silverhart-makes-art

[silverhart-makes-art]

I think this week's Bestiary Posting is pretty fascinating. I especially like the animal being described as having 'mercy', as I feel like many people would consider that a distinctly human trait. I kind of assumed this idea of animals being like machines incapable of emotions was an old idea, but this and other bestiary entries really seem to humanize the animals listed in them more then I expected.

Anyway, I think what the Zomargon actually is, is pretty obvious, but the bit that stood out to me the most was: "it strikes fear into bulls, yet fears the mouse", and my mind immediately went to my dog. He likes to put on a lot of bluster when confronted with larger dogs or animals, but show him a bug and he runs behind the couch and cries until someone comes to save him.

So, it had to be a poodle. There's no other animal it could possibly be. Lively intelligence, scared of mice, works with people, if one of them falls over they have to gather around and make a big drama about it - that's a poodle for sure.

So this description lists a lot of different traits, so I'm just gonna go down them all and explain my thoughts.

"His nose is called a trunk because he uses it to put food in his mouth."

At first I went with an elephant shrew-type nose, but that's not so great for grabbing, but you know what would be? A hand. And what has a hand on the end of it's nose? That's right, a star-nosed mole. So combination trunk/star nose situation.

"The Persians and Indians, carried in wooden towers on their backs..."

So we know it's a big critter, to able to carry people on it's back.

"...lively intelligence and a long memory..."

Gave them a bit of a big skull to accommodate those big brains. I can also confirm that poodles never forget and hold onto to grudges for years.

"...she goes out into a pool, until the water comes up to her udders."

For sure a mammal this time, so good to know.

"If the Zomargon finds a snake, it kills it..."

This explains why my dog's favorite toys are the ones made to look like snakes and why they are the first to get torn to shreds.

"if it falls down, it cannot rise."

For this I was thinking about how this happens to sheep quite often, when they're pregnant or their wool is too heavy, so I gave my Zomargon a broad back and thick woolly fur that can grow out into a big poof-ball (as I doodled in the bottom).

"...it has no joints in its knees."

This one was tricky to figure out. The knee is a joint, so how can a joint not be a joint? I had to sketch up a couple of legs off to the side just to try out some ideas. Ended up going with the middle one, and just adding a big fleshy pad on the back of the foot to support it, since there's no mention of hooves. It looks weird, but I guess they make it work?

"They possess the quality of mercy."

If a creature possesses mercy, it of course must have soft, gentle eyes, so I tried to give them a sweet dog-like expression. This is a beastie made for cuddling.

"...they make their way carefully and peaceably lest their tusks kill any animal in their way."

Just throwing in tusks in at the last second, huh? I honestly almost forgot to include them, they seem like such an afterthought in the description. And if Zomargons don't fight each other, the tusks must be used for something else. I decided to give them something like a Thylacosmilus fang situation, where these big saber teeth are supported by this crazy lower jaw. Seems to be some debate about whether these teeth were used for scavenging carcasses or killing prey. The Zomargon also eats fruits according to the description, so maybe these tusks are in fact just for opening coconuts.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #Zomargon

[silverhart-makes-art]

Pretty sure I have a good guess as to this week's Bestiary Posting animal, so I'm just gonna go totally off the rails for this one.

My thought process was as follows: Three rows of teeth means it must be a shark. And it would be fun to draw a fish, since I haven't done one for this challenge yet. But oh no, it has 'powerful feet'. Fish don't have feet. You know what does have powerful feet though? Mollusks. Mollusks have feet. It's described as having eyes though. What mollusks have eyes? That's right. Cephalopods!

Hence, the Mlekragg is a cephalopod.

Yes, it is a stretch, but sometimes with this challenge I like to imagine I'm an alien illustrator with no concept of what animals humans would regularly encounter. While most humans would probably assume this is a terrestrial mammal, there's no reason an alien would. In fact, considering how many more invertebrates there are then vertebrates, it makes sense for an outside observer to assume any animals described by humans is an inveterate, unless it says otherwise. It's all very sound alien logic, and not just me making wild leaps because I want my imaginary bestiary to have some more variety beyond my favorite birds and mammals. I'm really trying to use this challenge to be more imaginative and crazy with creature designs, and think outside the box when I can.

