With August around, I’ve been seeing a lot of 30 day challenges for art, so I made my own. Each day I will draw a black and white image of a yokai from Japanese mythology. Today was the Gashadokuro, named so for the sound of rattling bones it makes (gashi gashi). A little tidbit about Japanese mythos: Purity is a huge part of it. When something becomes impure it turns into a yokai. You actually see this in some anime like Inuyasha. Anything can become a yokai, animals, humans, even objects.

Gashadokuro forms in time of plague, famine, or war, when there are too many bodies left around to purify (cremate). As the bodies rot, the souls trapped begin to develop feelings of hatred and malice. Enough of them collect together to form a giant skeleton who stalks the countryside. If they find anyone, they will usually kill them by biting their head off or by squishing them between their hands. They are far too big to be taken out with combat, so the way they die is to let the malice burn itself out.

You can read more about this and other yokai at http://yokai.com/gashadokuro/