I love expressing my feelings through art, I love how I can effectively say anything and my family just pass it off as ‘art’ without digging too deep into the meanings behind my designs. It’s a safe way to get my feelings out, no pressure or fear. This is the reason I designed my own take on the Grim Reaper, and I decided to share the thoughts behind what I made.
So, the first thing I wanted to do is make the Grim Reaper female. Classically, the Grim Reaper is usually male. But to me, at the time I designed this character, death seems like a comforting relief from the chaos of life (I’m not being suicidal, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about), so a female version seems to fit better with what I’m trying to express.
I gave her pale skin and a dark robe to liken her to the traditional depictions of the Grim Reaper.
She stands with her arms open wide, welcoming lost souls which move towards her (there aren’t any spirits in the model because I ran out of space, so I guess they’re invisible).
Her mask covers the upper half of her face in a creepy skull design, but if you look under the mask, she is beautiful and smiling. Her eyes have white pupils and irises on black. This point is a bit of a stretch, but if the eyes are the window to the soul, then her eyes are filled with lost souls and this is represented by the light in the darkness.
On the underside of her scythe, making it hard to see, is written ‘soon’, this is both a promise and a warning, depending on who reads it.
She is, perhaps, a little macabre, but I think she perfectly represents how I view the concept of death right now.