Back when I made the original Keiba Densetsu Live article, I remember coming across some other gijinka illustration in passing. The one in the header here, to be specific.
At that moment the hyperfocus of finishing that post didn’t let me think too hard about it but writing the update post the other day dug up that memory and I just had to look up what the heck it was, and it sure was… interesting.
I’m going to assume by virtue of being in this website that you know what Pixiv is, but just in case it’s basically Japan’s ostentibly main website for distribution of illustrations; “ostentibly” since arguably just as many people see illustrations in social media, and also Niconico has illustration functions. It was founded all the way back in 2007 and was inspired by Flickr of all things.
So what’s Umabi? Well, from the official page for the contest (via googleTL, verified with my limited knowledge of Japanese):
「Umabi」は、競馬ファンの方はもちろん、「競馬をまだ体験したことのない方」に、競馬の楽しさを知るきっかけを作ることを目的に開設するエンターテイメントコンテンツ満載のプラットホームです。サイト名称の「Umabi」は、「馬」と「日和」から競馬が日常のレジャーになることをイメージしてつくりました。コンセプトは「11番目の競馬場」です。
“Umabi” is a platform packed with entertainment content, created with the aim of inspiring horse racing fans and those who have never experienced it before to discover the joy of horse racing. The site’s name, “Umabi,” was created from the Japanese characters for “horse” and “weather,” and is inspired by the idea of horse racing becoming a daily leisure activity. The concept is “the 11th racecourse.”
For those curious, “11th racecourse” refers to the fact that the JRA has 10 official racecourses (Sapporo, Hakodate, Fukushima, Nakayama, Tokyo, Niigata, Chukyo, Kyoto, Hanshin, and Kokura)
In non-corporate lingo: It’s a website about horseracing prediction. Basically the starting point for anyone that wants to find sites and services with racing predictions like “this horse is looking good for the next race” and such.
I will save my opinions on how misleading and overdone the mission statement is. Moving on…
Umabi, in order to promote itself, figured they could make an illustration contest. From the link above it indicates it ran from October 23rd, 2015 until the end of December 6th, 2015. The contest would have one winner that would get 100.000 yen plus being featured on the Umabi homepage cover (note: The website changed layout so the current one has a big thing promoting their AI thing instead of a cover because of course they have one of those), and on top of that there would be five honorary winners that would get 50.000 yen.
So you might be wondering: Are the characters in the header the winners of the contest?
NO! THAT WOULD BE SENSIBLE DESIGN AND DO YOU REALLY EXPECT SENSIBLE DESIGN FROM THE PEOPLE PROMOTING A HUB OF GAMBLING FORECAST SITES LIKE IT’S SOCIAL MEDIA TO BE SENSIBLE?
*Ahem*
The four characters in the header, in case you can’t read Japanese, are meant to be (left to right) Vodka, Gentildonna, Gold Ship, and Orfevre.
They’re also drawn by quite the illustrators.
Vodka was illustrated by Kouji Ogata who already had quite the protafolio, but in a bit that’s honestly making me feel insanse THEY WERE THE CHARACTER DESIGNER FOR MY SWEET UMADONNA.
If I had a nickel, etc, etc, etc.
Gentildonna was designed by TNSK, who I know best from My Master Has No Tail.
Meanwhile, Orfevre and Gold Ship were drawn by Osamu. And thank GOD they’ve continued to make things ever since because that’s one hell of a name to try and look up.
I should note that I couldn’t find the illustrations from the header in their respective Pixiv pages, but it’s not impossible that Umabi just comissioned the pieces. I did notice that TNSK was very into Kancolle at around that period so I can see someone at Umabi being looking up “kancolle illustrator” and paying them for it.
But like I said, those weren’t entries into the contest. Moreover, if you try checking the links they have in the announcement they all lead to dead pages.
Long story short, in searching for “うまびイラコン” (Umabi Irakon/Illustration contest) one of the first results was the winner… or rather, the winners page.
Now, this is the part where I’m gonna be very annoying: I don’t like reposting art. I’m sure we all had our phase where we had an anime Facebook page where we reposted stuff because none of the illustrators you liked were of Facebook so I’m not gonna say I’m free of sin, but that was when I was 20 and I’m 32 now.
Anyway, the winner illustration was a stunning Hishi Amazon illustration that… ok, I love the illustration a lot, but I’m struggling to find the Hishi Amazon-ness of it specifically. At least the Vodka one that made it as a finalist has some of the color scheme more evident.
But the real treasure from it all, to me, is the tag with the submissions on it. Uma Musume has done a LOT in refining the visual language of what a Racehorse Gijinka could/should be, not just in brand-specific things like the hair reflecting the forehead marks, but with things like the color schemes or the outfits being things to run in. But with that context it’s fun to see an example where there was less of that guidance established and what people did in the process.
On that note, it’s interesting that the Vodka and Gentildonna illustrations on the announcement were doing the “white stripe of hair” thing one year before Uma Musume was first announced.
So did Umabi add the illustration in their header?
Nope!
Be my guest to look it up in the Internet Archive, and I will point out that for as much good as the internet archive does on the regular (donate to them if you can by the by) some pages get archived with missing elements just because that’s how web stuff works, I’m even open to the idea that I misread something even when trying to decipher the Japanese announcement. But even then for as much as I looked through snapshots I only saw Where’s Waldo Wally in the header.
They did have this notification on a small bell right above the header, I guess.
Maybe the bell is the 2nd header in the 11th racecourse, who knows?