The background of the piece originated from Tomie, a Japanese manga series written and
illustrated by Junji Ito. Junji Ito is an extremely popular manga artist for his distinct style of
horrific biological horror, and detailed line work. He was a former dental technician before
making his debut in the 1980s with his work Tomie, and left the industry to pursue his art
full-time. Tomie is centered around a vindictive, manipulative woman named Tomie who seduces men with her beauty to the point they dismember her or slaughter her in unusual methods. Every time a piece is cut off, another Tomie emerges, creating an appalling cycle of violence.
The process of making the piece took about two hours and I used a digital application
called Procreate and I used a digital sketch pencil to lay out the anatomical structure of Tomie
with circular shapes place holding the skull and the joints, rectangular shapes form the rib cage
and arms. I place guidelines on the head to properly locate where the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth
should fall. The line art process used a free anime digital brush pack that featured a stabilized,
weighted version of Procreate’s studio pen with the thickest lines on the facial features that I
wanted to be the focal point of the piece, meaning where I want the viewer’s eyes to be drawn to
at first glance. The thinner lines are used to create tinier details, specifically the hair stands,
stretch of the epidermis, and outline. Coloring the piece is an easy task due to the three color
nature of the character. I blended rosiness in parts of her skin to soften the piece and shaded with
red tones, little, delicate highlights are peppered throughout the piece.
What inspired me to create this piece was childhood nostalgia. The first piece I read from
Junji Ito was Uzumaki in middle school. The amount of finer line work and anatomical horror
left me amazed and absolutely captivated. I only started reading multiple Japanese horror manga
from him in 2023 which led me to his most popular work, Tomie. The concept of beauty and
male gluttony towards it which led to destruction was a simple one yet extremely powerful
through every short story in the works. I created this piece with love and admiration for the
deeper message and how he wove it through his materials and words.