Leviathan

The Leviathan is not so much a creature as a force of nature. Resembling a whale of colossal size, the beast rarely leaves survivors of the creatures it encounters, mindlessly gulping down gallons upon gallons of water and indiscriminately consuming any matter floating therein. Some speculate the Leviathan to be merely a mercifully rare breed of monster, encountered occasionally by hapless sailors - other stories paint it as a single, legendary beast, of the same magnitude of the Tarrasque. In any case, unless you happen to be a warrior of epic level or have some kind of armada backing you up, the Leviathan is one of those creatures where by the time you encounter it it's probably far too late.

Feel bad that Blanca managed a non-digital offering this week when I stayed safe and photoshopped it up. My excuses are that I'm still trying to stick with this style of rendering (something I've been bad at in the past) and I just need to get it done quickly so I can get on with other stuff.

Lodestone Marauder

The Lodestone Marauder is yet another creature from a wizard's lab that was made for a certain purpose, then got loose. This particular creature has magnetic powers and an insatiable hunger for metal and meat. Pretty good for letting lose in the battlefield and having in chow down on the soldiers, including their armor and weapons. And if somebody is being a bit too effective at swinging their axe, well it can just turn on the magnetism and the weapon gets stuck on their spikes.

The wild ones tend to live underground. There's lots of tasty ore down there and relative safety. The drow and other deep-dwelling creatures sometimes make an attempt at taming one of these fellas, but I imagine their feeding habits can get pretty expensive.

My computer's been busted for the better part of a week. It's been pretty miserable, since you get used to having a machine to do all your art on and forget how traditional means work. But Joe kept pushing me to do the traditional way and I was all like "ehhhhhhh" and he was all like "do it" and I was all like "ehhhhhhhhh, fine" and now I'm pretty happy with the final results. Collage made from painted and non-painted tin foil.

Kelpie

The Kelpie is one of those dangerous creatures of murky water. Like the nixie and kappa, they're creatures based on actual myth, a warning to others to avoid certain trecharous ponds, rivers and swamps. This creature is from Celtic mythology and, unlike the other two spirits, is wholly malicious. Its normal form is that of a pale horse, dirty with pond scum. It charms people with magic or with an attrative humanoid form to go into the water with it, then drowns them. They might even pose as someone pretending to drown, taking advantage of the good will of others.

A favourite creature of mine, not just of D&D, but of mythology in general. I read a story about a Scottish that put a bridle on a kelpie, which bound it to his will, and forced it to build a castle for him. When it was done, he let the kelpie go. Which was a dumb idea, because the second it was let go, the kelpie cursed him his land to have bad luck. There's a campaign in that story.

D&D doesn't give the creature a bestow curse spell, but it can drive people crazy with feelings of overwhelming sadness, so that's kind of a curse.

Balhannoth

The ambassador shifted uneasily from one foot to the other as the crooked smile worn by His Eminence, the Drow Underking Xun-yl, continued to widen. He inwardly reassured himself - he was on a diplomatic mission (although who knew if the dark elves would respect such civilities?). And, besides, he was flanked by a squad of the finest mage-warriors the Bright Isles could muster; all of them prepared with high-level magics of brightness and blinding to repel all but the most stalwart of Drow. So why did something feel so... wrong? "It is our... custom, that the diplomats of men shall not leave our lands with blood in their veins," spoke the Underking with a sneer. The ambassador stiffened nervously with shock. "You shall harm no-one this day, elf! We of the Bright Isles are well versed in the ways of the light that you fear. Raise your weapons against us and you will suffer our magics!" To the ambassador's horror, the Drow's smile did not lessen. "You say you know our fears, human? You say we fear the light?" The Underking, almost without effort, lifted a finger in signal to the shadows beside him. "There are things in the darkness far more worthy of our fear. And yours." A stony rumble announced the ground beneath the ambassador's feet splitting open like a trapdoor into a pitch-black chamber below. "They are ancient, and care little for magic." But the ambassador was already falling, and he screamed at what he saw.

