This illustration depicts a demoness and a snake, heavily inspired in the Japanese yōkai Hannya mask, as well as her story and aesthetics.

It is essentially about unfairness, and about how mistreatment in all or any form can turn us and eventually make us into demons.

This is not so much about our internal willpower, I believe that even the strongest-willed person can turn ugly if they are mistreated or abused enough.

Scroll down to read more details about the symbology I included.

Can be found as "Hannya", plus your preferred color keywords.

These are the colors I made so far, click to go to the art prints:

Gothic Black Red	Original	Bloody White Goth	Bloody Gothic
Pastel Black	Purple Blue	White Goth Purple	Pastel Goth
White Gold	Black and White	White Goth Red	Cream
Vaporwave	Cyan Gold

The symbology on this one is quite specific:

The Hannya face/mask: As you may already know, a hannya is a vengeful spirit, it’s a woman who transformed into a demon out of jealously, despair or rage, after being betrayed or wronged in a terrible way.

In the collar I represented what I believe are the biggest and worst forms of mistreatment:
1. Disrespect (Center: Heart/Soul), everything else stems from this.
2. Being constantly judged and criticized (Left: Tongue)
3. Being tricked, gaslighted, manipulated or lied to. (Left: The trickster kitsune with the mask)
4. Injustice, inequality and double standards, by family, society or law (Right: Scales)
5. Physical Violence, self-explanatory (Right: Skull with Dagger)

The sea snake: This represents my ideal, because contrary to many overly-diplomatic people I have no filter or patience left: Sea snakes are among the most venomous animals in the world, some argue they are the most venomous of all. Conversely, sea snakes are among the least aggressive animals, they only may bite when cornered, scared or grabbed, and even then they may not inject any venom, like many of they land-counterparts, they are not interested in harming, they just want to be left alone to live their lives.

They are beautiful, they are calm and at peace with the world around them, but they are also not to be messed up with. To me, this is made this beautiful creature the perfect symbol of what a person should strive to be, particularly women.

To be clear and to separate the vengeful part of the Hannya from my own thoughts, it is not that I condone revenge, not that, but I do believe in setting the foot down fast and early in the face of mistreatment and disrespect. Because enough is enough.

I believe that the biggest elephant in the room regarding most mistreatment of women in the world comes down to an utter an complete lack of respect towards women as sentient, intelligent, and capable human beings, from men to women, and from women to women, a lot of the time there is just no sense of respect and that is the first thing that needs to change before everything else improves.

Process

As you can see from the sketches, I can’t say that it turned out 100% as I was hoping to, aesthetically, I actually like the first sketches a lot more, but that’s what happens some times even in art, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

It turned out a little strange, but I think and hope some people will still appreciate it.

Art thieves are at large

My illustrations, designs and even mockups are constantly being stolen by less than human scum that put it for sale on their Etsy, Amazon, Temu, Aliexpress shops and other places. Hence my watermarks are getting bigger, because they have even cut my mockups or blurred my signatures.

Please help me by not posting my artwork anywhere without signatures, credit or links.

Thank you! 🖤