Strange Things with this Hawaiian God
Welcome back to the wacky news from the magical whimsical side of Salem! I am Mr. Zac spilling all the odd secrets of this quirky town. Before we start I will pass on our best wished to the people of Hawaii who had suffered recently in the volcano eruption and earthquake. Luckily the most our volcano has done in millions of years in Collins Cove was crack one foundation…
By the way, above is the graphite drawing of Dave Ward, a shaman from the family of Sitting Bull. The family joke is they are full of bull… Hi Dave! This image was done first then scanned into the computer.
Later the rest of the background was drawn in and arranged on the computer with Photoshop. Kūkaʻilimoku was then drawn and added. Later the dancer and the second native was added. He was drawn from the likeness of Brudha Iz the famous singer. Each was scaled and moved into the right place doing comps on the fly and only settling in on the final when satisfied. Sometimes, different comps are saved on different layers and saved for later.
The funny thing about Kūkaʻilimoku and A Walk Through Salem, the illustration depicts Kūkaʻilimoku being rescued and sent back to Hawaii. Soon after the publication of the book, he was indeed sent back home. There are three remaining statues of him; one was in England, the second in Hawaii, and the third was in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. They all were put together in Hawaii in the Bishop Museum for the first time in quite some time. After the show, Hawaii did make arrangements to have them returned for good.
The final illustration depicts a news story in the Salem Gazette where the public finds out about the Hawaiians smuggling Kūkaʻilimoku out of the museum and into the Unzipping Tree in the Salem Common back to Hawaii. I never did find out how they actually did transport him back…
Pick up the first book of the Salem Trilogy, A Walk Through Salem, at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, The Witch House, or Remember Salem.
Cheers
~Mr. Zac
Come back every Tuesday at 3PM for new stories about Salem and images from the Salem Trilogy.