Semnurv

Semnurvs are intelligent magical beasts who fiercely serve as champions for goodness and law. They have the appearance of a large dog with enormous, colourful wings in place of forepaws, using them to swoop down on enemies from great heights.

Semnurvs (or Simurghs), far from their rather... furaffinity.net interpretation in D&D, are actually a genuine mythical creature from iranian folklore, which makes sense as they fit into the whole "winged mammals" thing that you get quite a lot in the middle east (sphinxes, lamassus etc). Persian myth, as with every other moderately obscure folkloric tradition, has some pretty interesting nuggets in there if you're prepared to look!

Fairly quick one this week, as I still have another to catch up on to bring me up to date. I used a combination of Paint Tool Sai and Photoshop. The first time I used a tablet to draw was using the old Painter Classic when I was a kid, and Sai's a similar sort of thing. Even though paint programs like that are obviously never going to be quite as charming as the real life painting they're trying to emulate, the physical feel of the colour is still really fun. It's nice how colour mixes and drags in ways that you don't get in photoshop. I want to be able to do more sophisticated painting in the program but I started off with something pretty basic and graphic.

We were busy at last weekend's Birmingham MCM Expo and we're gearing up to exhibit at the main London MCM this May! Dungeons & Drawings are working on some big things right now, so if you're in London or even in England at all, do consider dropping by, we'd love to say hi.

- Joe

PS his head is modeled off a Borzoi, which I think is a particularly awesome-looking breed of dog.