Old Fantasy Stuff

Sometimes, old sketches are still worthy of remembering – sometimes for the meaning, for the fond memories, sometimes for the small step in self-improvement they represent.

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Cute fantasy creatures

2019 – Some excerpts from a “drawcember” challenge, a month dedicated to creating a drawing a day, following a list of prompts – clearly, I had chosen a list dedicated to fantasy creatures. Bic pen and watercolor on paper + digital correction. All the 31 drawings here.

• The griffin is a guardian, half bird of prey and half lion, linked to Mycenaean and Greek mythology.
• Unicorns are mythological creatures widely represented in the Middle Ages, a symbol of purity. Deer body, lion tail, goat hooves, and a horn on the forehead.
• The Kirin is a particularly complex Chinese mythological beast: deer body, colorful scales, golden mane, a single branched horn in front. Peaceful and auspicious, until it gets pissed off. It was really hard to come to terms with the anatomy of this unfamiliar creature.
• The Kitsune is a magical fox from Japanese mythology, clever and powerful, which on certain occasions is represented as a nine-tailed fox, with brown or white and red fur.

• The troll, a legendary creature of the woods. Big, green, lumpy, and… bad and dangerous, or good-natured and mischievous depending on the type of story.
• “Siren” is one of the two English terms for “mermaid” (“sirena”, in italian), and represents its most evil and monstrous version: the creature from the Odyssey who resembles a woman only in her melodious voice, but who lures sailors against the rocks to devour their meats.
• The term “mermaid” refers to the mermaid with a positive meaning: the mermaid who sings, who has a beautiful voice, who resembles a beautiful girl, and who saves the sailor or shipwrecked man by bringing them to shore.
• The vampire is a human-like creature, sometimes with the ability to mutate, which nourishes human blood. Present in all the cultures of the world from Mesopotamia onwards, the folklore tradition of the Balkans has taken over. The term vampire also defines a small species of South American bats that bite dogs and livestock and then drink their blood, occupying the same ecological role as mosquitoes, and another species of megachiroptera, always South American, that eat flowers but are so large that they are scary.

• The satyr is a creature of Greek mythology, half man and half goat. They are linked to the cult of Dionysus and often depicted dancing, playing the flute or chasing some nymph.The faun is a figure in Roman mythology, a deity of nature, flocks and woods. His appearance is human in shape, but with the feet and horns of a goat. Faun Vs satyr: faun is the “Roman” version of the Satyr.
• Cerberus, a terrible three-headed mastiff, was a guardian of Hades in Greek mythology. Son of Typhon and Echidna, he is the brother of Chinera, Hydra and Sphinx. He was tamed by Hercules.
• The chimera is a flame-spitting monster of Greek mythology, which combines features of the lion, the goat and the snake. I chose the anatomy represented in the famous bronze statue of the “Chimera of Arezzo”, from the Etruscan era, in which the goat head is curiously found on the lion’s back, and the snake is its tail.

• Crystal dragon – Colorful dragons, metal dragons… why not, even crystal ones. Gold and azurite? Bronze and celestine?
• The wyvern is a beast of European and African mythology, a sort of small bipedal dragon that is distinguished by its tail capable of injecting venom.
• The term “drake” refers to the italian “drago”, in the version with 2 legs and 2 wings (unlike “dragon”, with 2 wings and 4 legs) it should be ferocious but… today it’s not.
• The hydra appears in Greek mythology as a serpentine monster with legs and a multitude of heads, capable of spitting venom. In the labors of Hercules, as soon as a head was cut, they grew back two. Traditionally represented with nine, seven or three heads.

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Old unicorn stuff

Various kind of unicorns, my obsession for many years. Pencil sketches, colored pencils, watercolors, 2004-2008.

2002, The winged unicorn reaches the edge of his world, the edge of the enchanted valley where he lives. Beyond, lies a sea of fog that envelops the world, so far seen only by the blue dragon, friend and guardian.

Grey unicorn – Grey unicorn running in the plains of despair. To easy to lost the way in the world outside home. Pencils, 2003

Little pretty pegasus dare to flight in the night, toward the unknown. Pencils, 2004

Prancing fire unicorn – Watercolor, 2018 A 15 mins sketch became immediately a wild and watercolor sprayed with red.

A very old subject for me. The unicorn is not a horse with a horn. Peter Beagle in The Last Unicorn described it: “She did not look anything like a horned horse, as unicorns are often pictured, being smaller and cloven-hoofed, and possessing that oldest, wildest grace that horses have never had, that deer have only in a shy, thin imitation and goats in dancing mockery.” – In the heart of the forest, in the heart of the night, the unicorn opens his heart and look into itself. – Pencils 2002/4/6 digital color 2007/17

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Other old stuff

An elemental of fire, a salamander, is magnificently dancing into the flames.
Her skin unscorched, unburn, for she’s fire herself: her dancing and turning aroung generates the heat and the flames. There’s a powerful music she’s dancing on, a tale of adventure and courage singed from human voices. – Salamandra di fuoco – Pencil sketch + intuos and photoshop redrawing and coloring – summer 2017

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last page edit 25/03/2024