Tag: Illustration

The FancySchmancy Creature Feature: Frigid

It’s March in New England, which means winter has yet to wane. I spent a few icy days in Boston for a trade show a couple of weeks ago, so it felt reasonable to make the word “Frigid” the theme for the Creature Feature afterwards. Here were the results:

The FancySchmancy Creature Feature: Frigid

If my avatar were married, this might be his wife’s mom, sure. And who knows, even if she is a little frigid, I like to think they get along.

The FancySchmancy Creature Feature: Frigid

Leave it to my Twitch chat to suggest something foot-related. But it gave me the idea for this amiable mimic who delights in nothing more than savoring your toenail clippings. How is it frigid, you may ask? I don’t know, maybe toenail clippings last longer in the fridge.

Also, isn’t weird that we grow toenails at all? Fingernails I understand, like they’re useful for picking and clawing and whatnot. But toenails feel superfluous, just there to grow fungus and slice your socks up. Anyway, I digress.

The FancySchmancy Creature Feature: Frigid

This one was simply based off the word “snot.” In a faraway dimension, there’s a world in which the winged nose harpies flock to more frigid climates to avoid seasonal allergies. While they can weather it with rosy ardor, their snotty offspring fair worse. However, as the nose harpy is one of this world’s apex predators, no one has the courage to let them know they’ve got clingers. So their ice-booger progeny often linger in the nostrils well into adolescence.

I don’t know what I’m writing anymore.

Dwarven Marmoset (Grewsumgary)

In their frozen world, the Dwarven Marmoset clans are the last defense against the ice serpents of the Eternal Tempest. They are known for their ferocity in battle, as well as being just so goddamn cute.

Ice-Fanged Shower Griffin (Nipplepotomus)

Based on the prompt “Shower” by Nipplepotomus. The ice-fanged shower griffin is the natural predator of Twitch chatters who refuse to take the initiative to bathe, instead relying on the streamer to coax them into proper hygiene. Not naming names here.

Join me most Saturdays around 10am EST live on Twitch to submit your prompts and watch me draw more pages in the Bestiary.

The FancySchmancy Creature Feature: Angler Fish

A couple of weeks ago I finished playing the game Outer Wilds, in which angler fish play an outsized and terrifying role. Simultaneously, a black seadevil captivated the world by rearing its beautiful head from the depths, making its way to the surface for unknown (and for some, portending) reasons.

So I thought, what better subject for our weekly FancySchmancy Creature Feature than this fiercely fanged hellspawn?

As always, friends in chat provided me with prompts, and the Bestiary in which we draw selected them at random. Here were the results.

Angler Fish with Lips (CeruleanOak)

This is what I imagine a male angler fish sees right before it merges with the female’s flesh for eternity (look it up).

Angler Fish Bandit (CeruleanOak)

This one charmed me. I like to imagine that this is what Bluey sees when she casts one of her imaginative spells on her dad.

Angler Fish Balatro Card (MrByte)

I’m a big fan of Balatro, and it’s fun to imagine what powers this Joker might imbue for your deck. Maybe it lures you into playing a strong hand that it then destroys. Not advantageous, but it feels on brand for the game.

Angler Fish on a Bicycle (PrincessPJs)

I literally cursed the moment I had to draw any sort of vehicle, but as it turns out, drawing a penny farthing isn’t so bad. Plus, look how happy he is.

Angler Fish Merman

Finally, we drew a merman with an angler fish head, or as I like to call him, a mermgler. In my head canon, this is exactly what Poseidon looks like.

The FancySchmancy Creature Feature happens on Twitch most Saturdays at 10am EST. I play FancySchmancy, an eldritch scholar on an academic quest to draw an infinite set of bestiaries, chronicling every creature in the multiverse. Each week I pick a theme, chat gives me prompts, and the bestiary picks which prompts to draw. Join me for a chance to have your prompt drawn.

Gulper Eel

When I don’t know what to draw, I draw fish.

A few days ago, I used a random fish generator to give me a species, and it gave me the gulper eel. This eerie deep sea dweller has a set of jaws that make up a quarter of its roughly meter length, which it uses to sweep up small crustaceans. And since it’s the Christmas season, it’s got a red bulb on its tail for luring play.