Anywho, the cuttlefish and nautilus were my main points of reference, though I did look at some reconstructions of prehistoric cephalopods for inspiration. Then I simply took all the elements of the Mlekragg and slapped it onto that body form. The triple row of teeth can't be seen in my drawing, but it is located where a cephalopod's beak would typically be. The 'face of a man' is actually a pattern on it's hood it uses to fool predators. Behind the hood flares out a 'lion's mane', which it uses for display and also to disorient it's prey when it snatches it up. It has a pointed "tail" with a stinger. It doesn't look much like a scorpion's tail - took a bit of artistic liberty and decided it just stings like a scorpion's tail, rather then looks like it. I've decided to interpret 'powerful feet' and 'good jumper' as two different traits. So it's 'powerful feet' are it's tentacles, but it uses it's stinger to leap. Why does a sea creature need to leap? Well, I imagine they live near coasts and occasionally get stranded in tide pools or on land and use their stingers to propel themselves back into the water. It kind of works like a springtail's little 'tail'. Much like the description says, no obstacle can keep the Mlekragg in!

On the bottom right I've drawn a picture of one using it's stinger to leap, and on the left I've drawn a cartoon version of it that accentuates the lion shape/human face idea. With it's tentacles and mane laid back and it's fins hanging down it does look like a little leaping lion. I also gave it a little grin in keeping with the cartoon tradition of putting cephalopod mouths on the mantle, which we know is incorrect. It does make him look like a very personable little gentleman though.

I feel if I were a bit more confident in drawing cephalpods and knew more about mollusk anatomy I could've maybe taken this in an even wilder direction. Maybe I'll revisit it in the future.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #mlekragg

[silverhart-makes-art]

I knew I wanted to do Bestiary Posting this week, but I'm gonna be super busy in the coming days, so I had to rush this out right away. So sketch is a bit messy.

At first I thought I knew what critter it could be, but I've been wrong before with my guesses, and then as I started thinking up what I'd like to draw I kept thinking 'oh well, maybe that's what it is; or maybe that's what it is', so suffice it to say, I am not confident in my guess at all.

The Hreksong is cunning and hunts snakes, so my mind went to the mongoose - renowned for it's snake catching skill. Carrying it's young made me think of opossums - in fact a lot of arboreal animals carry their young, so makes sense for it to be arboreal. An arboreal mongoose. The conceiving/birthing through the ears or mouth kind of tripped me up, but I remembered a type of frog that carries it's young in it's mouth, and mouthbrooding is pretty common in fish, so I guess it's not impossible to imagine a more terrestrial animal doing the same (originally did not draw it with an open mouth, and I gotta say the open mouth adds so much charm and horror to this creature; though I am curious if mouth/ear is where it's babies are born/conceived where in the body do they develop? Does it have a womb connected to it's ears/mouth, or is it like a marsupial pouch in the neck? I have so many questions). Of course, being arboreal, it needed reverse counter shading as arboreal animals tend to have. And then it ended up looking like a pine marten. A mouthbrooding pine marten...

Still, I think it would be fun to have your own house Hreksong. The description says they 'roam around in houses', which I can only guess means they are not pets or working animals, and are instead like mice or little brownies that move into your house unannounced, and make mischief in the night. You know, like lapping up all the cream, and stealing only left socks, and mussing up your hair while you sleep. And there's just not a whole lot you can do about it, unless you'd rather be overrun by mice and snakes.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #hreksong

[silverhart-makes-art]

This week's Bestiary Posting talks about a white bird that takes on illnesses and flies into the sun to burn the illness away. That story sounds vaguely familiar, I feel like I've heard it, but I can't remember what bird it refers to, or even if it's a real bird.

So we know a few things about the Glugreng: it is a bird, it's all white with no black, it can fly, and it can cure disease. I don't know enough about the disease-curing capabilities of birds, so that last one isn't particularly helpful to me. What is helpful is another trait: 'it's found in royal residences'. So this ain't your run-of-the-mill kind of bird. Knowing it lives in royal households my mind immediately went to falconry, so I decided a raptor it must be.

