Odopi

Odopii are legendary beings of chaos and evil from the Tarterian Depths of Carceri. A directionless bundle of twisted limbs, the Odopi moves constantly and inelegantly onward by rolling on its many hands, each with an ugly yellow eye in its palm. Their huge bodies can lay waste to cities in moments.

I wanted to try a more painterly style again with this one, I guess it's sort of like a cross between the Necronaut and Shivhad. What can I say, I love drawing bony arms.

Also he's supposed to be rampaging through the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, another planar realm based on order and lawfulness. I might work some little robot men into it to get a better sense of scale.

NB - click on the image to see it full size, the colours got kinda messed up in the blogspot thumbnail.

Bulette

A Bulette, or land-shark, is a huge quadrupedal burrowing creature. Strong and mindless, Bulettes live simply to eat, and with such a massive body comes a notoriously resilient digestive sytem. Bulettes are true omnivores and will eat literally anything, including animals, plants, metals, even soil and rock if nothing else is available. Solitary creatures (except in certain terrifying situations where they reside with a mate) Bulettes are mercifully rare.

Back to routine! After posting the animations we're back to just static illustrations for a while (although keep your eye out for an animated .gif or something). Trying to go for a stylised Craig McCracken look here, whilst tipping my artsy hat to that other great land shark.

Frost Giant

The Frost Giant is a massive blue-skinned humanoid that makes its lair in icy caves. They live in groups, ruled by their wisest, strongest and most evil among them, called Jarl, and served by slaves snatched from raids.

Okay, I'm going to straight-up admit that I strayed a little from the desciption in the books, becaue the books essentially describe 15-foot tall blue Vikings. Not that Vikings are bad or anything, since the Frost Giant is based on the jotunn anyway, but I just wanted to do something a little different.

I feel all rested up now from doing that big animation for the last post. Maybe I'll start a new one.

Edit: Now with alternate colors. Does anybody have a favourite version?

Lizardfolk

The lizard-men are one of the staple creatures of fantasy, presented in D&D as the aptly-named Lizardfolk. They're a non-evil people, primitive but not savage, or at least that what the original Monster Manual indicates. Further books down the line give subraces/tribes of various lizardfolk, some with more evil abilities than other.

AND I'VE FINALLY FINISHED THIS ANIMATION WOOP

This was probably one of the more complicated characters I've animated to date. Other characters I did were a lot simpler, whereas with this one I always had to keep track of his belly ridges, number of teeth and so on.


Here, have some progress.

1) Turnaround of the monster, so I can always be aware of what details I'm missing, what proportions are wrong, what color goes where and so on. Drawn like three weeks ago.



2) Animating. Several step process because I can't just do it the smart way and not redraw the same shape a bazillion times.






Special thanks to Joe for showing me a whole lot of After Effects tips for improvements on the final render. Sounds on the film were taken from freesound and were originally created by Rhedcerulean and melarancida.

Rust Monster

I wouldn't say it's 100% finished but I have had pretty much the most-stressful-day-that-hasn't-involved-worrying-about-money-ever today, involving (least of all) my computer completely refusing to cooperate in any way imaginable so I'm just going to upload it as it is so I can stop being annoyed at it. So here it is, sans floor shadow and a coupla other things. Phooey! Phooey, I say! I will make it better and give it a formal uploading on vimeo or something later! Sorry to all you (doubtless by now both innumerable and disappointed) fans expecting more of me.

For those in the dark about Rust Monsters, all the necessary info can be found here. Goodnight!

Troglodyte

A bloodthirsty race of primitive lizard-men, Troglodytes are mostly found underground, where they live in small tribes. Rarely arming themselves with anything more sophisticated than a simple spear or javelin, Troglodytes have nonetheless evolved some interesting features for protection - most famously, they are capable of excreting a scent through pores in their skin which smells so awful it can disorientate and deter most non-troglodyte foes.

STILL NO ANIMATION, ALTHOUGH YOU CAN HAVE A SNEAKY WORK-IN-PROGRESS PEEK IF YOU WANT:


INTERESTING, HUH? CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK. :3

Catoblepas and Gorgon

The Catoblepas and Gorgon are both classic monsters of the D&D beastiaries, but I have a special reason for drawing them both together; they're based on the same mythological creature, though one of them was given a different name.

Pliny the Elder and Bartholomeaeus Anglicus describe the Catoblepas as an Ethiopian bull-like creature with a long neck and head always kept low under the weight of its massive horns. Its vision is deadly. Some centuries later, Claudius Aelianus added that the creature had shaggy hair, a scaly back and poisonous breath. It's generally assumed that all these authors were referring to Africa's wilderbeest.

So this single monster was divided into two monsters: the extremely aggresive, metal-scaled Gorgon with petryfying breath, and a considerably more peaceful, long-necked Catoblepas with death vision.


Animations next week! Probably!

