bento sketch book #1

It’s Sunday! but since it’s holiday season and all, no how-to today… Sorry!
But instead, I’m going to post some of the sketches I’ve done for my bento. If you compare the sketches and finished bento, you can see what I intended to do but couldn’t do.

Before I started doing sketches for bento, I kind of just filled the bento box as I made it, and it was so hard to do.
Half of the time, I didn’t know which food I’d be using until that morning. Also I’d often just throw food in to fill spaces. It was frustrating and the results didn’t please me at all… So I started drawing sketches for bento.

I gotta tell you, these sketches help a LOT. The rectangular shape is the same size as the bottom part of bento box, so I know how big the characters should be. (I still make characters a little too big though) I write down what color each character & decoration is, what kind of food I’ll be using, and what order I’ll put it together, etc… Unfortunately, almost all notes are in Japanese, but you get the idea.

I’ll post the sketches from bento “Spirited Away bento” up to “Bento #22 Farm bento” today. I’ll post more sketches in the future.
Sorry for a loooong post. I got a new laptop, and I haven’t installed photoshop yet, so I can’t do side-by-side comparison. (Click on any pictures to see bigger pictures on my flickr account.)

Bento #12: Spirited Away!
Originally, Kaonashi was supposed to be in the bento, but BouNezumi and Haedori got a little too big and my boyfriend wanted four meat balls, so I decided not to make him in the last minute.

Bento #13: God Warrior vs Ohmu Stampede from Nausicaa!
I was going to put the little Ohmu (which Nausicaa rescued) in front of God Warrior, but I made other Ohmu a little bigger than I had planned, so I ended up not putting him in.

Bento #14: Katamari Damacy!
Sorry this sketch doesn’t look exactly as exciting as the bento… but the long list on the left side is the list of the ideas of food I had planned to make. (in Japanese) I didn’t make all of them though. Also I was going to make “Katamari meter” (it tells you how big your katamari is) on the left upper corner, but it didn’t fit. 😛

Bento #15: Super Smash Bros. Brawl!
The sketch is pretty much like the final bento. I added more stars in in the end because the background looked a little lonely.

Bento #16: Sleeping Totoro!
After I drew Totoro, I decided to place Totoro diagonally in the bento box. Also I was going to put 2-D Mei on his stomach, but since I Totoro was very 3-D, I didn’t think it’d fit well in this bento. (Besides, I don’t like putting human characters in my bento too much.)

Non-bento #2: Shadow of the Colossus Cheese Toast!
This is a copy of the actual sketch. I traced the original sketch before I used it to cut seaweed, so I’d have a backup even if I messed it up. Scanner? Printer? No, I traced it with a pencil. I’m old-school like that. 😉

Bento #17: Laputa Robot with Fox Squirrel!
I actually did more detailed sketch of Laputa Robot on a different page on my sketchbook, but haven’t scanned it yet.

Bento #18: Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service!
I was going to put a broom on the left side of Jiji, but I ran out of time. T_T

Bento #19: Professor Layton!
I had to make sure you could actually do the puzzle in this bento. Each food got a slightly bigger in the actual bento, but it was still very solvable!

Bento #20: Portal Companion Cube & Cake!
Notice that Turrets have slits in the drawing?

Bento #21: Bioshock Big Daddy & Little sister!
The alphabet letters are for each color/food. A = gray (rice and black sesame seed), B = redish brown (hamburg), C = orangish brown (fried potato), D = gray (konnyaku). I was going to make the drill with different food (konnyaku) at first, but I ended up using rice w/ black sesame seed because it looked pretty good.
And as you can see in the drawing, I really wanted to put the flying security bot…

Bento #22: Farm bento!
No big difference between the sketch and the final bento. I didn’t realize that I had written down the recipe for Soboro (ground beef cooked with soy sauce, sake and sugar) on the right bottom corner. 😛

For bigger pictures of my sketches, visit Bento Sketches! on my flickr page.

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.