Then that got me thinking on why a bird would be solid white. So I did a little bit of research. The birds I think of the most as being white include Arctic birds, and domesticated birds. Other birds that are mostly white are seabirds and egrets, so I looked up why those birds are white, and it's for camouflage to avoid being spotted by fish in the water.

So I decided to make a white raptor that eats fish. The osprey and white bellied sea eagle were my main inspirations. I made the beak a little bit longer to reflect the egret and other fish-eating birds like gulls a bit more. It also has some long chest feathers like egrets have. This one is also sporting some anklets and jesses, as when it's not being a doctor for the royal household, it is used to fish (I also don't know a lot about falconry so forgive me if it is wrong).

#maniculum bestiaryposting #glugreng

[silverhart-makes-art]

Not a whole lot to work with on this week's Bestiary Posting.

That said, the Dikebael (that is an unfortunate name, isn't it) is apparently a 'large African desert animal that lives in herds', and honestly my first thought was camel. I don't know if the description is meant to be a camel as it does specifically say 'untamed' and well, there aren't any wild camels in Africa - at least not nowadays.

So I started out sketching something very camel-like, but my mind sort of wandered to peccaries, which are found in deserts. So I went with a large peccary-like animal and kept a few camel-like features - particularly the nose, and long eyelashes to keep the sand out and large padded feet to support their weight when walking on shifting sands. As the description mentions single males dominate a herd of females, I decided that, like the African lion it needed a mane to protect itself from attackers, and tusks like a warthog to ward off any challengers. The mane also protects it's back from the beating sun. So at this point, it really just looked like an enormous warthog, but I'm cool with that. Like a lion I gave it deepset eyes as well as the white circle below to reflect light into the eye to help them see in low light. Lastly, I wanted to incorporate a fatty hump like a camel, so they could store energy for hard times. Instead of on their back, I opted to make it their tail, like the fat-tailed sheep breeds.

I think I just ended up drawing a stocky entelodont really.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #dikebael

[silverhart-makes-art]

This week's Bestiary Posting is the Slagzogg! Now I don't think it says it's a bird, but as there are references to beaks and flying, I think bird is a safe bet.

First off, I love how this drawing came out. I already got a little story in my head of these two. The wild slagzogg on the right is unimpressed with their domestic compatriot - perhaps it's his unvirtuous conduct. Personally, I think they'll work out their differences and become good friends before long.

The description of 'no other creature picks up the scent of man as it does' makes me think that means it has a keen sense of smell. So I thought of birds with a good sense of smell, and decided that large vulture-like nostrils were a must. I also decided to give it a bald face to make it more vulture-like. My second main inspiration was the honeyguide. Honeyguides also have keen senses of smell, but I decided to use them mainly on account of their very cool symbiotic relationship with humans (as is in the name, they guide people to beehives; humans break it open and get honey, and the honeyguides get the larvae and wax). I like to imagine these birds had a similar symbiotic relationship with people and overtime some populations domesticated themselves. These domesticated slagzoggs live in close proximity to each other in 'villages', which I chose to interpret as communal nests similar to what the sociable weaver constructs. Lastly the coloration and patterns are really just a combination of all my inspiration birds, though made grey, with the varigated domestic taking inspiration from piebald chickens.

Maybe not as striking or interesting as some of my other designs, but I do really like these guys - they've got some personality to them.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #slagzogg

[silverhart-makes-art]

My piece depicting one of the red pegasi of Beynsfal Plateau for the @artists-guild-of-exandria 's Tourist's Guide to Taldorei!

Had a ton of fun working on this piece. Got to sketch up a ton of winged horses, and that's always a fun time. There's some stuff I'd probably still change, but overall I'm very happy with how this came out!

#critical role #critical role fanart #showcase day #tgtt

[silverhart-makes-art]

My main thought of this week's Bestiary Posting was - it's got hooves and horns so I get to draw another ungulate! Hooray!

