Thanksgiving is About the Food!

Original DA Upload Date: November 25, 2021

Don’t worry, Redfeather is okay with Thanksgiving. Just as long as the day is treated as being about racial/ethnic unity.

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Drawing the Tetrad serving dinner in 50s-inspired outfits is an idea I’ve had for quite a while, and as long as I’ve had the idea, I knew Thanksgiving would be the best time to draw it for. And because it’s food that’s involved, I knew that meant the Tetrad had to dress as waitresses, much like the ones at Marilyn Springsteen’s. Since releasing three different versions of my previous artwork, also period-themed, went over so well (amassing over 2500 views in total despite two versions not even being part of my featured gallery), I decided to do the same this time around, too. There’s not just a color version, but keeping with the 1950s aesthetic, I also made a black-and-white version, and a version with a filter inspired by the paintings of Norman Rockwell. I enjoy the fact that FlapperFoxy releases multiple versions of her artwork in different filters, after all, and I think she’s onto something doing so. Especially considering the sepia version of my last artwork was the one that got the most views. Maybe it’s also because it was the one I uploaded last, but I’d like to think the period-inspired filter also helped.

BTW, shout-out to FlapperFoxy, since I mentioned her. She’s a retro-loving furry like I am, and if you like my work, then you’ll love hers. I’d even argue she’s even better at accomplishing a retro feel with her art, as she works mainly traditionally while I work mainly in digital. So drop her a follow!

Anyways, on to the piece! I’ve got production notes for all three of these, both together and separately. The notes that apply to all of them together I’ll talk about first, and whichever version you’re looking at (on DeviantArt) or want to know about (on WordPress), just look for the notes marked “Color Version”, “Black-and-white Version”, or “Filtered Version”. Now, with that out of the way, let’s get on with this piece already!

Notes for all three versions
For those that haven’t been keeping up with my Twitter, I downloaded the Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC, Happy Home Paradise, the day it was released, and I’ve had a blast with it. During the DLC, in addition to designing houses, you also design ‘facilities’, namely a school, a restaurant, a cafe, a hospital, and an apparel store. Of course, I named all of these after what I imagined exists in Grunvale. I named my cafe ‘Wilkins” (after the coffee Jim Henson used his puppets to advertise for early in his career), my hospital ‘St. Rogers” (after Fred Rogers), and my apparel store ‘Searing-Lord’ (after Sears and Lord & Taylor). Wilkins’ and St. Rogers I know I want to make canon, but since I’ve established that businesses that exist in our universe exist in the Grunvaliverse, I don’t think I’ll be going with it. Also, for the record, I’m considering coming up with animal puns, much like I do for place names, for the businesses, to get around copyright.

The other two facilities, on the other hand, I named after places I’ve already made canon. The school is named ‘Iwerks U’, and the restaurant is named ‘Marilyn Springsteen’s’. The latter of which, of course, has a major 50s motif going on. In case you’re wondering, my staff at Marilyn Springsteen’s is Walker (the chef), Nate (the apprentice), Maddie (the cashier), and Cleo (the employee). And of course, the way I designed the Marilyn Springsteen’s on the archipelago, was part of the visual inspiration for this piece. I’ll go into deeper detail with the description of the color version.

The diner setting is based on a stock image I found online, and is made out of a combination of stock images and my own assets. The top of the counter table and the… other thing that’s above it (I’m just gonna call an awning because that’s the closest word I can think of to describe what it is), are made out of the same stock image, and the seats around it are actually not seats, but rather inverted and distorted tables with cushions on them. As for the pixelated posters on the wall, they’re all images of things from an inspired by the 1950s. The posters on the left wall are posters for Pleasantville, which anyone who knows anything about the film would know is mostly set in the world of a 1950s sitcom. As for the posters on the right wall, they are pixelated images of, from left to right: Andy Warhol’s paintings of Marilyn Monroe, the LP cover to the original Broadway recording of Grease, and the LP cover to Elvis Presley’s debut album. Perhaps I could’ve chosen less-anachronistic things, but then again, the images I used, other than the Elvis one, are still from things inspired by the 50s, even if they’re not from it. Also, although I don’t imagine this artwork being set there, Marilyn Springsteen’s isn’t entirely a 1950s-inspired restaurant anyway. It’s also inspired by the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Which still leaves Pleasantville as an anachronism considering the movie is from 1998, but also not, because, again, it’s set in a 50s sitcom.

The floor is a checkerboard pattern, of course, because no retro diner is complete without a checkerboard pattern. Like, seriously, if there’s no checkerboard pattern around, what are you doing? If there’s no checkerboard pattern present, it’s not a retro-inspired diner. It really is that cut and dried.

Finally, since all the other information is best saved for the specific versions, I’ll talk about the food, and how it reflects each of the Tetrad members’ tastes. Gilda, who I’ve established well at this point is a talented baker, is carrying an apple-and-lemon pie. Because citrus makes everything taste better, as she would tell you. Also because apple pie is my favorite thing to have around Thanksgiving. Margo is carrying a sourdough bread loaf, as a nod to her love of sub sandwiches. Wendy is carrying a chocolate milkshake, inspired by her love of coffee. And finally, April is carrying a deviled ostrich egg, as a nod to her own love of eggs. I have a brief moment in “Link of the Chain” where April expresses interest in the idea of eating ostrich egg, after Gilda mentions that Chandler is responsible for the Redfeather commune’s egg production.

