For an assignment for a drawing class, we had to do a drawing based off of a piece of literature. I chose Edgar Allen Poe's "Dreamland" poem, which influenced my aesthetic for this piece.
The subject of the piece involves a funeral among a weird type of animal-people. This picture contains allusions to various funerary customs in various cultures. The black on their clothing alludes to Western funerary culture in which black is the color of mourning. Their faces are supposed to be a combination of Anubis and a human's face (again alluding the Egyptian funerary customs and beliefs). The vultures eating the corpse is an allusion to a funeral custom among certain Tibetan Buddhist monks, in which they leave the body out for the birds of prey to eat.
... and stuff.