So I'm sitting here, revising my draft for my third how-to-draw book, trying to get a selection of fantasy monsters that are substantially different from the first book's, but are still cool***. I have hard decisions to make for the final cut of the book. I don't want to have units that are redundant, and want to pack even more step-by-step demonstrations as well as individual pieces of different creature anatomy then the previous two books.

I was originally going to have Roc in the book, until I ran across Thunderbird!

How awesome is this?: "Across many North America indigenous cultures, the Thunderbird carries many of the same characteristics. It is described as a large bird, capable of creating storms and thundering while it flies. Clouds are pulled together by its wingbeats, the sound of thunder made by its wings clapping, sheet lightning the light flashing from its eyes when it blinks, and individual lightning bolts made by the glowing snakes that it carries around with it."

I have heard the term "thunderbird" used before, but I never actually did any research into it, but the above description evokes such imagery in my head that I'm like "holy crap, plz to be drawing, k?" The problem I'm wrestling with is that I feel Roc is slightly more well known, and can actually be adapted to many scenes, whereas Thunderbird kinda has to be in a storm with lightning and stuff going off everywhere. Bargle.




Another creature that I wanted to include was Cerberus. Multi-headed guardians to the gates of hell = so much win. At the same time, a unit on "hellhounds" in general might be kinda fun, as the imagery of a pack of dark, firey hounds racing along on a fae hunt or through hell. I'm going to need to do some research, because wikipedia is not always accurate, but the hellhounds having ghostly and phantasmic characteristics is also quite appealing to my imagination. I don't know. Maybe Cerberus is the better choice. He *is* a hellhound, and what's more, the most well known hellhound in myth. At the same time, I really like the pack imagery, and I could see having a unit that focuses on canine anatomy without the need to tweak it to adapt to holding 3 heads at a single meeting point having more application towards a variety of drawings and creature designs. (for the person reading the book.) I don't know. Thoughts?




***Many fantasy monsters are described as hideous things to be feared. Now, while I think that horror-show monsters and fugly things are pretty darn cool and that I love seeing the different designs that can be pulled out, what I mean by "cool" above is something that's not only fantastic and powerful, but something that can be beautiful and charismatic as well. You know, something that a daydreamer would want to draw, or can picture their RP characters with and such.

Edit: I wanted to clarify that there are many more fantasy creatures that will be in the book, including a good selection of dragons. The two above are units I would like to include, but am having a hard time narrowing down what I want from very similar possibilities :-D