Kitsune: Japanese Shapeshifting Demon

Mongo: African Thunder God

Squonks!

Squonk's Hideout (quick explorations)

For my senior thesis I'm illustrating myths from different cultures. These are color/value explorations for the home of a sad little creature from the backwoods of Pennsylvania called a Squonk. These poor creatures are hideously ugly, and spend most of their day crying about it (and keeping out of sight.)

I'm trying to work a little flatter than usual to show some range; I usually start pieces this way. I think staying in the ''blocking'' phase for a bit longer will save me from overworking pieces in the future. I'll have a finished version of this soon (with Squonk in it) along with a character study of Squonk himself.

The Theft of Thor's Hammer

NORDIC FROST GIANT...he stole Thor's hammer. 

The Lowest Depths of Cute

So I wanted to do something that was shamelessly cute: it's a merbaby! It's a big contrast to what I'm currently working on for my thesis...some ugly, fearsome, Nordic Frost Giants. I designed this like a spot illustration for a chapter book, I'm very happy to be integrating text into my pieces.

The story is that our merbaby is the the long awaited heir to the thrown. The Sea King had only fathered mermaids, siren and other types of sea nymphs until that point. I didn't really think of much more of a story than though. After googling merbabies and merchildren, I was surprised that I didn't find a bigillion storybooks on the little guys.