Hobgoblin

The hobgoblins form the warrior branch of the goblin army, brandishing spears, axes and swords proudly looted from their fallen enemies. They are a fierce race, all trained in warfare and all eager to expand the empire of their species, but they are as likely to attack another tribe of their own kind as to attack others.

The hobgoblins are the larger cousins of the goblins, man-sized and relying more on tactics and strength than on sneakiness. Though barbaric, they're extremely loyal to their chiefs. They're also another typical low-level encounter.

Sorry about the no entries last week. We wanted to open the post-Guest Week with some animations, but we proved to be a little ambitious. The animations will still be posted in the future, but they still need some work.

Meanwhile, enjoy a mandrill with a sword.

Bugbear

Despite appearances, Bugbears are are a close (although vastly more savage) relative of the Goblin. Named for their wide, bear-like noses and short tempers, they doubtless originate from the wily goblin stock but have grown larger and hairier than their diminuitive brethren, forming a truly barbaric culture with a hierarchy established by brute strength. Standing just taller than a man, with thick skin and an umatched eagerness for fighting, the Bugbear is not a creature to be underestimated, especially in numbers.

Alas! Animations still aren't finished so here are some drawings that don't move to tide you over. I feel like this owes a lot to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, not just in the colour but with the approach to linework and shading. Personally, I think anime is a great thing to take inspiration from sometimes, but like any other media you have to pick and choose your sources. Everyone's seen a few Ghibli movies by now, but there's other stuff out there worth looking at, and even if you don't like it, it can be inspirational in its wackiness. Just my two cents, anyway.

See you next week with animations!

GUEST WEEK: Thri-Kreen by Victoria Maderna

The mantis warriors scour their arid territory for today's meal, moving slowly and deliberately to best blend in with their surroundings. They come across some high cliffs and, looking up, spot a pair of desert goats steadily making their way up the rocky face. The hunters begin to leap up the steep face, easily finding handholds, and quickly closing the distance between them and their prey. They fall upon the goats with poisonous bites and swipes from their two-bladed gythkas.

Thri-Kreen are a classic D&D monster, appearing all the way back in 1st Edition and gaining popularity in 2nd Edition with the introduction of the Dark Sun campaign setting, where they became one of the playable races. They're one of the more popular non-core player races, though the Thri-Kreen are a little bit to strong for a truly low-level campaign. And really, who wouldn't want to play a giant praying mantis that can leap farther than most can walk, has unique racial weapons, doesn't need to sleep and (depending on the DM) has psychic powers?

This is the final entry for this round of Guest Week. Our closing image has been provided by Victoria Maderna, whose artwork has appeared in the official 4th Edition D&D book, the Player's Strategy Guide. More of her artwork can be seen on Pigs with Crayons, along with that of her partner Federico Piatti.

I'd like to thank all the artists that have contributed to the blog for the past week. It's been really awesome to see different people's styles take on the monsters of D&D. We're definitely going to do another guest week again in the future.

Guest Week: Umber Hulk by Keith Sparrow

The Umber Hulk is a subterranean creature capable of burrowing long distances through solid rock. Creatures of mindless anger, they are most often found rampaging through the countryside, attacking and devouring anything small and soft enough not to pose a threat (including humans). Whilst it may seem merely a creature of brute strength, the Umber Hulk is not a force to be underestimated- while it may be slightly lacking in intelligence or magical ability, those ferociously strong arms, capable of literally battering their way through stone, can make short work even of an armoured foe should they get within reach. Umber Hulks have also been known to use their burrowing ability to create traps, pitfalls and cave-ins to deal with enemies too tough to handle otherwise.

Today's illustration is brought to you by Keith Sparrow, a professional illustrator with many years of experience who has specialised in illustrations for children and children's books. Probably the most well-known string to his bow is the popular Mega Manga book, one of a series of How-To-Draw-Manga books which you see pretty often in comic book stores and art stores in england. As you might have gathered from the name, he's also my dad and pretty much the sole reason I wanted to be an illustrator growing up. I really like that Keith produced this illustration completely by hand, it really shows off his genuine skill in that regard, and makes for a really original interpretation of a classic monster. Cheers, dad!

GUEST WEEK: Glaistig by Adam Vian

The haunting song comes from a beautiful woman standing waist deep in the pond, her clinging robe mottled with algea. She beckons her victim closer into her embrace, and when her song stops he only has enough time to notice her long teeth, and her goat legs beneath the rippling water surface. What he thought were stones and pebbles in the pond floor turn out to be bones.

And here we have yet another addition to the evil fey collection we've been building. Gosh, they sure ain't nice, aren't they. These fellas come from Celtic mythology, though they aren't always evil in the original legends.

Today's image is given to us courtesy of Adam Vian, another university chum, and one half of the Super Flash Brothers team of Flash games and films. They're currently working on a sequel to one of their more popular games, Detective Grimoire. Our other guest, Catherine Unger, is helping with it too, providing some amazing background artwork for the game, which can be seen on the game development blog.