March Theme: Myths & Monsters
Studying art history, it quickly becomes clear that most artistic movements exist largely to rebel against and contradict whatever came before it. On an immensely smaller scale, I suppose that’s what’s happening here with me: after the saturated, vectored cuteness of the past month, I desperately need to do something a little more raw and dirty. What better way than dipping into mythology and folklore? Thus, March’s theme: Myths & Monsters. Most will likely be culled from this fascinating and extensive list; perhaps I’ll even be brave and draw some more beastly, animal ones. (Nonhuman anatomy isn’t my forte, exactly…)
March 1: Selkie
Selkies are seals that can shed their skin to become humans, usually women. (In fact, until reading the wiki article, I was under the impression that they were always women – I’ve never read a story of a male selkie, but perhaps I’m simply not looking hard enough…)
Playing with inks and tones. I’ve [...]
March 2: Kirin
A Qilin, or Kirin in Japanese, is (according to Wiki) “a mythical hooved Chinese chimerical creature known throughout various East Asian cultures”. There’s a lot of variation about what it looks like, so this is sort of a greatest hits collection – head of a dragon, antlers of a deer, scales of a fish, [...]
March 3: Gorgon
The best known Gorgon is Medusa, but there’re others! Of course, they can have all sorts of wacky features – wings, tusks – but I like to keep it simple.
Tones again; probably my most successful foray to date. I think all the stuff this month will be done with some inked basis; I [...]
March 4: Unicorn
Like many little girls, I had a thing for unicorns once. In fact, I only recently purged my room of a wall of unicorn figurines. I’m not sure where the obsession came from – actual horses held no interest whatsoever, and unicorns are just horses with a thing on their face.
Animal anatomy’s really [...]
March 5: Satyr
Okay, to be fair, it’s actually more of a faun, but in the later days of the mythology the two become fairly interchangeable. Going on names alone, “satyr” is just a fun word.
Nothing but inks today, as I liked them how they were.
March 7: Cerberus
Cerberus: the three-headed dog of Greek and Roman mythology, who guarded the gates of the underworld. (The three tails, as far as I know, don’t actually figure into the mythology; I just wanted to add them.) Let me tell you, if you’re iffy on animal anatomy, adding on extra heads doesn’t make it [...]
March 8: Yuki Onna
Yuki Onna – literally “snow woman” – is a Japanese yokai. Wikipedia: Yuki-onna appears on snowy nights as a tall, beautiful woman with long black hair and red lips. Her inhumanly pale or even transparent skin makes her blend into the snowy landscape. She sometimes wears a white kimono, but other legends describe her [...]
March 9: Changeling
A changeling: a faerie child left in the place of a human child. Unlike most of the drawings so far this month, this one isn’t based too heavily on Wikipedia (apart from the changeling’s apparent love of playing pipes), but rather on a book I read years and years ago. I can’t recall [...]
March 10: Cyclops
It’s a… cyclops.
Still playing with fake tones, still don’t think they’re quite right. Tips? Ideas?
March 11: Dryad
Dryads are tree nymphs; as near as I can tell, the traditional interpretation is pretty much just a pretty girl who hangs out with trees a lot, so this is a little more fantasy-game-inspired.
March 12: Kitsune
“Kitsune” is actually just the Japanese word for “fox”, but they have a place in folklore. They can certainly just have one tail, but may have as many as nine, and if I drew a fox with just one tail, it would be, you know… a fox.
March 13: Pegasus
Crimes against wing anatomy! Crimes against horse anatomy! I’m sorryyyyy. Mayhap I’ll follow this up with an angel and a centaur to repent.
For some reason, I find Wiki’s “Pedigree of Pegasus” hilarious. Not a lot of horses, fictional or otherwise, where you can go a couple of generations back on the [...]
March 14: Angel
Oh my god you guys, this is so boring. I should have done a badass fighting angel or an angel of death or SOMETHING, but no, I just did Glowy McHolypants here. Hindsight is 20-20.
But that’s not the point! The point was to prove I could draw functional wings! And even [...]
March 16: White Lady
A white lady is a certain type of female ghost, usually one of a woman who was spurned, or lost her children, or was murdered.
Hair is fun!
March 17: Leprechaun
I have trod this ground before.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This wasn’t on my original list for the month, but I’ll take an excuse to be mildly seasonal when I see one.
March 21 – Werewolf
WURRWALF.
I kind of hate this one. Just having one of those days where I feel like I’ve forgotten how to draw. Tomorrow’s another day.
March 22: Hobgoblin
Inspired more heavily than I meant it to be by Sandman’s incarnation of Puck, though not referenced directly.
SLEEP NOW.
March 23: Harpy
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Did the shading with a technique I read on Matthew Woodson’s blog approximately FOREVER ago, and sort of faintly remember, involving a lightbox, painting big solid blacks on the back of the original image, and mashing them together.
March 24: Dragon
I should’ve known I couldn’t do a whole month of mythological creatures without doing a dragon. Alas. A confession: I kind of hate dragons. I know, I know, somebody’s going to come and revoke my nerd license – the Nerd Certification Board probably already has me in their sights on account of [...]
March 25: Wendigo
Webcam photo. Away from home. Back on Sunday, when I’ll replace this with a better photo.
I am so tired right now; just read the wiki, okay?
March 26: Imp
My latest post yet, on account of the site being down last night, but it was done on time, really! Another webcam photo.
There’s really no legitimate mythological reason for him to be wearing a suit; I was just getting sick of ripped pants.
March 27: Phoenix
Only after I inked it did I realize it had no feet. Why yes, they ARE tacked on.
Tomorrow I can scan all the ones I webcam photo’d!
March 28: Naga
I realized only after I’d finished this that it probably owes more to Crowley of Good Omens (who is not a Naga at all, but is sort of a snake, I guess) than it does to any actual Naga lore.
March 29: Succubus
I didn’t even start this until like 2 AM because I was playing Pokemon. Because I am apparently 12.
Modern depictions of succubi tend to be super sexy, while traditionally they’re a lot scarier. I figured I’d split the difference and just leave the more important features to the imagination.
March 30: Minotaur
I was a bit iffy on this one, as it was sort of an unspoken rule of the month that I was going to stick to species of mythological entity rather than individuals, and the Minotaur was sort of a one-time thing, labyrinth and all. But hey, if I can’t break unspoken, self-imposed, arbitrary [...]
March 31: Cadejo
Another month done – to celebrate, here’s a twofer!
Wiki: The cadejo is a character from Belizean, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Costa Rican, Honduran, Guatemalan and southern Mexican folklore. There is a good, white cadejo and an evil, black cadejo. Both are spirits that appear at night to travellers: the white to protect them from [...]
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