The Monkey King

From Chinese folklore and mythology comes the story of 'The Monkey King'.

This classic tale was a brief project in which i needed to design and draw out a scene of when the Monkey King disrupted the whole of the Underworld.


The characters in the piece had to be the Monkey King and Yama, the judge of the Underworld.

Having watched some Chinese dramas about the Monkey King story i had a good idea of how the characters should look.

The Monkey King is normally depicted as a warrior/ fighter character therefore i designed the Monkey King in armour like clothing where as Yama the judge, is designed to look grand and majestic. I decided to give him long robe like clothing and olden Chinese style officer head wear.






The scene is set in the Underworld therefore my initial sketches gave a feeling of a dark and damp place and resembled a cave like area.

Being in the main chamber of the Judge i felt the scene had to be in an open area with a high seating area for the Judge to pass on Judgement.

I sketched a few ideas of how the characters could interact in with one another, keeping in mind the the Monkey King has a naughty and mischievous personality.

This ended with the result of a poster like drawing with the main scene in the middle of the page and on either side each character looking at one another like a showdown.