kinds of shintouistic rituals at a temple.Although being a priest and mostly calm, t wanted to give him a slightly cheeky grin to make sure you won’t underestimate him.

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The colour sheet was strongly inspired by the traditional Ichigo Daifuku, that means Anko (bean paste), strawberry and rice cake. There are in fact versions of the Ichigo Daifuku, which have for example matcha anko inside. So the white parts represent the rice cake, while the Anko and the light pink represent the strawberry. His hair should be the bright red of ripe strawberries. His eyes are supposed to popp and appear strong, so I thought that the complementary green was good for his eyes. Green is therefore an accent colour I found quite suitable. That’s why the leaves on the wand and the ornament of his kimono has some green included as well.

 

Now, you might think that his ribbon is quite out of place, but I wanted to give him something that people could smile at. Like… wow how did you get this shiny thing mixed in your traditional clothes? The strawberries in the ribbon as well as the ornament on his kimono are supposed to give a feeling of the different stage of the most special and important ingredient of the sweet: the strawberries.

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His name is Mochi Aoi.