“What? You drew Margo wearing glasses? But Margo’s not a glasses-wearer! Is she?”

Oh. Right. About that. Um… let’s talk about the information about the color version!

Notes for the Color version
The “Marilyn Springsteen’s” I designed on the Happy Home Paradise archipelago, has a cyan color scheme going on. Which, of course, influenced the color scheme of this piece. I did at one point consider color-shifting everything to a red-orange color, but by the time I had the idea, it would’ve been too complicated to fix it, as the posters had already been merged onto the walls. Plus, I kind of got used to the cyan by that point, so why mess with a good thing? Especially when it would mean erasing the most obvious inspiration I took from the ACNH location I designed.

That’s not the interesting part of the colors, though. That would be how I came up with the colors of the dresses. I started with a block of the hex value FFE6E7, a pale pink color much like the pastels I associate with 1950s color schemes. Directly over it on the layer above, I placed blocks of the specific hex values I associate with each member of the Tetrad, at 20% opacity. That’s how I came up with the main color of their dresses. The accent colors of the dresses were created by placing a black box at 50% opacity over the main colors, the colors of the hair accessories were created by placing a black box with the hard mix effect over the main dress colors, and the colors of the lace accents on the aprons (and Margo’s glasses) were created with a white box at 50% opacity, once again, over the main dress colors.

The socks and shoes the Tetrad are wearing are bobby socks and saddle shoes, respectively. Both of which were popular among females in the 1950s. And I used a similar method to come up with the colors for them; the black- and white-skewing colors of their shoes were created by placing blocks of their hex values at 20% opacity, over F2F2F2 and 1A1A1A. The eyelets and soles of their shoes, however, are all the same.

Notes for the Black-and-white version
I just took the color version and turned it black-and-white, right? Yeah, no, that’s too easy. When I work in black-and-white, I always try to make the light and dark values look a certain way. With the Victorian Gilda piece, I deliberately made it look overexposed and washed-out, as I’ve noticed a lot of Victorian photographs tend to exaggerate light and downplay shadows, as well as have smudges on them, probably due to many photos of the time (particularly the first half of the Victorian era) being printed upon metal surfaces and glass plates. Both of which give the photo a washed-out appearance.

And for this piece, I thought in terms of how I know black-and-white photography of the 1950s tends to look. Namely, that the contrast between light and dark is significantly greater. I made two black-and-white versions based on the original color version: one with the contrast set to 0, and one with the contrast set to 100. The zero-contrast layer had a ‘lighter colors’ effect applied to it, and then the two layers were merged, creating the black-and-white look I was aiming for, one with a light scheme (not color scheme; black-and-white is about light values) that wouldn’t look out of place if put amongst actual 1950s photographs.

Notes for the Filtered version
As I said before, the filtered version is made to look like a painting, like that of Norman Rockwell. After studying some of Rockwell’s paintings for a while, I’ve noticed a lot of them, not all of them but a large portion of them, have a muted color scheme, sometimes skewing sepia, sometimes skewing grey, sometimes even skewing a gray-green. And I sought to imitate that with the filtered version, giving a sepia tint to the image that reminds me of The Godfather and for some reason October Sky. Which is weird considering I don’t recall the latter movie looking sepia-tinted. Maybe I’m thinking of the poster.

But the sepia tint isn’t all I added. I also added a blur effect I’d not seen before, one that I felt made it look more like a painting and whose name currently escapes me, to two copies of the image. I also added some noise filters over the image, to make it look like it was painted on a canvas. The result was an image with softened linework, but colors and textures that I feel emulate the Rockwell style well, at least from a color perspective. It makes me want to draw the next pin-up artwork of Sally Hynde in a Rockwell-inspired look. Not a full-out emulation of his style, of course, that’d involve drawing humans. But emulate the textures and colors present in Rockwell’s work, for another 1950s-inspired pin-up artwork of Sally.

Conclusion
And that’s all I’ve got to say about this artwork. Just a cute, 1950s-inspired piece for Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all my followers, and if you’re reading this the day after Thanksgiving, then Merry Christmas. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, then Happy Holidays. And if you have a problem with Happy Holidays, then Happy Shut the Fuck Up. I’ve got a funny idea for a Christmas/Hanukkah-themed artwork, but I’d like to run it by some of my Jewish friends first before I go out and draw it. It’s not meant to mock Hanukkah or the Jews anything like that, in fact, if anything, it’s meant to make Gilda, Margo, and April the butt of the joke in front of the Wylers. I’ll not say much else about it publicly unless I get the approval to draw it, but I will say it involves caroling.

Until next time, take care, and Happy Thanksgiving… and Hannukwanzmas.

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
Pleasantville is owned by AT&T through WarnerMedia and New Line Cinema.
I have no idea who owns the portraits Andy Warhol made of Marilyn Monroe. Probably his estate or the owner of the collection it’s currently apart of.
Grease is owned by… ViacomCBS through Paramount Pictures. The musical was written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.
Elvis Presley is owned by Sony Music Entertainment through RCA Records.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).