This week's creature is the basekhwa. We know it is an ungulate due to references to horns and hooves! We know that is has keen hearing (at least when it's ears are pricked), that it eats snakes, has a long coat that it sheds, and can run and leap great distances. That's a lot of information for sure, but doesn't give us the clearest picture other then 'ungulate'.

I ended up focusing on the snake-eating idea - I know that cows have been found eating snakes (ungulates eating small animals is not actually that unusual), so I knew I wanted to do a bovine.

While cattle are surprisingly agile, I decided I wanted my basekhwa to look like an animal capable of leaping and running great distances. So I decided to combine my cow with the Tibetan antelope, another bovid known for it's yearly migration. If you've never seen a Tibetan antelope, they kind of look like if a goat decided to become a reindeer and also grew some antelope horns. So really just making a mish-mash creature out of an already mish-mash creature. The horns are also based on the Tibetan antelope, though I deliberately curled them in such a way that they are perfect for scooping up a snake from the ground for a quick munch. I've decided to interpret the 'keen hearing when ears are up and can't hear when ears are down' to just having super fluffy ears that just sort of muffle sounds when they're lowered and thus full of fluff.

Lastly, I gave it a nice shaggy coat, which this basekhwa will likely shed after she finishes with this snake. I've decided to draw this basekhwa spearing a serpent with her horns, next to some (admittedly very stylized) dittany. As for the pose, I feel sure I've seen depictions of unicorns in the same pose (and trained horses of course). I think one of the Unicorn Tapestries shows one in a similar pose, so maybe that's what I was thinking of. I'm not sure. Regardless, I think it came out very 'feral unicorn-esque' which I think is great.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #basekhwa

[silverhart-makes-art]

Man, this week's Bestiary Posting had me stumped for a while. At first I thought maybe I'd do a bird, but that didn't make sense for a creature that 'crawls' so what to do instead? A lizard? A rodent? A frog? An insect? A primate? There's not a whole lot to go off of.

In the end I just really wanted to draw a Weird Little Creature, so I went with that for the Shonweak.

My main inspirations ended up being the African crested rat (as it coats it's fur in poison) and a fire chaser beetle (since they're attracted to forest fires). So very fluffy and rodent like, but with a beetle-like head and carapace. Then I added some other fun stuff. Grippy gecko toes for crawling up apple trees. A long fluffy tail to protect it from flames. A long tongue for added weirdness. I especially love it's creepy little gremlin hands.

I like to imagine that, like the African crested rat, the Shonweak smears it's fur with the poisonous plants it eats, and this poison also puts out flames for whatever reason. For coloration I looked at the streaked tenrec, but I'm sure it's resemblance to a yellow-banded poison dart frog also helps tell other creatures to steer clear of it.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #shonweak

[silverhart-makes-art]

Okay, so I think I have good notion of what this week's Bestiary Posting animal could be. I also am curious about the mention of the female not needing a male to reproduce. I know parthenogenesis has been documented in quite a few animals and I'm sort of curious if olden day folks also encountered and documented this rare phenomenon or if it's just the whole virgin birth thing. The latter seems more likely, I suppose, but less fun.

The description for the Tatchgob says nothing about it being a bird, or having feathers, only that it flies. And while parthenogenesis is documented in birds it's not really a common occurrence. Some bees reproduce via parthenogenesis, so I decided to go for a bee. Plus, been a lot of birds and mammals lately, and I figured I would shake things up. I also don't draw insects often enough, so this was good practice.

I started by drawing a large bumblebee, since the Tatchgob is meant to be large and slow flying, and bumblebees fly around pretty leisurely. They also can be found at pretty high altitudes where the Tatchgob is said to fly. The Tatchgob is compared with an eagle, so I decided to make it's wings somewhat eagle-shaped. Then I got curious if there were any bees that eat meat as the description mentions that it can find corpses from great distances. So I looked it up and there are! They're called vulture bees or carrion bees, and they're pretty neat. Reading about them led me down a rabbithole of reading about bees which easily tacked on three hours to what is a very simple drawing. But inspired by the vulture bee, I decided to color my Tatchgob in a similar manner. Vulture bees also have large mandibles for tearing chunks of meat and that seemed like something my critter needed as well.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #tatchgob #insect

[silverhart-makes-art]

I have been patiently waiting for any excuse to do an ungulate-animal for Bestiary Posting and when the description for the Haesorog this week mentioned horns I got excited. Ungulates are by far my favorite critters to draw, and they're well known for their ornamental head gear.

