Beneath the Waves: The Empress

The Empress character for the Beneath the Waves Artstation challenge. Had a real blast with this lady! I tried to imagine, what if the Zora were horrifying, and based on the matriarchal nature of angler fish? Then styled via Edo Japan? This character formed herself fairly quickly, and heavily influenced this project as a whole for me. Had a great time with her gill-sleeves! I wanted her to look matronly, a bit scary, a bit friendly.

I based these creatures on deep sea angler fish, in both physiology and social structure. Using the geographical location of the Mariana Trench, I imagined this deep sea society would have outfitted themselves based on clothes and patterns lost in shipwrecks off the coast of Edo period Japan.