Verdant Prince

Verdant Princes are wily fey creatures who use guileful magic to manipulate themselves into positions of power. Uniquely, however, a Verdant Prince is endowed with the ability to swear a magical oath or geas (which it will typically engineer in its own favour) which compels a certain bargain to be kept. Both parties are affected by the spell equally - if the oath is broken, or someone fails to keep the agreement, the offending party suffers a hideous curse, wasting both body and mind, only ending when the target dies. Verdant Princes appear to use this ability generously, even wantonly, but they are nearly always acting out of self-interest, and remember that whenever one offers you something that seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I'm pretty fond of Faustian pacts in fiction and Verdant Princes provide a great example of this within the D&D system. The person to break the deal sustains a horrifying -6 penalty to all ability scores until the oath is somehow restored, and their "partner" is magically made constantly aware of the oathbreaker's whereabouts for the duration (you're looking at a Wish or Miracle to circumvent this, it's strong stuff). The lure is always there for a wily PC to engage the Prince in a Death Note-style battle of wits and bluffing, and if you come out on top you know you've got a pretty powerful fairy spirit under your thumb. But expect treachery from both creature and DM, as these things tend to end badly for the greedy. Oh well! You know what they say: "Lente, lente, curritae noctis equi!" Aheh... huh.

Check out the full-size image and this detail version, I think it looks way better than the smaller thumbnail. The shape of the horns where they meet the head reminds me of Midna, and I think I ripped this guy off subconsciously from a Dota2 character. Whoops! gg vevlo

Shimmerling Swarm

An individual shimmerling in a fairly unintelligent, harmless creature. Heck, a shimmerling swarm is a fairly unintelligent, harmless conglomeration of creatures.

Unless they're angry.

At first, the shimmerling swarm seems to be a cloud of pulsating rainbow light that can just about be seen between the trees. The light is strangely alluring. Hypnotic even. And it's not until you find yourself envelopped by that bright blinding light that you feel the sickening hum of vibrating insects wings and the splintery pain of tiny teeth and fingers biting any inch of exposed flesh they can find.

Fortunately, the shimmerlings primarily subsist on pollen. Which is yet another reason to leave the forest alone.

Here is my New Years-themed image, though perhaps you could say its more a wintery, Christmasy kind of image. Inspired by the fireworks, fairy lights (eh? eh?) and wrapping paper. I tried by hand at a tessellating pattern, a la Escher. Needless to say, it's not quite as seamless at the Escher ones, but it'll do.

When I think of the shimmerling swarms, the image that mostly comes to mind is the fairies from Disney's Fantasia, the ones that perform a part of the Nutcracker suite while putting dew on flowers, turning leaves orange and freezing water. Albeit the shimmerlings as statted are probably little more than fairy-shaped bees.

Quarut

Some rare spells are of such power that they are legendary among spellcasters - spells that have the potential to alter the very structure of the universe, such as the infamous Wish.

Quaruts are Inevitables - mechanised beings from the lawful plane of Mechanus which are tasked with the upholding of natural order - and are among the most powerful even of these. Within their custody lie all such magicks that might meddle with space and time - their objective is to hunt down such spellcasters that use them and restore a relative balance to the universe.

Quaruts are some heavy stuff, clocking in at CR 17 - meaning you're getting close to epic level in order to take them on. And with good reason - despite their desire to eradicate all manipulators of space and time, they themselves have no qualms about chucking about spell-like-abilities like Time Stop and Limited Wish. The former allows it to literally stop time locally for a few turns (giving it ample room to imprison you safely in a pocket dimension) and the latter allows it access to literally any spell of up to 6th caster level. The lesson here is: don't mess with spacetime, kids!

We always like to put up holiday-themed monsters, but some of them are pretty hard to figure out an appropriate creature for. Blanca made a big list of potential "New Yearsy" beasts, and then we picked two that we liked and did those. I haven't drawn an Inevitable in ages, which is surprising because I really like 'em. The clock motifs in this one are a little hammy and I nicked the eyes from Sahaquiel of Evangelion and Senketsu from Kill La Kill. Man, I enjoy Kill La Kill! Literal guilty pleasure but there are very few animes around with such artistic class to them (outside of the boob's 'n' butts).