We’ll call him Rudolph the Red-Butt Wriggler.

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Inktober 2024

Inktober has come and gone, and I’m not going to lie: this year’s prompts were bad.

I’ve had a dubious relationship with Inktober for the past few years. For one thing, I rarely finish them before the month is out. For another, the creator’s trademark shenanigans and suspicious “parallel thinking” left a bad taste in my mouth years ago. But I was craving a drawing challenge last month, so I said, why not.

And, hoo boy, were these prompts stinkers.

Usually there are a couple of related prompts in the list, and I like this, because it gives you the challenge of trying to figure out how you’re going to differentiate them. But this year’s list was almost entirely travel themed, which resulted in a lot of redundancy.

I did my best to make them weird, gave up in the middle, and just started drawing octopuses based on my Twitch chat’s suggestions — a tradition we might continue as Octo October next year. In the meantime, enjoy my efforts! And no, almost none of these were done on the appropriate day, nor did I finish until November. I’m a rebel that way.

Day 1: Backpack

This one was based off an angler fish. If you look closely, you can see where the male angler fish bit into its skin, becoming nothing more than a pair of gonads for its indifferent hostess. (I didn’t actually draw this, but it’s there.)

Day 2: Discover

Here’s where I knew this Inktober was going to be rough. I drew a creature based on a pair of binoculars, not realizing Binoculars would be the prompts for day four. I was the kid who rarely read the directions all the way through, in case you’re wondering.

Day 3: Boot

I like to imagine this one is a benevolent parasite who eats your callouses and toe fungus when you wear him. Try getting that out of your head now.

Day 4: Exotic

This is about as exotic of a pet as I could imagine.

Day 5: Binoculars

Since I already drew a creature with binoculars, the only solution was to draw a creature even more ocular than that.

Day 6: Trek

This one was the “live long and prosper” Vulcan hand sign turned into an alien face.

Day 7: Passport

I don’t know where these stamps are from, but given how carnivorous they look, I assume they’re all from Australia.

Day 8: Hike

This ended up looking like Sasquatch on Ozempic for some reason.

Day 9: Sun

This one ended up being my favorite. Imagine this looking down at you on a beach day. Put on that SPF one billion.

Day 10: Nomadic

Carcinization is the tendency of crustaceans to evolve into crab-like species. But I like to imagine it as a human wizard’s spell that accidentally backfired.

Day 11: Snacks

Watch where you snack!

Day 12: Remote

Spider Turtle would like to know why you disturbed his slumber.

Day 13: Horizon

Thus continuing my obsession with drawing horrifying space orbs.

Day 14: Roam

This dragon salesman (salesman dragon?) ended up looking a lot like Trogdor.

Day 15: Guidebook

This is the exact moment I gave up on the Inktober prompts and drew skull mushrooms instead. This, also, is one of my favorites.

Day 16: Grungy

I drifted slightly back towards the prompt with this one.

Day 17: Journal

This was the nail in the prompt coffin. Journal? Really? After passport and guidebook? How many bibliographical prompts can you have in a single Inktober? Anyway, this weird creature is better than a journal.

Day 18: Drive

This is where things started drifting octopus-ward.

Day 19: Octocat

From this point forward, I started taking prompts from Twitch chat to draw octopuses.

Day 20: Octospaghetti

Now, that’s a spicy meatball.

Day 21: Octohorny

This could have gone a very different direction, and you’re welcome that it didn’t.

Day 22: Octofairy

This one grants you eight wishes.

Day 23: Octo-I-Refuse-To-Say

All I’m going to say is, this one is based on a notoriously feared meme from the late 90’s, and you can blame TheHamOfficial for the suggestion. (They’re also a phenomenal illustrator, so go follow them, even if it’s against your better judgement.)

Day 24: Octocollision

Kersplat!

Day 25: Octogossip

Spilling the tea while looking fabulous.

Day 26: Octoshakespeare

Alas, poor Yorick. I straight up ate him, Harukio.

Day 27: Octoscream

Munch on that.

Day 28: Octofurbie

Behold, the horror.

Day 29: Octofan

Day 30: The End

Chat told me to draw poo poo pee pee. I can think of no better conclusion to this year’s Inktober. Until next time!