Anhkeg and Axebeak

More sub-par photos sorry,

but here is the ankheg with its pretty pearly eyes. I made the front legs far more like a mole crickets forelegs than in standard depiction.
Axebeak, I don't know how happy I am with the axebeak, I made it way big and wanted something far more sleek and unusual looking than a stocky dire cassowary looking thing. Its pretty cute though and I was expect to be surprised by the final result. Otherwise I'm not having fun.

See? Big damn bird. I don't know how that happened.
Has such an endearing expression though so it makes the grade.
Looking at it now makes me think of all the possible interpretations of the axebeak concept, like giving them ridiculous head feathers, or making them freakishly long and skinny or absurdly coloured like a flamingo so its all the more jarring when they come charging your way out for head meat.
Cassowarys  are responsible for an alarmingly high amount of attacks on zoo keepers, and I'm thinking that (other than that they have no discernible expression and kick at kick height with dagger length claws) because they look so damn stupid they don't get taken serious as you would a large predatory cat.
Apparently people in yellowstone park don't take bears seriously. There was a story about a couple smearing jam on their kids face so they could get an adorable photo of a bear licking the jam of the kids face.
Sadly (?) I can't find a reliable confirmation  of it though.
I can't remember what's next. Basilisk and that super rhino I think.
Feel free to comment on what monster you would prefer to see made next.

Ape, ant, aerial servant

It's the "ape,giant" ! Or possibly "ape,killer". Maybe just even "ape".
Anyhow I thought this one was gonna be simple! But no! His face just had to keep doing some kinda gestalt switch thing, where I would pin it in place, looking like an ape, sew it, and bang! It would look like a ogre or something, until I adjusted some tiny ratio of lip to brow and then it would look ape again. And then flip back.This took far long and made me sad and doubting of sanity. Thanks ape. Thanks.

Aerial servant, could pass as an air elemental, smoke paraelemental, or perhaps, unkindly: Golem, tissuewad.

It was kinda fun to make actually. Of course since I went for the "vague torso rising from cloud bank look" the air elemental is gonna have to be a funnel or something else distinctive. Oh for a palette swap cop out. But no! I will not stoop to such base roguery!

Okay last up for this update, the giant ant.

Does anyone else get all pissy when giant insects are in role-playing systems and they have like massive stats?
Coz "ants can lift 100 times their body weight". Except that is coz there small and the whole surface area to volume ratio means that life works way different for smaller things. So if the advantages of small get turned into magic ability, why not give giant ants a special weakness to water surface tension to balance it?
Anyway now working on ankheg , axe beak and the Baluchitherium. Which I thought was those rhinos with fancy horns but is actually a super large hornless rhino. Wow. Those are cool. Thanks wikipedia.  Thanks.


Yes, my camera is a piece of Baluchitherium coprolite. Apology's.

the photos what are better

DISPLACER BEAST!!!! WHARHHA!

AND BEHOLD! THE BEHOLDER!

So aerial servant and ape,giant should be done by the end of week.

 Exciting no?

So It Begins..

Dubiously inspired, i have commenced a project to portray the 1st edition monster manual in occupational therapyish soft toys!
SO aiming for atleast 2 monsters a week, lets see how far I can kick this puppy!

Points of note:
Looking through a online list of the monsters contained in the fore-mentioned tome,
I notice about half the fucking book is indispensable d&d classics such as the giant beaver, giant ant, giant goat, giant ant, etc. Also that theres a giant stag in a separate entry to the irish elk. Which is separate again from the herd animal listing (giraffe + 2 others. Giraffe stuck in my head because of the mild hilarity of templating Dire, or Vampire or Demonic with a giraffe. ha.). Buffalo is of course needing its own entry, because of far too much tactical and background information to easily condense with the lower dungeon fodder of giraffekind.

So.. Statement Uno:
I'm making one example from each multiple monster entry, unless theres something ....sensually alluring about more than 1 of them. So herd animal is represented by the giraffe (possible featuring a fetching little scalloped cape, see Statement zwei) , Lizard by giant lizard, but maybe there will be a stag beetle and a boring beetle. Savvey?

Statement Zwei:
Accuracy is gonna lose to perverse hilarity.

Statement Toru:
I'm actually using whatever scrap fabric comes to hand, not just pants.

Statement Shi:
These are one-off hand-made "unique" creations, and I'm not about to make a etsy empire selling hundreds of these off. Hopefully this will avoid the attentions of a cease and desist letter from wizards of the coast, as the
beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, kuo-toa, mind flayer, slaad,umber hulk,and yuan-ti 
are their sole intellectual property etc etc.

Okay, think thats it. First up;
two shoddy(to be replaced soon) photos of the beholder and the displacer beast.
Currently working on the giant ape and aerial servant.
Next update saturday!
Cloud monsters... so much fun to make out of fabric.. ugh.