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The initial drawings and correspondence between me and them

My first drawing

I did my best with a pencil and paper, fearing all along that no one would be able to interpret my drawings. You can see from the picture that I originally wanted to dress the samurai in armor. I planned on full body sculptures. This was all based on what I had seen in floats made during the nebuta festivals of past years. This plan was rejected for a few reasons. The wanted a kimono on the samurai and they informed me that the faces needed to be larger than any other parts of the full sculpture.

This is what they sent back to me

Their suggestion was to leave the legs completely off of both creatures. This made it possible to make the remainign portion of each figure much larger and had the added benefit of being easier to stand up. Making the legs heavy enough to hold up the weight of the torso and head was something that I was concerned about. Starting with the torso provided a wider base for everything to rest on.

This detailed drawing of the room and the complete sculpture is what we agreed on before I left for Japan.

When we were done with phone calls, faxes, and email between us and had reached most of the decisions that we could reach before my flight, they had an artist do something that was a little clearer to work with.