Another Major Arcana for the nonexistant Wombat Tarot--The Fool. This feckless wombat is accompanied by his faithful companion, the Mystic Lungfish. The symbolism of the Mystic Lungfish is, of course, so obvious to the initiated that I will not repeat it here and risk boring the viewer.

It was late, I need to turn out a heckuva lot of art for a show in a week, and somehow, a Wombat Tarot seemed like a great idea. This is actually done on matboard, largely because I grabbed the wrong piece of scrap, but it made a niftily textured, if very slow to dry, surface.

It's another frogbird, this time a plover. Acrylic, 18 x 18, for Trinoc Con upcoming. As for the big question--how did those big eggs come outta that teeny froggy rear?--your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they get laid small and grow and harden when they mature? Yeah. Sounds right.

Having read a couple of books lately that for some reason featured the obscure mythical grindylow--as generic water imp, as demonic extra-dimensional mermen, etc--I decided to do my own versions, which came out as kind've anthro-viperfish. And hey, everybody loves viperfish, right? Right?!

A quick evening's amusement--Susan Seddon Boulet inspired, bear with Haida salmon. I was originally gonna have him holding a hummingbird, and then I thought "Y'know, I've seen plenty of footage of bears, and lots of them were carrying fish around, but I've never seen one cuddling a hummingbird."

This started life as a watercolor, but on a whim, I wound up redoing it in the more graphical style that I'd done other frog paintings in. Is the world ready for Holstein frog udders? Probably not, no.

I went to the zoo. The preening macaws were spectacular. They looked like stoned, beautiful dust-mops. I took probably fifty photos of them, and later did this painting, which has successfully rid me of A) any fear of painting feathers and B) feeling in my wrists.

Many sea creatures are famed for their haunting songs, but only the marine crested snogwoggler is known for its banjo solos.

Bob the curve-billed brown thrasher has just discovered the ancient and evil Medallion of Really Really Nasty Evil Unpleasant Bad Things. And if Bob had opposable thumbs and could keep a coherent thought together for more than three seconds at a stretch, he would probably become the dark overlord of all thrasherkind, but unfortunately, he's just going to stash it in a treetrunk and then forget about it.

Finally colored this one...took me long enough!

One of nature's great optimists, the armored nallwug lives in the perennial hope that today is the day someone will throw it a surprise party.

Fun little watercolor piece that I did for the upcoming Anthrocon--I had originally been planning to go with the classic red pirate coat, but the black-and-cream worked so well for me that I went with it instead, and the impracticality of this husky pirate getting blood out of her clothes be damned.

This fuzzy fellow is a Schiuan takin, an Asiatic beast somewhere between a muskox and a mountain goat. They're yellow. The legendary "golden fleece" may be from one. They have 'em at the Minnesota zoo, which is where I took all the photos for this guy. It's acrylic, 18 x 24, and was intended as a follow up to the camel painting, but I find I'm less pleased with it--part of it, of course, lies with my rendering skills, but I think part of it is with the subject--camels have almost sculptural fur, what with the dreads and matts and all, as opposed to the smoother fleece of the takin.

A piece for the folio collaboration with the talented Cara Mitten, featuring a brontothere birdwatcher. Those little birds, which you'll eventually find if you've got some time to kill, are oxpeckers, which hang out on a lot of big grazers, so why not him?

Acrylic, 18 x 24. The story goes that a prophet of Allah once fled into the desert to escape his enemies. His faithful camel carried him tirelessly to safety, and to reward the beast, the prophet whispered one of the secret names of God into its ear. The camel told the other camels, and to this day, camelkind looks down haughtily on all other creatures who don't possess such sacred knowledge. (And hey, they look neat.)

When the sludge hippocampus evolved from the more generic river hippocampus, in order to take advantage of the sprawling habitat offered by the sewers of large cities, it found a niche rich in food and hiding places, where it could grow to unprecedented size.

Unfortunately, the goldfish had gotten there first.

Now that THAT's out of my system...

Commission of Cerberus with broken musical instruments. Fun!

