This is my first portrait, a personal project I did to study the lights and shadows on skin, hair and background and also to study the hair texture and light. I've always done my illustrations with lines, so this was also my first portrait without lines.
I wanted to do a different pose, a pose that would stand out, instead of doing a basic stand up. I particularly enjoyed doing the hair texture and strands of hair and the shadows on the skin.
I love Japanese culture and it is something that is always on my mind when I do illustrations, so most of my illustrations are influenced by Japanese culture, specially mythology, deities and akumas.
Her tattoo, read as "Shinigami", means the "God of death. " I wanted to portray a fierce look that would suit her title as the Goddess of death. This was set to be the front page of a manga horror series, called Tomie, in honor of Junji Ito, a widely known horror manga artist and writer.
For the cover, I also created the title typography. This typography was inspired by the asian clouds from the famous Ukiyo-e Japanese art genre. I've always been amazed by Ukiyo-e paintings since I was very little so, this was to pay tribute to this amazing genre.