Here I'm depicting a defensive mother haesorog lifting her dorsal crest and lowering her head in response to a perceived threat, which her young seems more curious than fearful of.

Originally I was leaning towards an antelope-like animal - particularly a pronghorn, but the 'ibis footprints' made me pause. Ibises have four toes I believe, but I could see their footprints only showing three toes, which means we've got an odd-toed ungulate on our hand. Rhinoceros have three toes, and as a bonus they come with horns! As the haesorog is thick furred, I went with a Sumatran rhino for my jumping off point.

That said, I still wanted an antelope feel, so I made my haesorog more gracile; slimming and shrinking the face and head to be more 'stag-like'; giving it longer, more slender legs; a longer neck; etc. Overall I just wanted a more antelope-like build for my rhino-creature, specifically thinking of large antelope like the Giant Eland (who's dewlap I included but it got a bit lost in the pose).

For it's horns I did consider something closer to a pronghorn, but decided that a nasal horn was just more fun. In order to fit the 'branching horns' description, I went with something like the prehistoric brontotherium horn. I also added some horny eyebrow ridges - just for fun.

For coloration, it's described as being colored like a bear with a thick coat, so I chose a nice ruddy brown fading to grey, with darker legs as you often see in brown bears. It's grey-brown fur is perfect for blending into the rock and scrub of it's home. As it's also said to change appearance when afraid, I decided to give it a dorsal crest that you see in some antelope. The pose is also inspired by nyala, the males of whom put their heads down while they raise their crest to display to other males.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #haesorog

[silverhart-makes-art]

Remember when I found the little wooden cat? Well, it seems that was just a test carving - and I've uncovered the finished piece! He was stashed away in an old shoe box, along with some receipts for the carousel proper. Now I've got an idea of just how many figures there are, and some descriptions, so the search continues! This little guy is far more detailed then the first draft. He even has tiny little gemstones set in his barding tack. He and the horse I found are sitting together on the shelf - I think they may have been placed next to each other on the toy carousel, as the receipts I found mentions them as a pair. They seem very happy to be reunited, and I'm eager to find the rest of their friends.

Continuing my little Mighty Nein Carousel project I went back to my Caleb piece and finished him up! Since I've got more time for these, I figure I can spend a bit more time fixing things and adding detail. I did some modifications to the pose, and added more detail in the fur after looking at some more Dentzel cats, in particular this one. The fur detail is just so wonderful, but surprisingly simple! I kind of wanted to do even more with him - a lot of the cats I was looking at have such beautiful saddles, but Caleb's not an ostentatious character, so I feel the simpler, the better. I couldn't resist adding a little ribbon though - I think it adds a nice bit of movement, which you want on a carousel figure.

#critical role #critical role fanart #mighty nein #mighty nein carousel #carousel

[silverhart-makes-art]

My submission for this week's Bestiary Posting, the Taerfleg is just a funny little friend.

The biggest descriptor for this week's creature was that it is covered it prickles, and I think I had the same thought as everyone else: Sea Urchin. So that was my main inspiration, but if I'm being honest, urchin's are not the most charismatic of animals, so I decided it must have a face. Originally I wanted it to be more mollusk or even crab like, but I landed on this face, and it was cute so I leaned into it. Not sure what kind of animal it could be though… A frog with a porcupine hat? A pug hiding under a scrubbrush? A snub-nosed echidna? A koosh ball brought to life? Who knows!

