21 Tara's and Vajrapani

I have been working on two pieces lately: an image of the 21 Tara's and the protector demon Vajrapani.
The 21 Tara's are actually 22: the main one in the middle is not included. All have a little image of their spiritual father Amitabha in their crown, fully detailed but only visible when you zoom in. So that makes for 44 highly detailed images and a whopping 77 MB file. Only vectors, mind you.

Vajrapani is the protector of the naga's you see in the lower area. They eventually will have different colours; I will also add water ripples and a little island for the dharma wheel in the middle. This wheel is a reference to the Buddhist teachings, of which Vajrapani is the protector.
In case you wonder what the rainy clouds are doing up there: the naga's control the weather - both rain and drought.

Both are still works in progress, of course.

WOW!!! Feather tool on the flames applied to a second lighter shape?

First I used an elliptical fill from bright yellow > orange > dark red over the entire flame structure.
Step 2: for each flame, I drew a separate form with a bright red, with linear transparancy from the top of the flame inwards (mostly down/left).
Last step: I cloned the form from step 2, filled it with bright yellow, feathered it and used a linear transparency as in the bright red.

Played a bit with the transparency settings to make the flames not too equal.

There's a lot of flames ;)

Here are two versions (white and blue) of the naga's. Still working on the gold on the garments and the snake details.

OMG, hats off, i can't stop looking at it, could you share the final image once you finish it? Thanks, keep the good work.

Thanks Turok, will keep you in the loop!

Absolutely stunning!

Your style looks so familiar, then I looked on your Facebook page and noticed Lama Yeshe mentioned, so I guess I may have seen some of your works in the Samye lineage?

You might. I really like the clearness of lines and the strong colours of the lineage. Although the Newari style of thangkas can be also very beautiful, it is a little too soft for me.