Unicorn

The Unicorn gallops across his wild domain, confident in his security. No evil creature can approach him, and hungry wild animals are too wise to consider him prey. He only stops to socialize with the gentle fey of the forest. In exchanfe for their friendship, the Unicorn approaches their wounded and ill, and touches them with his horn, which glows with healing light.


This one's a pretty tough creature, considering it's thought of as pretty girly. If you're a typical party, you're more likely to find yourself allied with it that against it. And if you're an evil party you're going to have a difficult time catching it, because it'll sense you before you notice it and teleport to some other part of the forest.

Picture requested by a user of the Giant In The Playground forums.

I like the idea that the original idea for the unicorn came from mutations that happen naturally in nature, for example albino deer, or one-horned goats and bucks.

Feature on Kobold Quarterly! (also Guest Week news)

Oh daaaaang, yo. Look who's artwork is on the Kobold Quarterly site.


We got comissioned to do two illustrations for a new race, the Roachlings, featured in Kobold Quartlerly's 4e adventure setting, Courts of the Shadow Fey. They are a filthy people of half-roach, half-man, primarily living in the most disgusting urban environments. They are sneaky and numerous, and so accustomed to living in filth that disease and poison have little to no effect on them.

Special thanks to Chad Middleton for comissioning us, and Wolfgang Baur (publisher) and Scott Gable (web editor).



And on another note, starting the 10th of January we are going to be having a GUEST WEEK, where we'll be posting monsters as interpreted by seven taleneted artists. It's gon' be good.

Valkyrie

These are the maidens of battle, towering above mortal man, born from the spilled blood of war gods. On their steeds the Valkyries are part of the endless battles of the Heroic Domains of Ysgard, or fly over earthly wars in search of great warriors. Their eyes always crackle with lightning, as do their swords. They know no cruelty, but they also know no mercy.


There are actually two entries for the Valkyrie creature in the books of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. The first is a storm-wielding woman of fury with wings and hooves, and the second one is essentially a celestial level 20 Paladin. I liked aspects of both (the lightning of the first and the steed of the second) and decided to combine them into a single image.

This image is dedicated to Wolfgang Baur, publisher of the D&D/Pathfinder magazine Kobold Quarterly, who requested this creature.

Choker

It is assumed by those who study such things that Chokers (so called for their fondness for hanging from rafters and using their long, flexible appendages to catch unsuspecting passers-by) are, as with many monsters, a product of some ancient wizard's attempt to create a deadly minion. Their progenitor long-forgotten, these creatures now populate the cold and dark places of many worlds, hiding in caverns and dungeons in wait for foolish adventurers.

As requested by Daigle, of the Kobold Quarterly forums! Something of a low-level staple, Chokers are a simple but effective incentive to get new players rolling spot and listen checks every time they enter a room. Again, this was inked by hand then coloured on the computer. I think it could do with being a bit more graphic. Oh well!

Marzanna

The Marzanna appears as an old woman, frostbite-blue and dressed in torn rags of animal hide. Despite its relatively humanoid appearance, the Marzanna is far beyond human - viewed by villagers as a personification of death and winter, she wanders the snowy wastes, tricking stray travellers and feasting on their cold flesh. Tales tell that if you can trick a Marzanna, you can fool death himself.

Merry belated christmas! Both our monsters this week come from the Frostburn book, something of a nod towards the fiendishly chilly climes we currently find ourselves in. Hags are some cool creatures, and the Marzanna is one of my favourites. The name actually comes from an old Russian goddess of winter which in some parts of the world is still venerated each year by burning, then "drowning" her effigy to bring winter to an end. Cool, huh? My picture this week is sort of special in that the inking was actually done with a pen by hand. I still used photoshop to comp it all together but I think i need to at least start more stuff by hand! Using a computer still feels like the quick-and-easy route. Maybe that can be my new years' resolution!

Snow Weird

The Snow Weird is a diviner hailing form the Elemental Plane of Air. Her face is so bright it can't be looked at, and her whirling lower body tapers to pool of rumbling snow. She's is able to predict fortune and destruction, much like an Earth Weird. However, she's more powerful and fickle than her stony counterpart. She sometimes decides to surround her territory in snowstorms and whirlwinds for the sake of it, regardless of who may get trapped in them.

