Process: Amaterasu

Since I have already made enough research and sketches about the kami Amaterasu, goddess of the sun, I felt like I should start to make the final drawings. In this post I will explain and show some images of the process.

After my previous skecthes I chose the one that I liked the most and always keeping in mind the rest of the collection. This was my favourite:

The drawing took me about 4 to 5 hours to finalise since I had to be careful with the fine line. I tried to change the  fluency of the clothes so that it looks more light. As you can see, I also added a sword to the drawing. This happened because as I mentioned in previous posts I found out that one of the symbols connected to the kami is a sword:

After the fine line I started to paint the skin, taking special attetion to the face, and also the hair:

After letting it dry out, I started to paint the clothes and the sword:

Althought I had made a previous colour study, when I was doing the final outcome I decided to change the colours. This was the colour study:

And this is how I started to paint the clothes:

I liked the contrast between warm and cool colours. Therefore I decided to use this colour paletter for the entire dress:

After finishing the figure, I started to draw and paint the background:

For this I used the following image to help me:

Reference for the background

researched about japanese swords, which have shown to be slightly curved:

Reference for the sword

Although it is not of paramount importance for the work itself, I felt that this detail would give it more credibility. It took me a day and a half just to paint it. Since it was my first painting I was feeling very insecure and it took me more time than it should but at least I didn't have to do everything again.

Reflection about the process and outcome

I am quite hapy with the result. I wasn't expecting it would turn out this way, since it was my first time using watercolours on a final artwork and especially because it was a human figure.It took me a day and a half just to paint it. Since it was my first painting I was feeling very insecure and it took me more time than it should but at least I didn't have to do everything again.