There’s something unsettling about combining softness with something that shouldn’t belong. Cherry blossom- delicate, fleeting and a serpent- quiet, otherworldly (I mean snakes ARE creepy). This design started exactly from that contrast. I didn’t want to make another floral pattern. Sakura is everywhere , don 't get me wrong , I love sakura patterns but they can get predictable . So I started thinking about how to disrupt it. What if something moved through it? So

Recently I finished a new kimono design with kitsune theme. I don't really like drawing foxes, they always seem to me like something between a cat and a dog and it's hard to make them look like A FOX, not a dog with bad proportions...(but I think I managed here?) After finished the foxes outlines I added plum branches and started figuring out what else could be on this kimono. I went with - flames and smoke, bamboo, coins and maple and gingko leaves. Everything in warm color

And one more doll, this time without nihongami so if was much easier (simpler hairstyles are much easier to make). The idea was a street-fashionista nekomata. I made her pink furisode with white juban and haneri printed with camellia flowers. Her obi is made of a scrap of a vintage fabric. I gave her slightly round face, with wider nose and bigger upper lip. Originally I wanted her to have pink hair but her face wasn’t looking right with it so I went with vivid red ❤️

It took me a month but I made the Rokurokubi I really wanted to make. Rokurokubi are my 2nd favorite yokai, and I was really curious if I can make a doll based on this creature. It turned out more difficult than I expected - keeping the proportions of the body looking good when the neck is as long as the body was quite a challenge 😅 but I think I managed to make her look good. I gave her a neutral face expression, silk hair and a kimono printed with bamboo, sakura and pine.