So on first read-through the 'ventilation ducts' confused me, but on a reread it seems it might be referring to the animals' burrow or nest? I'm going with my original thought though, that it literally has little "air ducts" in it's back. I like to imagine this taerfleg buries itself in mud and uses it's air tubes to breath while submerged.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #taerfleg

[silverhart-makes-art]

This week's Bestiary Posting was a tough one! I think the real animal was pretty obvious, and yet there was very little to work off of in terms of physical description.

My first thought was to base it on some kind of rodent, as it's said to gather grain, and lots of rodents gather grains and seed to store for the winter. But the one thing tripping me up was the bit about how it won't eat barley because "barley is food for beasts." So it can't be a beast. To my mind, the only critters that aren't "beasts" are birds and fish, and it's clearly not a fish, so bird it must be. However it's also said to 'walk' and 'climb' rather then fly, so it would have to be a flightless bird.

Now, flightless birds aren't typically small enough to climb up stalks of wheat, probably because predators would snap them up. So I thought back on my first idea of a rodent and decided to create a little "mouse bird" who uses their beak and claws to burrow into the earth for shelter. I also decided to make them a little owly looking, as a burrowing bird just makes me think of burrowing owls. I imagine it uses it's wing for balance when climbing, and has also developed little nubs on the end of it's wing to help them grip better, much like hoatzin chicks use their wing claws. Lastly, I gave them cute little whiskers to better navigate their dark burrows. So there you go - a little owly mouse-bird.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #kengliwa

[silverhart-makes-art]

Didn't put too much thought into this week's Bestiary Posting, the Blisheag, but I still like what I came up with.

The reference to a 'bill' made me think of a duck initially so that's what I leaned into. (It is kind of weird how some birds definitely have 'beaks' and others definitely have 'bills' and I know which one's have which, even though 'beak' and 'bill' are apparently synonyms. English is so weird.)

The reference to being an 'enemy to snakes' made me think of the secretary bird, so I gave it relatively long legs and claws to deal with those slithering serpents. Lastly, I know storks clack their bills, and decided that this bird needed a long bill and neck like a stork. I also tried to slim down and make the body a bit more 'stork like' as with it's long legs, claws and beak it really feels like more of a wading bird then a dabbling duck.

For coloration I referenced the American Black duck, just because I think they're quite a handsome duck.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #blisheag

[silverhart-makes-art]

This week's bestiary posting got a little weird. My first thought for the Almlaeni as 'animal with strong jaws' was an ant. And the description of the mane and everything put me in mind of a lion, and I know of a mythological creature called an 'ant-lion' and decided to lean into that idea for this beast.

I decided to pull back on the 'ant-ness' of the head to look more mammalian, because it just looked a little odd, so I gave it tusks instead of pincers, and nice adorable mammalian eyes, and they gotta be large and yellow to 'shine like lamps'. The description talks about it having paws, so gotta give it little paws, and the tuft of hairs on it's tail. Lastly the mane. The description says the Ethiopian almlaeni produces diverse colored manes, which I originally took to mean the animal comes in a variety of colors, but on a second read through - why couldn't the mane itself be multi-colored? Thus - iridescent mane.

I like how this guy came out. He looks like he should be an alien pet in a sci-fi movie or game.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #almlaeni

[silverhart-makes-art]

I managed to track down another carousel figure, this time fully finished and painted! Poor thing had fallen between the floorboards along with several lost puzzle pieces and a bouncy ball. Based on some letters I found, I think its definitely a companion to the cat carousel figure I found last year. In fact it seems an entire toy carousel with these little figures was definitely in the works. Surely the rest must've been carved as well, so I'm off on a quest to find all the missing pieces. Maybe we'll even be able to reassemble the whole carousel.

(Long story short, this is for my Mighty Nein carousel project I intended to do for the @artists-guild-of-exandria Chet's Toy Workshop project in December that I wasn't able to finish in time due to a wrist injury. I figure sharing them as they're finished is more fun then just doing one big post, especially since it's taking me a bit longer then I thought. Nott/Veth here is based on this carousel horse. Couldn't find out much about this carousel, but after searching I believe this horse is based on a C.W. Parker design. Any carousel experts feel free to correct me if I got that wrong.)

#critical role #critical role fanart #mighty nein #carousel #mighty nein carousel