Also this being almost two weeks into the new year is my fault.

Nathzarune Rakshasa

 While the standard rakshasa is a pretty formidable spellcaster, the Nazathurne rakshasa is a whole different story. It has no spells of its own, but isn't completely devoid of magical ability. Instead, this rakshasa can meld with the shadows and travel through them. Its lack of arcane knowledge is replaced with physical knowledge, which it uses to inflict devastating damage.

D&D has a few different rakshasas. The standard ones are pretty cool and Anthony S. Water's illustration for the 3.5 rakshasa is probably my favourite illustration in the Monster Manual, if not all of D&D illustrations. Other books added further rakshasas with more specific themes. Instead of being a sorcerer like the standard, the nazathurne is a rogue/shadowdancer.

The rakshasas are a set of demons from Indian mythology. Actually, they're more the Indian equivalent to the Japanese oni than European demons. Since both Hindu and Buddhism believe in reincarnation, sometimes rakshasa are the transformed or reincarnated form of a wicked person. The whole tiger-headed thing, though present is South Asian art, is exaggerated a bit by D&D. In mythology, a rakshasa can have the head of different animals or deformed features. Especially strong ones have multiple heads and limbs.

Book suggestionn du jour is The Ultimate Ilustrated Guide to Knives, Swords, Daggers & Blades by Harvey JS Withers and Tobias Capwell. It's a two volume collection filled with images of edged weapons (some polearms, not that many) that's a good resource and fairly compact. It's pretty Euro-centric, but there's still a decent amount of space dedicated to the swords and knives of Africa and Asia. The knife that the rakshasa is wielding in the image is an Indian pichangatti.

Bluespawn Godslayer

The blasphemous children of the dark goddess Tiamat are more in number and form than man can count. The true chromatic dragons (Red, Blue, White, Green and Black) make up only a portion of their ranks - the rest are lesser monsters, dwarf hybrids of creatures horribly twisted by Tiamat's unholy power.

The godslayers are some of the most feared of these. Mutated from the stock of blue dragons into hideous bipeds, they dedicate their lives to the slaughter of Tiamat's enemies. Godslayers take a barbaric delight in the use of melee weapons, which become charged with electricity by their innate draconic energies. Typically godslayers guard the lairs of venerable blue dragons, but are sometimes encountered abroad, roaming for good metallic dragons to torture and kill.

I tried out a more stark shading on this one, because I couldn't get anything more subtle to look right. It's not something I do too much if I can because it feels like a bit of a cop-out but there are some animations I love like Redline that make it work really nicely.

I tried to really push the "mutant" angle here, which is the one element that I like about dragonspawn - mostly they feel kind of mary-sueish (it's part dragon, part spider, part rhinoceros! super strong, no weaknesses! original character, do not steal!) and also they quite often look a bit silly. So I thought, well, the influence of an evil deity like Tiamat isn't going to produce some perfect man-dragon specimen - it's going to be this weird hybrid creature, something like the pasty human-alien thing in Alien: Resurrection, albeit insanely strong and tough. So I've given the guy two heads (two and a half if you count the little half-formed head poking out in the top right) and a little vestigial wing that isn't going to be flying anyone anywhere.

Alert readers will note that bluespawn godslayers do not, in fact, have a breath weapon but I thought the fire looked cool in the composition. And yay, we're back to no backgrounds again! Lazy art is best art.

- Joe

Sybillic Guardian

The Sybillic Guaridan is a psychic archon, being allies (and occasionally summoned servants) of psionic heroes. Like other archons, they dwell in Celestia, training in the arts of battle to do war with the infernal and abyssal hordes. However, these particular archons and other psionic creatures believe that a different war is coming, though magical divination can't actually confirm this. Perhaps their war will be one with the creatures of the Far Realm, or whatever horrifying races live beyond that.

