Pokemon

Whilst playing through Pokemon, I've come across some designs that I think are inspired by urban legends and myths around the world.
This is a Pokemon called Lucario - his design (or at least his head) looks like it was influenced by the Egyptian god Anubis. Although Lucario is not associated with the dead or embalming in Pokemon he does have strange, almost god-like powers (reading the auras of others). It could be argued that Lucario is just modelled on a dog/jackel but his colouring and the jet-black stripes down and across his face tell me otherwise. This is a good example of how mythology can still be used in a game/cartoon for a younger audience. Lucario is also a popular Pokemon (see here).

Another Pokemon that is inspired by myth is Frosslass (below). Her design and demenour immediately made me think of a geisha (her red bow is commonly seen on a Japanese kimono) and as she is a Ghost/Ice type Pokemon that maybe her origin is something based in Japanese myth. After some research, my hunch was right - she is based on Yukki-onna a female spirit in Japanese folklore. Again, it seems even cartoons have their origins somewhere in myth.

IS screenshots

Playing through IS on PSP is useful, so I got some screenshots of the characters and their Personas.
Basically, a Persona is "another self" that likes deep beneath the subconciousness that reveals itself when the person is threatened. Hence, in battles and equally dire situations, the Personas of the character spring forth and fight (this is an RPG afterall). Every Persona is based on a character or being from mythology ranging from Greek, Egyptian, Japanese, North American and many others. These screenies show in-game footage (remember this is a psone game).


Rhadamanthys was a Greek judge of the dead and associated with death (his Persona type in the game is Death).


Maia is of Greek origin and was one of seven daughters Pleiades (the eldest) and was worshipped by Roman women. She is a earth goddess, simialr to Gaia.

More info on IS here.

Been playing too many games lately.

Yeah, the patch for Persona 2 Innocent Sin came out and I've been playing that religiously for the past few days. One of the best PSX JRPGs ever - play it! Fable II came out as well so everyone's been playing that lol. Add that with Pokemon Pearl and mine and Matt's current Oddworld obsession....you get the idea.

Anyways, ordered this book off Amazon the other day - the Hamlyn History of Mythology. It's a truly beautfiul book, and it's theoretical too so it's quotable ^^ There's so much stuff in it from primal chaos (how different mythologies interpret the beginning of existence) to the end of the world (Ragnorak and such). It's even got stuff like Zoroastrian mythology in it which is pretty difficult to understand nevermind rare to find in a book. I've ordered another one but it hasn't arrived yet.

Fittingly I found the info on this book on the Allegory of Whatever website - the number one port of call for Innocent Sin help and such. The guy who runs it's put up a list of interesting mythology books, as the Persona series derives a LOT from lots of mythologies around the world.

So yeah, playing Persona 2 = research ^^

Jackpot!

Looking around for Monster Hunter artwork (the monsters in it are pretty cool looking and I'm a massive fan of it myself. Bring out 2G Capcom!) I found loads of scans of Frontier! Artwork is pretty hard to find for these games and I found quite the treasure trove.

There are even some alternative designs for the Kirin (as it's spelt in the game) in MH. The design for the Kirin here stems from it's eastern origins, the unicorn influence and the quote "its hooves rarely touch the earth, for it dwells amongst the clouds and behind the winds". Hence the Kirin here is of the Lightning/Wind element.

What Capcom have done is similar to what I'm trying to achieve - taking a mythological creature (the Ki-Rin), mixing it up with others (the unicorn) and creating a creature that has obvious references to it's development (the unicorn's horn, for example) and creating something original. The Kirin here is actually scaled and quite dragon-like - I shall try to get some PSP screenshots to better show what I mean.

Some Research Images

I realised that in my last post I mentioned Kelpies and Ki-Rin - there's some good information here on Kelpie/water horse myth but I just wanted to post some images I've been using.
This is a Kelpie designed by Kazuma Kaneko, who does a lot of the art for the Shin Megami Tensei series. His designs are immensely precise and basic, but clever.


This is a picture I actually found in a place I didn't expect - it's an artists depiction of a Ki-Rin a chinese dragon/unicorn hybrid said to be even rarer than a unicorn. I liked the scaly look of the beast and want to work on some textures for my Jersey Devil/Kelpie/horse......thing.

I need to think up a name for my beastie >.>

Some Sketchings

Over the past few days I've been getting some Jersey Devil/horse monster designs down on paper. Before I even started this project I decided to create some sort of horse hybrid (because I'm not very good at drawing them and this stands as good research) so here are some quick sketches.
^ These were some very early designs for a horse creature. After researching the Devil, I kind of merged the my design and the appearence of the Devil together. I came up with these below.
^I'm going for a vicious Jersey Devil/Kelpie hybrid. I quite like the Ki-Rin/Kelpie appearence of scaled, somewhat dragon type features so I gave these designs teeth and clawed "hands".

