Our reporter Wang Guangyan

  A snowflake face grows on the big red lantern, and a pair of "beanie eyes" looks very well-behaved. With the approaching of the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics, the mascot "Xue Rongrong", who is about to officially "work", has become more and more popular.

The reporter recently interviewed Feng Benwan and Jiang Yufan, members of the design team of the Jilin Academy of Arts, the mascots of the Winter Paralympics, to reveal the beginning and end of Xue Rongrong's image creation.

  The prosperous Chinese New Year is a source of creativity

  Jiang Yufan, who was born in 1998, is the original creator of Xueyongrong's lantern shape.

In September 2018, the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee came to Jilin Art Institute to give a lecture. The teacher brought the content and requirements of the solicitation to her class.

With a learning attitude, she decided to give it a try.

At the beginning, she designed the design with the elk as the prototype. Since there are many similar designs, under the guidance of the teacher, she changed the design idea and came up with a design scheme based on a pair of Chinese knots.

  "My hometown is Yichun City, Heilongjiang. During the Spring Festival, red lanterns and Chinese knots are hung in the streets and alleys." Jiang Yufan said that the prosperous Chinese New Year in memory is the source of her creativity.

After seeing the design plan, the instructor Feng Benwan suggested that she replace one of the Chinese knots with another image.

"I changed a Chinese knot to the image of dumplings. Later, the teacher thought that the dumplings did not match the Chinese knot, so I changed it to red lanterns."

  With only three days left to submit the manuscript, Jiang Yufan submitted the design.

To her surprise, the two creative ideas of red lantern and Chinese knot were shortlisted in the top three, and were determined to continue to deepen the revision.

Experts from the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee also gave their opinions: "Only keep the original attributes and redesign the image." After receiving the task, Jilin Art Institute immediately set up a modification working group composed of 17 teachers and students.

According to the suggestion of the Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, the team abandoned the image of "Chinese knot" and mainly modified the image of "lantern".

  Multidisciplinary collaboration to adjust the mascot image

  Feng Benyan introduced that Xuerongrong's creation embodies the wisdom and dedication of the design team. The project team includes teachers from the School of Design, the School of New Media, the School of Animation, and the School of Music.

The team members have done a lot of revision work around the image revision of the lantern, such as structural proportions, facial features, interpretation of cultural elements, etc. The total revision of the design draft has reached more than 10,000 pieces.

In less than a year, the team traveled to and from Beijing nearly 30 times, often revising manuscripts until late at night.

  The most difficult period was in April 2019. "At that time, we did not receive feedback from the Winter Olympics Organizing Committee for nearly a month, and everyone was a little frustrated and confused." Feng Benwan said that after the expert group's suggestion, in order to give the lantern sports attributes, the creation of The team has tried adding antlers, swallow wings, and Beijing pigeon elements to it.

Finally, under the advice of experts from the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, the continuous patterns of the pigeon and the Temple of Heaven, as well as elements such as Ruyi, appeared in the image of the mascot, which not only made Xuerongrong more smart and lovely, but also showed traditional Chinese culture. style.

  August 21, 2019 was an unforgettable day for the design team members. The Olympic Organizing Committee, out of the principle of confidentiality, notified the design team to go to Beijing for design revisions. When everyone flew to Beijing with a computer in a nervous mood, they were surprised. I found that there were many media in the conference room. It turned out that the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee had decided to choose "Xue Rongrong" as the mascot of the Winter Paralympic Games.

Soon after, the mascots of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics were officially announced in Beijing on September 17.

With the countdown on the big screen, when Xueyong Rong was announced to everyone's shouts, the members of the design team were excited and burst into tears.

  May the shining snowy Rong Rong light up the dream

  Today, Xuerongrong has become a new "top streamer" and is affectionately called "Baby Rongrong" by netizens.

The ruyi shape on the top of the Xuerongrong lantern symbolizes auspiciousness and happiness; the continuous pattern formed by the dove of peace and the Temple of Heaven symbolizes peace and friendship, and is integrated into the traditional Chinese paper-cut art; It also embodies the anthropomorphic design, which makes everyone love it.

  "Xue Rongrong has a yellow halo on the outside of his stomach. The lantern itself can light up. We want it to light up, which means to warm the world and light up the dream in my heart." Jiang Yufan said.

Feng Benyan introduced that after the release of Xueyongrong's image to the world, the team continued to cooperate with the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee to continue the extension design of Xuerongrong's part, and produced Xueyongrong's expression pack.

From a flat image to a 3D dynamic image, the moving Xue Rongrong is even cuter.

  "This year of designing and revising Xueyongrong is a fast-forward year for me, because there are many teachers from different colleges in the team, and I have learned a lot from them. In the future, I will continue to work on my own in a down-to-earth manner. Study and design more good works." Jiang Yufan said that he likes Chinese traditional culture very much and hopes to contribute to the spread of traditional culture.

"I also hope that in the next Winter Paralympics, Xue Rongrong can send warmth to the athletes and inspire them to achieve better results."