Five Pieces of My K-pop Inspired Artwork

In general, I like to make art.  I’m certainly not the best at it and I don’t do it as often as I’d like, but I usually find it’s a nice way to entertain myself and I like using my hands to make something (slightly) beautiful.  Additionally, I like K-pop.  However, as much as I would love to buy merchandise, K-pop merchandise is incredibly (unbelievably, extremely) expensive.  As tempting as it is to blow my bank account on it, when I have the time to make art it’s also helpful to be able to make my own merchandise through drawings, paintings, etc.  Over the past couple of years, I’ve made quite a number of art pieces around K-pop.  These are just 5 of those pieces that I decided I was okay with people seeing.  Are the majority of them about BTS?  Maybe.  They were the first group I heard about from my friends (… around 2014 I think?) and the first group I got into.  Their merchandise is also some of the most expensive.  Either way, I hope you find some modicum of joy or entertainment from looking at my art.

1. BTS WINGS Short Film #1 Suga painting (Gouache paint)
   
   THIS ISN’T MY ORIGINAL IDEA.  Disclaimer given.  This is definitely one of my favorite paintings that I’ve done, but it’s based off of Jungkook’s painting which was based off of the burning painting in the BTS WINGS Short Film #1.  So, it’s essentially fan art of an artist art of an actual art.  Painting isn’t really my strong suit (I tend to sketch more) so I was overly nervous about screwing this painting up (in addition to K-pop merchandise, art canvases are annoyingly expensive) and decided to have a go at it in the span of a few hours.  Given those circumstances, I think it turned out decently well.  For anyone who doesn’t know what gouache paint is, it’s kind of like a cross between oil paint and watercolor.  It’s highly underrated in my opinion (it’s also a great training tool befoire getting into oil paints) and I’m waiting for the day to suck up my courage and do another painting.  I have something in mind, but it’s definitely a big project so for now, this is my only canvas painting for K-pop.
2. Dokyeom in Xcalibur (Pencil)
   
   The only non-BTS piece of this list!  Also probably the sketch I am most proud of.  Among K-pop fans, there are “biases” which are essentially the member(s) in a group that you connect with (or like) the most.  My bias in Seventeen is Dokyeom, one of the main vocals (check out my Introduction to Seventeen series if you want).  In addition to being in Seventeen, Dokyeom played the lead role of King Arthur in the musical, Xcalibur.  As a theatre kid and avid musical theatre geek, I definitely freaked out over this.  However, as I cannot fly to South Korea to watch the show (for obvious reasons), I decided to draw my own poster/thing to hang up for it.  This one took me a few days but it was definitely really fun to make.  Also weird fact, most of my pencil sketches are done entirely with a mechanical pencil.  I’m still not sure why, I just like how sharp the lead (aka graphite) is.
3. RM and Suga, the BTS Underground Rapper Duo (Digital Art)
   
   New disclaimer, digital art isn’t my strong suit.  The only program I use is the canvas app in our Chromebooks so nothing fancy for me, but it’s fun to give it a go.  This is a portrait of rappers RM and Suga/Agust D from BTS as they were the two members who began rapping in the South Korean underground hip hop scene.  They received a lot of hate after leaving the scene to train and join BTS as it was a move seen as “selling out” to the idol industry.  Clearly it worked out though.  This piece is still kind of unfinished (please ignore the utterly plain blocking of color on the clothes) but we’ll see if I can work out the issues on my Chromebook in time to finish it properly.
4. Spring Day on the Sidewalk (Chalk)
   
   Long story short, I found a box of chalk on sale at Barnes and Noble.  After determining that I just had to illustrate the sidewalk outside of my house, I ended up settling on this scene from the BTS Spring Day MV as it was an image I always wanted to draw and the colors worked decently well with the shades of chalk that I had.  Honestly, drawing with chalk is really fun and nostalgic, but the sidewalk definitely cut up my hands and the wind kept blowing pigment out of the drawing.  All in all, definitely a more light hearted and casual piece but a fun one to complete nonetheless.  This also doesn’t really apply to the merchandise principle because obviously, it disappeared after a few days, but for a while it was uplifting to see it every time I exited my house.  I’m actually pretty surprised because it turned out a lot better than I thought it would but this one piece also took up so much of my chalk, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do something like this again.
5. J-Hope for the New Year (Pencil, markers, highlighters)
   
   So this is the drawing I made during the turn into the new year back in 2021.  It was the first in depth sketch I did of a K-pop artist and it was kind of done on a whim which is why the sketch is very clearly on lined notebook paper that I eventually cut out.  I weirdly like the hair that I drew for some reason though.  This is based off of a very specific picture of J-Hope (BTS) from the You Never Walk Alone era.  Slightly a throwback for BTS but one of my favorite eras nonetheless.  I’m not super sure why I decided to make this piece, it was probably out of boredom or just the desire to make something.  Either way, it was a fun project to work on and I’m surprisingly pleased with how it ended up turning out.