1 Decembrie

My country was actually born in 1918, a really young nation, 1st of December being the day when Transylvania united with Romania. In this piece I represented Romania's flag colors that each hold a meaning. The blue represents the vast sky, freedom and faith; yellow stands for good crops, fertile soil and agricultural wealth; red symbolizes the blood spilled in battle, bravery and royalty.

Nowadays Romania doesn't have the best reputation because we are judged based on people that aren't us. I'm talking about the gypsies, of course. Gypsies aren't Romanians, I wish people would differentiate between us. Gypsies don't even originate from Romania nor the neighboring countries. Gypsies originate from the N-E of Pakistan and the N-V of India. They first migrated to Iran and Asia, then headed for Egypt, reaching Wallachia's side years later in the 1400s. Gypsy tribes traveled the whole world ever since they were formed and still do so. They don't have a country of their own, never had.

I feel obliged to share this bit of history so that Romanians stop taking the offense for the wrong doings of gypsies. It's beyond offensive that hard working Romanians are treated like thieves despite being great doctors, engineers or performing other honest jobs earning their pay through hard work. We too have a bad side of town, but don't extend it more than it truly is.

In the end, I want to say that Romania is a gorgeous country that despite taking harsh blows from the economy still manages to stand. It's complicated because Romania's badly ruled by the government, thus it looses a lot of its full potential, but even so if I was to choose I wouldn't want to be born in any other country than this. Despite getting lazier after the tough communism period, Romanians are still smart people who do their best and have an incredibly strong patriotic heart.

( 5 posters about why Romania kicks ass )

Thank you for reading this.

Now about this wall, I used many pictures, but I drew a lot by myself and I'm very proud of that. I used Himaruya's sketches as reference especially for the head because I wanted Romania to look as official as possible.

I tried a new type of coloring through gradients and I love it so I'll try it again soon. I had to paint as well, I'm not particularly fond of the vector + painting combo, but I had no other choice to illustrate distance and to make a decent sky. I doubt I ever painted this much, hope it looks decent. The main shape on the cape is Mihai the Brave, one of our rulers in the late 1500s, the rest of the silhouettes are mostly from the manga Berserk. The pattern on the cloak is a very detailed map of Romania.

Some images: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5