Enjoy your winter-related festivities, y'all.

Fire Giant

The Fire Giants are the second smallest of the true giants, next to the oafish Hill Giant, but they don't share their cousin's low intellect. They're a highly organized people, merciless, militaristic, and almost always at war with their neighbours. Their invulnerability to fire leads them to make lairs in volcanoes and use flaming weaponry.


Special treat! A (kinda) animated post!

This was animated in After Effects, which is something I sometimes have trouble coming to grips with. I'm more used to using more traditional methods or Flash. Hopefully there'll be more animated posts in the future. Hopefully they'll be GIFs because this whole having to upload a video thing is pretty tiresome.

Edit:

Also an image, because the quality of that video isn't what it could be.

Rust Monster

The Rust Monster is a squat quadrupedal creature covered in thick chitin of a dirty orange colour. It gets its name from its diet - the two long antennae protruding from beneath its eyes are capable of instantly rusting and disintegrating any and all metals they come into contact with, even those with magical enhancements. The Rust Monster then proceeds to devour the oxidised scraps which are its main food source.

The Rust Monster is an infamous creature and the bane of many an adventurer - that nice, shiny new +2 enhancement sword of impaling you picked up in the last dungeon? Disintegrated in seconds. The funny part is the creature itself isn't even that strong. Trying to go for a more gouache-ish effect in this one. As requested by /tg/!

Defacer

A Defacer is an undead creature formed when the spirit of a shapechanging creature, such as a Doppelganger, is animated by a necromancer. Most ordinary creatures, once risen in such a way, will generally keep the form they held in life. Shapechangers, however, barely having a definite form or identity to start with, are brought back as dark, blank, faceless creatures, and their utter absence of identity compels them to "steal" the faces of those around them, a horrific ability which leaves the victim's face featureless. The many faces they "collect" in this way swim about their body, keening frightfully.

Been working a lot in what I guess would be called pixelart lately, essentially eschewing anti-aliasing of any kind and getting down and dirty with each individual pixel. It's really satisfying, it actually feels a lot to me like painting but there's a really nice, economic feel to it because you can only get so much detail in, every pixel has to be in the right place. anyway, another quick one this week, I'm actually a week behind now so I'll probably be doing another one tomorrow!

Violet Fungus

The Violet Fungus is a man-sized, flesh-eating mushroom that primarily dwells in subterranean caverns. The mushroom can move, albeit very slowly. It's common to find it living among patches of another variety of predatory mushroom, the Shrieker, which can attract prey by emitting a sound like a person or animal in danger. This lures them within striking range of the Violet Fungus' poisoned tentacles.


Yup, plants can be enemies in D&D. You're never really safe. This is another request, suggested by Slagger the Chuul of the Wizards of the Coast forums.

Century Worm

The Century Worm is a rare giant creature that can appear in any part of the world. It's a mindless creature, uncontrollable, born to eat and moves across the landscape making deafening screeching noises. It's large enough to swallow a horse whole, and anything it eats will be broken down by more than stomach acid; the Century Worm's stomach carries millions of its young.

This creature is one of the more high-level encounters, where a character needs to be at Conan levels of strength and Merlin levels of magic. It's a pretty slow creature, so it's always possible to run away.

Couatl

The Couatl is a legendary winged snake native to warm forests. They are highly magical and innately good, making them excellent creatures to run into in most situations (unless you happen to be evil). High-level spellcasters have Summon Couatl available to them as a spell, which, if learnt, can be used to greatly bolster the magical power of any band of adventurers.

Couatl, is, of course, a reference to the mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, who (typical of aztec gods) has some really cool primitive artwork of him. I took inspiration from the colours commonly used to depict him (green/blue) but otherwise tried to do something a little more abstract. Also drawing lots of feathers takes a long time D: This weeks' monsters were both requests, this one being the request of giantitp.com forum user Serpentine.