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Those people who are intelligent enough (that means, possess the ability to read that I want artists for monsters, not suggestions of ones to make, because obviously I have no knowledge in the area) to send in artwork of a monster are often shot down not for a lack of drawing ability, but rather because they drew something in wild contradiction of the legend. Here's how to avoid that mistake.
- Step #4: Sample Pictures
- Using the information you have gathered so far, you should be able to make some sketches of your monster. They do not have to be the best, but they should convey the fact that 1) you know what the monster is about, and that 2) you possess at least some artistic ability. We aren't looking for much; simple shading and basic animal shapes -- which can be copied out of any wild life magazine (like I do) -- are all I'm looking for.
Since I don't like being around a computer too much, I tried copying the two known stone reliefs of Tiamat. This is also some good practice for drawing the beast, and a good way to get one's mind on the monster.
This will be the basis for the most mature form of Tiamat. I drew it way too large, taking up a good quarter of my sketch paper. It is fairly straight forward. The second common depiction is much more stylized. An attempted picture of what all of the squiggles were trying to represent had to be put next to the direct copy.
With these pictures, even more can be added to Tiamat's appearance than mentioned in the previous notes. The younger Tiamat had a great deal of difficulty in working, especially since it always looked ridiculous, hardly like the chaotic goddess it is described.
The horn-like protrusion and the possibly nub on the reliefs' heads has been kept even here. The almost suit-like scales have also been bumped down from the draconic version, lining the arms and head of the young Tiamat with a distinct, separating ridge. Lips and an open mouth are wildly apparent not to work, so the head will be kept mouthless if at all possible. The head is being constantly shaped more and more like that of a sea dragon, a real-life relative of the sea horse. Tiamat is a dragon of the sea, and the depiction does have the general elongated, equine snout.
Pupils also seemed to be the Tiamat's enemy. By chance, I had recently been reading up on wood lice and subsequently the Ohmu (of Valley of the Wind fame), whose eyes seemed perfect for the dragon. They are round, flat, and certainly with a combination frightening/cuddly quality (which would fit this infant monster).
The hands will be a thinner version of the adults, complete with the bulbous, gnarled thumb. The body is more or less bland scales on both the back and belly, so the end of the tail was snazzed up by creating a dual braid, playing on its depiction.
The original's mouth was a mess; I could not tell what was maw and what was fang, so I went a far more generic route. One of the most notable changes I made to Tiamat's appearance happened on the spot; I had noticed that Tiamat's wings came right from where an elbow should be. The solution? Wing elbows! Entirely non-functional in real life, but then again, Tiamat was really never described as a flying monster (and if she could the winds she controls would probably have something to do with it).
Thick brows and a generally wide head were added since her ears are supposed to be separated by a greater size than her mouth. Like the mouth, the eyes were also a mess. Something related to the original was copied, featuring light eyes surrounded by very dark circles.
I even tried to keep the same position as the relief for this picture, just in a much more organic angle than a complete profile. The arms are separated by the same ridge that divided the face from the scales, but the same would be impossible with the legs (without making it appear as though she wore shorts). They will blend much more like the legs of a bird -- preferably a large bird -- blend from the feathers.
Eggs are probably best done last in the creative process. It gives you time to take in all aspects of a monster so that you can decide which ones to grab-bag to make an egg that no other monster will ever use. Of course, not all monsters have eggs -- those are the lucky ones.
Now, if you for some reason remember my ramblings earlier on Tiamat, I said that its egg would probably resemble something of a marble. Well, just to show you how fast things can change, I decided on not making it a marble.
Multi-colored things, especially ones in which those colors exist in very finite amount at close, intermingled proximity, fair especially poor at the small sizes of BD. Also, I just did not like the way an orb egg was looking for Tiamat. It does not even have the Wind or Earth elements at this stage in its life, so representing it as a planet made even less sense.
The final decision is not much better, but I thought it did look more appealing, especially since it is a very unusual shape (and eggs need to be as varied as they can get). It is essentially a block of stone, lending to its true source recorded on stone tablets. Of course, that has no lending to an actual mythological reference, but being made of an earthen substance does. This is also in reference to the tablets that Tiamat itself possessed, the Tablets of Destiny.
The reason for the egg being triple sided is simply because a flat egg -- as a stone tablet should look -- would look overly ridiculous. So, one side more than flat (dual sided) is a triangular pillar. As stated previously, it carried on the horned tradition of the draconic representations with the addition of more spikes on the bottom, largely to serve as a visual balance.
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