Composition is clustered as hell. Look at all the hoots I give!

Lumi

The Lumi are a race of beings hailing from the plane of positive energy who are roughly humanoid but for their strange,  luminescent flesh and their heads, which float necklessly above their bodies.  As a society they are essentially good-aligned, but Lumi law is distinguished by its almost religious reverence of Truth, often above all other virtues. To the Lumi, all falsehood (irrespective of scale or consequence) is crime. The Lumi tell no stories, except history. They study magic, but abhor spells of illusion and deception.

The bloody extent of this custom is known to humans - the two races have had amicable contact and trade but in the past humans have been tried and even executed for acts of harmless deceit. Lumi make good if straightforward soldiers (being incapable of things like ambush tactics) and will often join a party of adventurers, but they are easily and instantly offended. Caution is advised.

Necks are kinda hard for me to draw, so the Lumi's anatomy gives me a bit of a break. That said, this took ages for some reason. Right now I'm trying to make things as simple as possible without making them look lazy, or unfinished. Whilst I think the body deisgn/pose of this is a little yawnsworthy, an important part of Lumi anatomy is their glow, which I'm pleased with.

Jahi

The Jahi is a manifestation of unfulfilled desires of the dead. They concentrate and eventually give rise to a ghostly serpent, which silently seeks out someone to use as its puppet and force them to indulge in all sorts of hedonistic pleasure, and draw others into an orgiastic celebration of excess. To the naked eye, it looks like the person is uncouth and unmodest, though strangely alluring. But those who look closer notice the creature.

This creature is actually based on a demoness of Zoroastrianism. She is a servant Ahriman, the evil side, and seeks out to destroy good with filth and sexuality. She possesses and tempts women and makes them lascivious, and mensturation is a sign of her defilement of them.

My applause to the writers of D&D for taking this creature in an interesting direction. Instead of making the Jahi yet another succubus-like sexy demon lady, they went for something amazingly weird: a multi-headed snake that drains Charisma and controls a host. This is an great monster to have as a bad guy. Though it's Tiny, its challenge rating is a whopping 16. Its touch attack is especially dangerous dealing 1d3 damage and 1d4 Charisma damage (with an extra 5 points of damage to your hp per Charisma taken). Also a neat creature that will probably fight to keep the host it's so carefully been grooming and will probably cut its losses to seek another better host if discovered.

Ixitxachitl

Yet another monster with those names I either constantly have looked up or be ready to copy paste. Looked up if it was based on or inspired by some mesoamerican monster, but it doesn't seem to be.

These dudes are manta rays with a bad disposition. And that's pretty much the beginning and end of it. When I first saw them I was hoping they were gonna be some kind of aboleth-like creature but they are literally intelligent four-foot long manta rays. The Demon Lord Demogorgon just gathered a bunch of these little fellas up and gave them smarts and a superiority complex. They're not even stingrays (no poison), they're just kinda slippery and mean. I've attempted to give them something a little more to their look so they have tell-tale signs of demonic influence. Some of them are called Vampiric Ixitxachitl, which aren't undead, just a subspecies that can feed off your life energy.

They should make for an interesting early-level enemy for your underwater campaign, instead of relying on kuo-toa and sahuagins. Plus your players may not think too much of the innocent little ray that's lying in the sand. Then come the negative levels.

Bhut

Especially in areas of intense magical activity, corpses rarely stay dead for long. The Bhut is a result of a creature dying violently and suddenly, far from home. One of the more lively forms of undead, a Bhut is actually a formless spirit with the ability to inhabit dead bodies. Whilst it takes to its adopted form with some vigor it is not known for its finesse, and takes some creative decisions with the flesh of its host. Appearing as a horrible cloud of gristle, blood and bone, the Bhut aggressively attacks any who approach it.

