Now normally I like to build creatures. And when I say creatures I mean the wild, unintelligent, beasts that don’t rely on magic or wizards to sustain or create them. Pure, natural, creatures you might say.
At the moment, however, I find myself with a bunch of “creatures” mostly consisting of the humanoid sort so widely utilized in pretty much anything fantasy these days. It’s really weird for me.
~
Anyway, here’s our first creature. Creature, mind you, nothing humanoid here, just a crab. The last member of my anthropomorphic pirate crew. Crab is the onboard surgeon of the ship, fitted out with a giant claw, perfect for those necessary amputations. Although, unfortunately for the rest of the crew, crabs are the only ones who can re-grow lost limbs.
~
Well, that last one wasn’t very castlely was it? Unless your heros are constantly battling giant crabs in your world, that is. So anyway, here’s something a bit more castle like.
The Ibixan. Not an original idea but a cool one none the less.
~
As they drew nearer, the figure turned its head and showed them a long, thin face with rather sunken cheeks, a tightly shut mouth, a sharp nose and no beard. He was wearing a high pointed hat, like a steeple, with an enormously wide brim. The hair, if it could be called hair, which hung over its large ears, was greeny-gray and each lock was flat rather then round so that they were like tiny reeds. Although his body was not much bigger then a dwarf’s, he had very long legs and arms, which would’ve made him taller then most men when he stood up. The fingers of his hands were webbed like a frog’s and so were his bare feet, which dangled in the muddy water. He was dressed in earth colored clothes, which hung loose about him. His expression was solemn, his complexion, muddy and you could see at once that he took a very serious view of life.
“Puddleglum’s my name, but it doesn’t matter if you forget it. I can always tell you again.”
This creation is a homage to my very most favorite character in the Chronicles of Narnia. Puddleglum the Marshwiggle. It also somewhat resembles what I always imagined he looked like.
“They all say, I mean the other Wiggles all say, that I’m too flighty. Don’t take life seriously enough. If they’ve said it once they’ve said it a thousand times. ‘Pudleglum,’ they’ve said ‘your altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits. You’ve got to learn that life isn’t all fricasseed frogs and eeyore pie. You want something to sober you down a bit.’ That’s what they say.”
~
The Sneak. This is the sneak. I’m not sure what else to call him really. I guess he’s some sort of goblinoid thief or assassin or something. I don’t know, but he looks sneaky so I call him the sneak.
~
By now I suspect you are beginning to see the humanoid trend I was referring to earlier. Well here’s another one. I don’t really know what to call this one. He’s kind of odd really. Some kind of spikey, beholderesque aberration or something. I don’t know…
~
Now for a change of pace. This is a Vargouille (aka flying head) another unoriginal idea. It’s what happens when you mess around too much with your green goblin helmets. This one might take a little imagination to comprehend. The mouth is still the mouth and its eyes are red. Maybe that will help.
~
Before I introduce the next two creation I would like to tell you something
I. Hate. Elves. Really, I do. They annoy me immensely. In fact I believe that every red-blooded man in the world feels the same deep inside. They just haven’t discovered their inner hatred yet.
Soooo…anyway! Knowing my own hatred for elves I was very surprised when I found myself building something closely resembling one. Thankfully I was not making elves. No no no. I was making Nelves. Nelves, in case you are wondering, are sort of like elves only without the obnoxious personalities. Naturally, it can be difficult to tell the difference between an elf and a nelf, but nelves make for much better company let me tell you.
Anyway, without further ado…here are
the wood nelf and…
the city nelf.
~
This is the hag. Honestly, I don’t know what she’s doing in here with my beasts. Having green skin doesn’t exactly make you a creature. Then again, if the nelves qualify, why not?
~
And this is the goblin. Another humanoid, made with the same technique as the nelves.
~
A while ago there was a thread on how to make orks. I wanted to answer but I didm’t have any pics to demonstrate at the time so I kept quiet. Anyway, if anyone is still looking, this is how I make orks.
P.S. I don’t usually dedicate my creatures to people, (not that anyone would want such an ‘honor’ or anything) but it just wouldn’t seem right to me if I didn’t dedicate this critter to my fellow long time Rper- The Ork.
~
The Grotesque. Ok so some of you may remember the gargoyle I opened up my last creature thread with a while ago. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s some pics somewhere in my brickshelf folder.) Well anyway, long about that time there was some debate over how human-like a gargoyle ought to be. Of course I aim to please so I went back to the drawing board and made another one. Here it is.
~
Last but not least, I am pleased to present my very first, all original, all natural creature. That’s right! No more flying heads or pointy nosed humanoids. This guy is all beast. I like to call him the elephant-hippo-dog-gorilla-bunny monkey, or elehipogoribunkey. Actually I call him Thumper. Don’t ask me why.
~
Well, that's it folks. I'm all out of critters. Until next time- Play well-
Anyway, great technique that I've used a lot as you can see.