The Thunderbird

The Thunderbird is a bird cryptid said to be at large in Pennsylvania and the Central States. It is a giant bird which exceeds the largest scientifically known wingspan - the Wandering Albatross has a wingspan of 13 ft whilst the Thunderbird is said to exceed 15 ft sometimes 20ft. It is sighted often and is always described as having the same distinctive colour - black or dark brown with a white marking around it's neck, hawk-like in appearence.

On July 30, 1977 John Huffer, an ex-marine and photographer, took a 100 foot roll of color film of two birds taking off from a tree in an inlet of Lake Shelbyville. I have tried to find the film but the only one I could find was no longer avaliable. I did find this still.

The film is said to be of good quality and has experts stumped.

As a concept design, this already has a lot of it's on game mythology. Rocs and other large birds are used time and time again in games along with the more god-like birds (see Quetzalcoatl) which I personally remember appearing in Final Fantays VIII as a Guardian Force. Mixing up the various legend of big bird, mythical birds (Garuda perhaps?) and my own imaginings culd make for some interesting sketches.

Last Few Days...

For the past few days I've basically been doing research - more research into monsters (cryptids mostly), playing some games and reading up. I discovered the Giant Squid (which could be an interesting avatar to play as) is only the longest squid in the world, the Colossal Squid is larger and have been researching the Thunderbird, Mothman and more horse-related beasts (Kelpie, Unicorn etc). The Collosal Squid and Thunderbird could be interesting designs so I think I'm going to focus on them.

A Teratorn, a bird thought to be extinct that could be still alive.

Collosal Squid (right) and Giant Squid (left)

The Sucuriju Gigante

Sniffing around for more of the less known myths and oddities, I came across the Sucuriju Gigante or Giant Anaconda. Whereas an Anaconda - the heaviest snake in the world - grows to about 30-35 ft the Sucurii apparently grows to way over 60ft in length. The Amazonian tribes also regard it ("her") as the being who created the Amazon. The pictures underneath was taken by a Colonel Rene van Lierde of one of these creatures.....from a helicopter.



The Sucuriju is basically described as a huge Anaconda that preys on the tribesman and large animals. It's a simple but cool concept for a controllable avatar in a game - put into the body of a huge snake-like monster, you can slither about in the undergrowth and rivers of some deep, dark forest, maybe gathering information and hunting prey when you get hungry (just a concept). It could be the more stealthy of your gaggle of monsters you directly control. I had an idea about the Jersey Devil - it being the offspring of a witch and such, it could be the magic-orientated character of your group and maybe reconnaissance as it's wings could come in handy for gliding and spotting enemies.

I don't have my game idea pinned down for definate yet, but these are just some quick thoughts.

Researching

I've spent more or less the whole day on the internet today researching various monsters. I spent a little bit more time on the Jersey Devil but instead started looking more at horses and their body structure - there's not a lot out there on the Devil except maybe some bad films.

Whilst researching I stumbled upon the a Cryptozoology exhibit (Ctrl+F centaur) - cryptids, in this case the Centaur, are presented in the style of a museum i.e. making the exhibits look like they actually exist. This relates to one of my ideas as trying to draw the bone structure of my chosen creatures - I would love to go see such as exhibit but it seems these sort of things only go on in the States.

The Jersey Devil

Whilst playing Pokemon Pearl today (I love Pokemon, the idea of monsters being able to evolve is an interesting one and anyone who says Pokemon is for kids obviously hasn't played it. Ever heard of IV training?) I had an idea and decided to visit a long forgotten website www.Monstrous.com. This brilliant website basically is your in-depth Wikipedia for all things weird and wonderful. The new stories are just....well, read them yourself.

Anyway, I came across the urban myth of the Jersey (or Leeds) Devil. Apparently the 13th child of the witch Mother Leeds and the Devil, the story goes that the child was born deformed, killed the midwife and scrambled up the chimney. There have been over 2000 sitings for the last 270 years and there are a few features of the Devil that are always the same:

• Horse-like head, sometimes with red eyes
• Long neck and tail
• Large leathery wings
• Cloven hooves
• High-pitched, human-like scream

To me, this sounds like it could be the basis for a pretty cool looking monster. The picture here is apparently an artists depiction of the Devil when it was a child. Here's one decent photograph I could find of the damn thing.


This being a cryptid, there's not a lot of compelling photo evidence but that's not the point of what's interesting about it. It's backstory and appearence, as stated, could make for a good design.

Direction

For my project, I'm going to look at and research the various monsters that have ingrained onto the social psyche through time. By this, I basically mean the "standard"monsters we've all become used to seeing in film, game, literature and the media. Griffins, unicorns, dragons, devils, centaurs and the like. I want to see if I can create some "original" monsters, taking reference from mythology, the human imagination and cryptozoology - the study of animals that have not been scientifically proved to exist yet. A good example of this would be the Chupacabra.