“I’ll draw one animal for every retweet!” Japanese artist now has to draw 22,000 animals

That works out to drawing one animal a day…for 52 years.

Back in April 2020, Japanese artist Haruka, who goes by @_harenatsu on Twitter, drew an adorable little frog in her notebook. She snapped a couple of photos of it, and then she shared the images online with the following message:

▼ “‘Small Animals Playing on Ruled Lines’ is a notebook where I’ll add one animal for every retweet.”

When Haruka set herself this drawing challenge, she didn’t imagine it would get out of hand, as she only had around 2,500 followers at the time. However, as soon as people saw Haruka’s cute frog online, they immediately wanted more, sending her images viral and earning her 22,000 retweets, while also boosting her number of followers to over 41,000.

With so many new followers, Haruka felt obliged to stay true to her promise, so the talented artist has been drawing animals for just shy of two years now, filling the pages of her notebook with some amazing images.

So far, Haruka has managed to sketch 2,863 animals by hand, aiming to make each one unique with different facial expressions and postures that help to give them all different personalities.

The animals, which hail from the sky, land, and sea, all come together in Haruka’s humble ruled notebook.

The attention to detail and commitment to seeing through her promise has earned Haruka a wealth of praise online, with people leaving comments like:

“Your commitment is amazing!”
“It’s already a picture book!”
“You should publish this as a book, just as it is!”
“I’ve never seen anyone work so hard!”
“If you made a line of goods out of these characters I’d definitely buy them!”
“It must be tough work, but please keep at it!”

The Hokkaido-based artist is determined to complete the daunting task ahead of her, frequently uploading progress reports online.

本日の私の手帳事情です。 pic.twitter.com/UJ0bmSm4gf

— 晴夏 (@_harenatsu) February 20, 2022

It’s a good thing Haruka didn’t start this challenge now, because her post about the ongoing series has so far earned her 82,000 retweets in around 18 days.

私は 2年程前にTwitterの企画で 動物を22000匹描く事になった女です。

未だに描き続けていて、現在の記録は2802匹です。 pic.twitter.com/M2TWeFVLH1

— 晴夏 (@_harenatsu) February 3, 2022

With 19,137 animals left to draw, if she were to draw at a rate of one per day, it would take Haruka approximately 52 years to finish the collection.

Thankfully, Haruka is working at a steadier pace than that, but it’s still a task that will likely take her decades to complete. The artist says she will definitely see the series through, though, even if it takes her the rest of her life, as it’s one that she’s fond of and it’s been well received by so many people.

To help her in her quest, Haruka recently put out a call for animal suggestions on her Instagram stories, which introduced her to a number of new animals she hadn’t heard of before. She plans to continue asking followers for requests in future, so if you’d like to see your favourite animal make an appearance in Haruka’s ever-growing collection, be sure to give her a follow on Instagram and Twitter.

Source, images: Twitter/@_harenatsu via Net Lab
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