You know what I always find difficult? Any aspect of graphic design. I'm fine with illustration, laying an image, character design, colour... But when it comes to setting up fonts and similar bits of text, it really gives me a headache. This also applies to things like runes and glyphs, since they're an infuriating combination of illustration and graphic design. It'd difficult to make magical writing look legit.

But I think I finally hit on something, since I'm actually fairly happy with the glyphs in this image, which I generated using a magic square. Each glyph means something, so if anybody wants to figure out what they mean, look to Saturn.

Dungeons & Drawings: BOOK VOLUME 1

So we've got a big announcement that we've kept under our collective hats for a while now!

We made a book.

Now available to buy, Dungeons & Drawings Vol. 1 clocks in at a sumptuous 93 full-colour pages, featuring 40 of our favourite Dungeons & Drawings redesigns. Each picture is accompanied by a description, some simple statistics, and a look into the real-world origins of each creature. Wow! Some illustrations are book-exclusive, too. Zinged!

Waitasec! "Vol. 1", you ask? Why, yes! With over 200 images on the blog, we're looking to make a whole series of these to sell at conventions and expos, as well as through the magical wonder of paypal and the internet.

Just check out some of these super-sweet shots of our handiwork! Pow! Blam!

Is it possible to imagine anything remotely more rad than this? THE ANSWER IS NO

"BUT BROSKIS," we hear you say, "HOW DO I GET HOLD OF SUCH AN ILLUSTRIOUS ORGAN OF BEAUTIFUL MONSTROUS GOODNESS?"

The answer is simple.  By clicking the button below and exchanging just £8 / ~$13 of your yank dollars through the magic of paypal (excl. postage, natch), we will send you a copy of this fine example of illustrative gorgeousness in the mail. It literally couldn't be easier!!!!!

Every purchase helps us keep going and increases the likelihood that we can get more stuff printed in the future. Because we love putting stuff on the internet, of course! But we also love the feel of a really nice print, and we want you guys to have that too!

Dungeons & Drawings: Vol. 1 will be available to buy this weekend at the London MCM Expo and at lots of other conventions across the UK as we attend them. If you see us, come by, say hi and have a look!

And, as always, thanks for supporting the site with your views and your interest! Posting has been slow lately due to working on the book & other factors, but the ultimate goal is always to post the highest quality material we can produce.  Keep checking back for updates!

- Blanca & Joe

REDUX MONTH: Devourer

Here's our fiiiiiiinal image of Redux Month here on Dungeons & Drawings, the soul-stealing Devourer!

It's a longstanding tradition here at Dungeons & Drawings that anything with the name "Month" in the title typically takes 2 - 3 x longer than a month. A record which remains unbroken! This time the delay is almost entirely my fault (usual moans of work PLUS A CERTAIN SPECIAL SOMETHING WE'LL BE ABLE TO ANNOUNCE SOON). Plus, you know, Pokemon, I guess? Message me on twitter (@torpordust) if you wanna exchange friend codes or something.

Anyway, for our final pair of pics we've reduxed the hell out of each other's least favourite images. I love what Blanca did with the Sphinx, so I had a go at taking the Devourer (one of my favourite undead creatures) and running with the design pretty far from the D&D original. He's pretty different, almost like a construct, with a big birdcage torso housing the harvested essences of his victims (although I really like the creature's "undeath" angle so I tried to keep that feel with the skeletal arms/legs). The victim of his soul-stealing is my wizard character Ovid, who I actually did another picture of over here which I like a bit more than this picture.

I'm trying to push my approach a bit in complexity, this time including a background with several light sources and a sort of twisted perspective + poses. I'm not too pleased with the result, as I think it comes across as busy, but it was a lot of work so I guess having it done is sort of satisfying. Anyway, to hell with it! It's posted. Here endeth Redux Month.

As always, I want to say thanks to everyone for hanging around for our three years of blogging monster redesigns. It seriously means a lot to both of us. Doing Redux Month has really hammered home the ways we've developed artistically through doing the blog and engaging with people like y'all, it's really heartening. So thankyou! Seriously!

Also, we'll be at the following conventions in England over the next couple of months. Come say hello!

