Wings of the Phoenix

 Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week or so, but I have a very good excuse.  First part of the excuse being the AMAZING new Dynasty Warriors 8; such a good game but damn it for being so good it takes up much of my free time.  Other excuse being that I've been working on finishing this illustration:

Not the character you'd expect to have such a tattoo, but it just makes her all the more interesting as a protagonist.

  Productive use of time?  I'd say so!  :D

 Explanation of the symbols and then a walkthrough of the WIP after the jump:



 When putting together the plans for DevilSaint, once I'd established that Amanda Owens came from Japanese heritage, I'd planned for her to have a full back tattoo... had tossed some concepts around, but hadn't really come up with anything solid until now.  Having gotten a few IRL tattoo design commissions behind me definitely helped as well.

 So, for the breakdown of specific symbols in the tattoo's design:
1- The phoenix was an obvious choice, as the Nemesis Deity is one.
2- The Rising Sun haloed behind the phoenix's head doesn't need explaining. :B
3- The Magatama on the wings are supposed to look like smooth-polished (not faceted) diamond, which is Amanda's birthstone.
4- The kanji on the hanging charms mean "justice" and "wrath," matching what her Deity stands for.
5- The gold symbols on the ends of the streamers are the Yamazaki family crest (Yamazaki being her mother's maiden name).
6- The flowers on her right hip are the Sweet Pea and Daisy, her birth flowers (Sweet Pea is the one for April in the UK, where her dad's from, whereas the Daisy is the one the rest of the world uses for that month).

Now for the WIP!

 The planning phase.  Just putting together the ideas and composition; pretty much just the basics at this point.

Not a whole lot to look at... yet.

 The final draft:  At this point, I'd solidified the phoenix's design, and was working out the other elements of the composition.  Just had placeholders for the flowers, as more research was needed (flowers really aren't my forte, lol)

The pose and even hairstyle ended up being different on the final version.

 The draft for the flower section.  This took perhaps as much time as the entire rest of the picture.

Flowers are hard lol.

 Inking everything.  At the point of this picture, I was putting in the layer with the flowers and the wind bars.  Also note a few other changes and additions from the "final" draft.

I still ended up just freehanding the wind bars on the final version.  Whatevs.

Where I'd left off for a while, while trying to figure out a color scheme for the phoenix.

Though I guess it still could've been cool to leave the bird uncolored...

 And then, as they say, the rest was history!  Feel free to add comments below or where I've put this illustration up on my DeviantArt page.

 Have a great day!