Shaylee is a friend of mine who I ended up drawing this piece for. The funny thing is I don't think she has any particular interest in Japanese culture and so I'm always amused I took the piece in such a heavily Japanese centric direction. I think the real inspiration for this came from her having this short wild hair that I just felt like drawing and after I did, well the rest of the piece just sort of formed naturally.
She's a very free spirit so I purposefully made her kimono not as confined as your traditional kimono would be with it's many layers. The sleeves are inspired from that beautiful scene in House of Flying Daggers where the girl has those SUPER long sleeves and is able to manipulate things with them. While Shaylee's kimono doesn't have quite that ability I felt the overly long sleeves would add a nice touch. I plan on coloring this one hopefully sooner than later.