Nine-headed Dragon God of Hakone Shrine

A poser showing a nine-headed dragon spirit emerging underneath the torii gate of Hakone shrine which stands in water. The title on the poster reads 'Great Nine-Headed Dragon God' with a subheading 'Hakone Shrine', which is written both in English and in Japanese.
Media: Digital illustration and layout.

There’s a lot of my illustrations which can be used as posters and so on, though it sometimes means a bit of rearranging and reworking the original. This is exactly what’s happened to this image; I needed to make some amends in order to get the image to be the format I wanted. This is also why I enjoy working digitally, and working in layers, as it allows me to move things around and even scale up and alter some elements here and there. That said, I was really pleased with how the original (see below) was, but I’m actually loving this version more.

The poster is dedicated to the the local legend surrounding Hakone Shrine. According to the folklore a nine-headed dragon that tormented the nearby village. Hakone shrine’s chief priest used his magical powers to change the dragon into a nine-headed protective spirit.

This poster is available as prints in my InPrnt shop. There you can also find other Japanese landscapes and landscapes.

A digital painting of the torii gate of Hakone shrine standing in water. A nine headed dragon spirit breach the surface of the water underneath the torii gate. The image is painted digitally with watercolour textures in a colour palette consisting of blues, purples, pinks, with yellow and white accents.
Media: Digital.

Almost a year after painting the initial Hakone shrine painting, I wanted to revisit the image, but I wanted to add a bit of a twist to it; merging it with the folklore connected to the shrine. Hakone shrine is a Shinto shrine is hidden away in the forest close to Lake Ashi, but one of its torii gates stands in the lake itself.

If you’d like a print of this image it is available in my print shop.