Hippogriff

The Hippogriff is a classic fantasy creature, half eagle and half horse. Not as classic as the griffin. Actually the first time I heard of a hippogriff was in The Prisoner of Azkaban and not really sure if they were for real or not. Seems a bit like the griffin's dorkier cousin. Their eggs are valuable though and they make decent mounts.

Haven't animate anything in a while and I wanted to try out Photoshop's animation function. It's frustratingly basic, but at least I can use its brushes. I animated the basic hippogriff in Flash, then painted it and the background in Photoshop and comped it in After Effects. Finally made myself figure out scrolling backgrounds (with some help).

Pit Fiend

The Pit Fiend stands twice as tall as an adult human, wreathed in flames and using its wide wings like a grotesque cape. Pit Fiends are the princes of the diabolic realm of the Nine Hells of Baator, chief movers and shakers among the Baatezu. Endowed with monstrous strength and agility, as well as magical power, they are intelligent fighters and tacticians, more than capable of wiping out an entire party of adventurers solo. Luckily for the inhabitants of the material plane, the eternal conflicts of Baator keep the majority of these devils occupied.

Pit Fiend! Simple look, I guess influenced by things like Firebrand and that little blue Devil guy from that NES game that's in Brawl, and also by Chernabog. Mostly influenced by me trying to add tons of details like armour and chains and stuff and then thinking "god this looks terrible" and then removing it. Woo hoo! Art!

Giant Banded Lizard

The Giant Banded Lizard is not a creature of legendary intellect. It doesn't plot; it has no minions; it doesn't hoard treasure; it has no magical abilities. That's because it's literally a big stripey desert lizard of huge size. But it'll still rip your shizzle because this here's a CR 7 creature with a nasty poison attack.

I like to think that those two guys in the bottom have been sent on a quest by the cooking lady so she can make some really lovely striped omelettes. Thems will be some good omelettes.

This monster's from Sandstorm, one of my favourite settings, as I've mentioned before. The monster section can be a little bit disappointing, since it can get a bit samey. Dried up undead monster with dehydrating attack, monster with sand attack, some sandworms, such and such... But there are some other quite interesting beasties there which I shall do in the future.

Tarrasque

He Who Sleeps Beneath The Earth; the Great Hungerer; the Tarrasque. He lies dormant, but one day will wake. We await his return, when he will sow such perfect desolation that the worlds will be wiped clean and the land formed anew. We watch for His coming, as we lower our eyes towards his sleeping-place in the heart of the earth. Be vigilant, brothers and sisters; he comes.

I remember when I first picked up a Monster Manual my immediate urge was to scour the thing for the most powerful creature therein. I asked my (more knowledgeable) friend (who had lent me the book) who swiftly pointed me in the direction of the Tarrasque. I was suitably impressed - a legendary, 50-foot bipedal godzilla-esque creature which can't actually die and whose shell rendered it almost invulnerable to both weapons and magic. In fact, it can be said that the Tarrasque has only two good points - it sleeps underground for a very long time in between feeding sessions (or "natural disasters" depending on where you live) and there is mercifully only one of them. Needless to say, neither of these are much comfort if you are unlucky enough to experience it first-hand.

I think my interpretation here might seem a little extreme to some people, as the Tarrasque's appearance is very iconic. I just didn't want to draw the same godzilla/king bowser hybrid that most other artists use. Three principal things strike me about the Tarrasque's described appearance - it is bipedal, it has a shell that can bounce spells back at their users, and it has horns. It is also, curiously, described as "bird-like" in gait. The shell here is based off various pillbugs as well as the amazing Pangolin - this seems to be an element that some artists neglect in the Tarrasque's appearance, and since being practically unkillable is one of the creature's main traits I made a bigger deal out of it.

The beak, eyes and the curled-up pose are sort of a nod towards the Cthulhu mythos, which matches the creature's MO of sleeping for long periods of time. I also like the idea that some misguided apocalyptic cult is aware of the Tarrasque and worships it (despite the creature having only animalian intelligence).

I'm actually genuinely interested in what people think of the redesign here so feel free to let me know what you guys think in the comments.