I got Honneky this month for the Creature-exchange!

1 - What parts of your prompt were written well and easy to understand? Was there anything the writer of the prompt could improve on or include next time they create a prompt?

This was the prompt. It was very open-ended, and I ended up having two completely different ideas for it that I ended up making into one character. Originally I tried to keep the dragon to the tattoo on his back, but in the end I felt I hadn't filled enough of the prompts given so I added the dragon form.

2 - Please explain how you interpreted the prompt to create your design. Which features did you use? Did you stick to the chosen palette or make changes to it? Does the design you created have any special abilities or quirks?

As soon as I saw yakuza I knew what I was doing. I love the rich history of the yakuza and all its legal and illegal dealings, and I especially love the tattoos that several yakuza members have. I was going to do a full body one, but in the end I decided on a younger member with only a back piece so far (it would actually end about mid thigh but I didn't wanna draw him buck naked so lol), with a Japanese dragon tattoo. I didn't really give him much for accessories otherwise, and was going to have that be the entirety of this piece, but with clothes on he's not really discernible from many other Japanese characters.

Thus, the mizuchi form, a type of Japanese water dragon. I based many design elements on the kumonryu koi, which are scaleless and can have very orca-like markings - a very striking black and white coloration - plus they can change markings many times throughout their lives (which means never having to worry about drawing his markings the same way twice lol). He looked too plain just black and white with the gold feet and horns though, so I added the bright orange found in a lot of other koi.

Whether he's a mizuchi that was enslaved by the yakuza, or a human that was gifted (or cursed) with the power to turn into a mizuchi, or a curious mizuchi who hides among humans as one of their own, there's a lot of fun to be had with him, I think!

As a side note, this took me 20 hours pen-to-tablet time, and I don't know how many hours researching, gathering references, and just sitting in front of the computer trying to figure out what I was going to do next haha. My boyfriend is very upset I have to give this guy up, but that just means I did a good job making an interesting design, right? :D

Also whoops the working size of this was 28" x 18" >_>;;;