·:[ Rusty Innards ]:·
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A week or two ago, my sister-in-law flew in for an impromtu visit. While I mananged to dodge trips to hollywood and shopping excursions, I did tag along for a visit to La Jolla’s children’s pool to get a peek at the seals.  I love watching these guys..There’s so much character and variation among each individual. This tubby fellow would take a gander up at me every now and again, only to plop his head back down when he realized just how exceedingly uninteresting I am.

Zoo sketching is one of my favorite pastimes, so it was only fitting I spent my birthday doing just that.  Being my birthday, I felt I was entitled to cheat a bit and I went ahead and decided I wasn’t going to deal with anything that moves.  With that said, I bring to you a Caribbean rock iguana and a Galapagos tortoise.  Don’t give me that look…It was my birthday, I’m entitled to be lazy with my subject matter.

Here’s a forgotten sketch from my book, done during a roadtrip to visit my folks.  Another dinosaur, this time a Tyrannosaur; I decided to play around a bit with it, giving it a fleshy comb and a dewlap.  I image the males sport the dewlaps and nose-combs, which flush red with blood during the mating season to attract females.  Extinct creatures are always a joy to draw, as you can go a bit wild with ideas like a chicken’s comb on a T. Rex. This is one of the reasons I find paleo-art so fun… It’s life-drawing injected with fantasy-esque creativeness.  It’s a perfect blend of wildlife art and fantasy concepting.

A fun little sketch of a Lambeosaurus, done from the life-sized sculpture at the San Diego Natural History Museum.  On a related note, there happened to be a Robert Bateman art show in the Museum’s gallery while I was there..Really awesome stuff, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to catch it.

The subject of today’s weekly zoo trip, you ask?

Birds.

Specifically the Western Burrowing Owl, the African Open-Billed Stork, and one rather massive, foul-smelling California Condor.

Those who know me can verify that my fascination with dinosaurs did not wither away around the third grade, as that fascination has a tendency to do with children.  Thanks to illustrators like James Gurney and William Stout, my wide-eyed enthusiasm for the prehistoric only grew over time;  This page from my sketchbook is testament to that fact.  This is hopefully the first (since grade school, at least) of many forays into the world of paleo-art.

I happened across these forgotten-thumbnails of mine while sifting through some sketchbooks. They’re essentially the thought-process behind the Dune Walker insect on my main site. The idea was to design a large “beast of burden” bug that a society used specifically as a type of “armored transport” for goods. My first ideas revolved around large, bulky, beetle like bugs, who’s carapaces might be sculpted and crafted into little “turrets” to store grain and what have you.

This idea bounced around quite a bit before settling on the stilt-legged bug in the upper right-hand corner…Essentially a creature with highly specialized forelimbs that are fused together to form a carrying tray of sorts that it tucks against it’s body. The tail and lilliputian wings that are seen here and in the final design are clues to this creature’s evolutionary path from airborne dragonfly to silt-striding desert beast. I imagine these creatures are sexually dimorphic, with the males appearing much smaller and more dragonfly like. During mating season, the sails on the backs of the females would turn bright red, flushed with blood, and would signal to the much-smaller, airborne males that it’s reproduction time.

Here’s a link to the final design of the female. Enjoy. As for me, I’m off to design it’s flying male counterpart..

Here’s the work-in-progress shot of the lovecraftian gribbly critter I’m working on. I’ll have an update on it a bit later, hopefully finished up, with more info in that post.

“Azers are dwarves native to the elemental plane of fire. They have metallic, brass-colored skin, and flames lick their heads where a normal dwarf would have hair and a beard. They wear kilts of brass, bronze, or copper.”I felt like tying this fellow back to his historical roots by giving him some Persian-inspired swords, seeing as “Azer” is the Persian word for “fire.” I think I’m going to be revisiting these guys in the future, too..There’s so many cool ideas when it comes to a creature made of fire and metal..Apothecaries with smithing hammers and tools to mend the dents out of wounded soldiers, an Azer Lord covered in tattoos that have been chiseled into his metal hide, and super-soldiers with additional brass armor welded to their bodies.

There’s just so much potential for interesting designs with these things. For now though, on to “B.”

I always envisioned Liches as condescending, oozing with contempt for the living and overly vain.  That said, I was never a fan of the “I’m a skeleton/zombie in robes” Liches of the old D&D days.  These things have more respect for themselves and are far to concerned with their perceived importance in the world to let their faces reflect their inner corruption.  Hence, the death-masks…A sad attempt for these horrible undead to hold on to some semblance of their humanity.

I’m planning on revisiting the humanoid mask idea in the current Lovecraft monster idea I’m working on.  The beast’s followers, in a desperate attempt to understand and connect with the thing, forged masks, jewelry and other items for their perverse god..Sort of a reversal of the traditional “god creating in his image” story.