Starting my Design Process

Face Studies

I started off wanting to have my Shinigami to have a strong Asian look to him using traditional Thai artworks and religious figures to work from. However, because of this I felt like I was restricting my design process so I expanded to look at other monster and creatures designs.

I also wanted to explore symbolism associated with death. So I took a look at the Crow bird and played around with that too. I felt my designs here weren't changed enough from the original bird so I left that idea.

Left; Thai and monster based designs
Right; Crow based designs

Left;I tried to pull back into the Asian theme but I couldn't get it to flow
Right; I started playing with skulls (another symbol of death) but I felt it might have been too obvious. 

I ended up building on the design of the last drawings. I like the blank look on his face and how it gives a sense of no emotion. This is me communicates that there is nothing after death.