A tribute to episode 19 of Bleach, which was very meaningful to me. It represents one of my deepest held beliefs: accelerated growth through crash course evolution; finding one's inner strength by testing one's limits, often in risky and drastic ways; knowing that in the end we face all things alone, and have no one to save us but ourselves. Ichigo went through such a trial. He was thrown into a pit in a race of time against his soul being devoured by a mindless hollow (evil spirit). For more on this, read/look at the whole drawing.

Though I am kinda annoyed/disappointed by the background of the whole picture, I am very proud of the way Ichigo himself turned out - the pose, the shading. It's very hard to see in the big picture, so I decided to include a close up.

Colored in Photoshop.