After sitting on this one for 4 or 5 months I decided to give a crack at colouring this, as it has been a while since I have coloured anything digitally.  The colour scheme I used is a bit different then my usual palette as it is a bit more muted and earthy.  I thought at first the colours I had chosen would be to complicated and make the illustration even more complicated, rendering it muddled and unreadable.  This, however, was not the case, as I think I lets everything have its own space and quadrant, while the yellow/gold and blue pulling it in together.  I also did some experimenting with the design by adding a sort of musculature “ghost” overtop of the kings face to try but ultimately abandoned it as, I thought, although it added to the creepy element, it ended up covering up much of the design and distracting.

A rejected version of the King of the Dead in which a musculature "ghost" is added overtop

Here is the original ink drawing so you can see the detailed pen work I did by hand before colouring on Photoshop.  You can see some of the process and the steps that went into drawing by clicking the image or HERE.  Also the original 9 x 12″ ink drawing is for sale in the STORE.

Micron pen illustration of the king of the dead with a crown of bone, moths, ravens, maggots, abandoned castles, and planets