Every year, I paint the same two characters to see how my design, style and skill change. They’re my two favorite characters and I find them to be a fantastic benchmark. The two have had many names over the years, but today we’re talking about Liyanna.

I imagine her to be the head of an organized crime ring, acting primarily as the brains of the operation. When things go wrong however, she proves that she’s both brains and brawn. That’s the feel i tried to get across in this illustration.

I played with some dynamic lights for her, giving her a super light side contrasted with an extremely dark section, pushing both further than I’m comfortable with in other paintings, then also adding multiply and glow dodge layers on top of both to push them even further. That, plus a chromatic aberration effect pushed it into being just the right flavor of unsettling.

The peacock feathers are to give her a sense of exoticism and wealth. I intentionally emphasized the thin strands along the sides, making them sharp, jagged and uneven to add to the unsettling and uncomfortable nature of the piece.

This piece pushed me in ways that were super fun and I loved the results. I’ve definitely learned a couple new tricks from it, and I want to try pushing them in new directions. Fun stuff for the future!