"Santa Muerte" -- line art in pen on paper, colored digitally in Corel Painter on Intuos 3 tablet. *Full view highly recommended. ^_^
Personification of Santa Muerte (Saint Death, Holy Death) or Mictecacihuatl, Aztec goddess of the underworld, whom the roots of the modern day celebration of "Dia de los Muertos" (Day of the Dead) can be traced back to. Done for the Enchanted Visions Project's October 2011 theme "Dia de los Muertos". After the summer hiatus, EV is back with a new monthly theme.
I don't know why the supposedly "Halloween" theme ended up with "Dia...". Many of the EV artists felt this was a rather "closed" and "restrictive" theme, including myself. I decided to research the history of the Day of the Dead celebration in order to find some kind of inspiration rather than merely presenting a pretty, Catrina-inspired, skull-painted face.
Once I decided on "Santa Muerte" figure, I pretty much had my mind made up to go with mostly white for the color scheme of this piece, rather than doing what's expected and predictable for dark pieces -- black.
*The print version will not have any watermark (not mine, not dA's), of course.