Been reading Jeff Smith's "Bone" comics lately, which are very engaging, and nicely done in B&W, and led me to think, "Huh, wonder if my scribbly digital technique would work for a comic? It'd be a lot faster..." and thus a few minutes later, out came Digger the wombat, about whom I know absolutely nothing, except that I obviously like chunky little heroines. Who knows, might go somewhere. (I don't need another project, I don't need another project...)

Before anyone writes to know what's going on with my other comics and why the Mammals haven't disposed of the brain yet--I'm workin' on it, okay? It takes awhile for these things to penetrate my sodden brain.

It's a glyptodon! This hefty prehistoric beast, relative of the modern armadillos and sloths, is a piece for a folio I'm collaborating with the talented Cara Mitten on...should be fun. He was fun to draw, right up until my husband said "Hey, it looks like one of those things from the Dark Crystal," which sent me gibbering off into the night, but what can you do? That's what the bloody critters look like, after all.

Another watercolor and pen piece, a bit more elaborate this time. It's 12 x 16, just your typical dragony type, wrapped in beads, with a frog. (Of course there's a frog.) Pet? Lunch? Buddy? Your guess is as good as mine...

Silly doodle while waiting for watercolor to dry. This is my orange. You get your own.

My computer was down, so I resorted to pen and watercolor to capture a frog who evidentally has a hard time with swimming. Maybe he's really a toad.

Quick little doodle of that mighty marauder of the paleolithic, bane of fish, bugs, rodents, and very very small mammoths--the fearsome Sabertoothed Toad.

Another piece for the Amazons portfolio...this time in color. A Mayan jaguar, some ruins, and a tree frog...fun stuff all. The carvings are based on heiroglyphics from the Popul Vuh, which I would like to nominate as having the Coolest Names Ever. Seriously! Wander through the underworld there and you encounter the House of Stone Jaguars, the House of Obsidian Knives, run into demons with names like Scab Stripper and Blood Macaw, and can even play ball at Great Hollow With Fish In The Ashes. Modern place names simply do not compare.

Another kachina-inspired piece, this time a kit fox in gear based on that of Letaiyo, the fox kachina (a doll of whom was one of my most prized possessions as a child.) I reiterate, once again, while these are based on the Hopi kachina costumes, they should not be taken as any kind of accurate representation of what really goes on in Hopi religion--they're more like projections of how I envisioned the kachinas as a kid growing up in Arizona. I've got enormous aesthetic respect for the culture, the costumes are simply mind-bending, and thus would like to make it absolutely clear--I'm a white chick from the suburbs, I don't speak the language, and this is a tribute, not an accurate portrayal of any kind. Whew. Now THAT was a disclaimer and a half.

The anthro-critter-in-Indian-gear is practically a cliche of furry art, but I've noticed that it's rare you see them in anything but semi-generic Plains Indian garb. Which is a shame, because there's some really nifty costumes available somewhat farther afield. This guy, for example, is wearing an approximation of the costume worn by the Honan, or Badger Kachina, during the Plaza Dances of the Hopi Kachinas. (Approximate because A) my grasp of watercolor isn't sufficient for really hellacious beadwork, and B) I didn't see much point in putting a badger mask on him.) Growing up in Arizona, I always thought the kachinas were seriously cool, and I've painted a few of 'em, most notably my little blue frog kachina...will have to do some more in the future.

On a technical note, I do NOT have the patience to paint fur normally in watercolor--it takes too much advance planning. So it was with great delight that I realized I could paint pretty decent fur just by laying down base colors and then glazing the clumps over the top in white casein paint. Woohoo, another victory for impatience!

It's a truism of art that when you're feeling down and nothin's quite flowing right, you can hardly ever go wrong painting naked women. Or presumably naked margays, either.

A Brazilian porcupine--man, these are funky little beasts. They have prehensile tails and their quills cover most of their faces and ring their eyes. More fun with black and white! The bird eyeing her is a plush-crested jay, a native of the same range as the porcupine.