2011. Photoshop CS5 + Wacom Intuos4.

No reference used except for the hooded crow, the skull and the sword.

Finally! This piece took me forever! :O
This is my entry for Exotique 7, a special book that gathers the best digital character design. I was inspired by Aibhill, one of the most famous banshees of Celtic legends: she appeared in Brian Boru's dream before an important battle, while she was washing some bloody clothes until the clear water turned into red.

I preferred to add a Celtic/liberty frame instead of keeping just the character with a background, because I think it's more personal (at least, it's my latest "trend" to give an art nouveau mood to my pieces) than the billions fantasy character design you can find everywhere. Anyway, it helped me a lot about composition because I could add some symbolic details on the four corners: a silver comb (some legends tell about silver combs left on the ground, as symbols of a banshee presence), a hooded crow (they usually appear into this animal form), a skull (they portend death), and a sword (usually the ones about to die are warriors).
Ok, I don't like to explain a lot about my artworks, so I let you guess and interpret...^_^
Enjoy!