- Joe

REDUX MONTH: Gynosphinx

For the our final entry into Redux Month, we're redoing images that the other person did but didn't especially like. We wrote some lists for each other and picked one creture. I chose to redo the gynosphinx, an image Joe did about two years ago.

The Sphinx we're most common with is a unique Greek creature, famous for her "four legs, two legs, three legs" riddle. Fun fact: some sources say that the Sphinx was actually the child of the Chimera and sister to the Nemean Lion (slain by Hercules as his first task). Historically, the Sphinx is actually a Greek creation, has no wings and has the head of a man.  D&D has that one too, and calls it the androsphinx.

I was originally gonna do this Sphinx in blue as a reference to one of the prettiest sphinxes I've seen, the Sphinx Ambassador for the Magic card. But I couldn't make the blue work and a lot of stuff I've done is blue and I guess it probably would've been more a rip off than a reference. So red it is.

REDUX MONTH: Yrthak

The flying merchants of Gth'yr are a common sight in most of the cities of the world. An ancient guild of peddlers, they grew from small beginnings in the aviary-towns of the southern mountains, trading wares from settlement to settlement, and have since steadily increased their reach over several hundred years to cover most of the world. As their name implies, the merchants ferry their goods by air, having for many years employed the services of the great Yrthaks - enormous, sightless, crocodilian flying creatures- to aid them. The merchants have tamed the beasts through use of certain combinations of wind chimes and bells (to which the Yrthaks are, of course, highly sensitive), which also serve as a distinctive herald for the traders' arrival!

Wow! This one took a while, but I'm quite happy with it. I'm almost afraid to post the old Yrthak drawing I hate it so much, but for the sake of posterity (and reassuring myself I've gotten better) here it is. Don't laugh.

The creature is modeled a bit off those weird Pteranodons that sort of look like giraffes. It's sort of inspired by the Dinotopia series of books, which I liked a lot as a kid and rediscovered recently.

- Joe

REDUX MONTH: Will O Wisp

Redux number three is the Will O Wisp. I think that out of all of the images I've done for this blog, that particular one is my most hated. Partially because it's so ugly but also because it feels like the intention I had behind it was pretty strong and was unable to carry it out. I'd been inspired by a book called Art Forms from the Ocean, a collection of prints by Ernst Haeckl of microscopic sea animals and plants. They're all pictures of quite beautifully geometric living things.

Which I guess means I copped out a bit by doing a good deal more typical Will O Wisp: a floating flame. But I'm still more pleased with this one than the older version. At least this is well drawn and kinda cute.

Fun fact: an alternate name for the Will O Wisp is the Hinkypunk. I remember reading that in one of the Harry Potter books (Prisoner of Azkaban, I think), describing the Hinkypunk as a one-legged creature that carries a lantern to lead people into bogs. I always thought that it was a creature that Rowling had made up, but it would seem it's a legit alternate version of the Will O Wisp.

Fun fact number two: a Hinkypunk (i.e. the one-legged dude) appears towards the end of Spirited Away, leading Chihiro to the Zeniba's house.

REDUX MONTH: Spriggan

Here's my second image of Redux Month, the Spriggan! You can see the old version here (if you wanna).

I faffed for ages with this one and I'm sort of lukewarm on it, but I still like it better than the original. I actually hate looking at the old one because at the time I was experimenting a lot with this attempt at scratchy black linework that looks kinda brushy in imitation of artists like Nate Powell and Paul Pope, but I could never get it looking right because my basic drawing skills aren't up to it. I guess I quite like the sheer amount of hair he develops after "hulking out" (Spriggans, in case you didn't know, can grow in size from a small gnome-like creature to a gigantic gorilla monster) - here the change in appearance is less extreme - he just sort of thickens and his hair becomes a little tuftier. Looking between them I think my approach to linework is better in general now, I feel like I don't have to "fake" a lot of the things I used to.

The dude here is modeled on a gibbon, which are my favourite apes. 

Sorry about the slow posting this month, I'm working full-time on a commercial job and I'm trying really hard to keep the quality up so I don't feel like I've regressed!!

- Joe