If you follow this blog regularly, you probably know that I participated in The Animal Alphabet Project, which is now finished. Look through the archives! It’s neat!
Now there is a new alphabet project starting up: Alphabeasts. Many of the same people will be contributing, and you can too!. Just read the guidelines here and post your stuff to Twitter or G+ on Mondays.
Since I do this as a challenge, to train myself to be more efficient, I have set some constraints for myself. For this round, I will not do any penciling or ink outlines. I’m going to start and finish each picture with watercolors. Viewers be warned: this approach may result in really awful art.
This thing doesn’t officially start until Monday, October 17th, but since I will be out of the country, I’m posting a few days early. I’m going on vacation to Mexico, so I’ve painted some Mexican creatures.
The first one is an Alux. It is a small, mischievous spirit that is sort of the Mayan equivalent of a fairy. They are reported to be seen in the Yucatan, which is exactly where I will be. I’ll let you know if I spot one.
That may not really be beastly enough for Alphabeasts, so I’ve also done a horrid Aztec creature. The Ahuitzotl is an aquatic dog-like creature with the hands and feet of a monkey, and an extra hand on its tail. It uses the tail-hand to drag its victims underwater, where it eats their eyes, teeth, and nails.
October 13, 2011 at 3:02 am
Is this a beauiful picture…congratulations.
October 17, 2011 at 1:34 pm
It eats their NAILS??
Augh! That’s horrible.
(I thought it was bad when Grendel ate people even unto the “hands and feet” … but something about a drowned eyeless, toothless, nailless corpse just gives me the willies!)
October 17, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Quite a contrast between these two– hope you only run into the Alux! The watercolor approach works great– I especially like all the spatters.
November 7, 2011 at 7:20 pm
[...] bigger than either. It lunges out of the water to snatch victims, then mauls them. (Similar to the Ahuitzotl! Don’t you love it when cultures on opposite sides of the world come up with the same [...]
January 16, 2012 at 11:47 pm
[...] The “fox snake” is an aquatic canid from Chile that causes dangerous whirlpools. It has a claw on its tail, which it uses to…wait, doesn’t this sound familiar? [...]