I've Come To Burn Your Kingdom Down

Cockatrice standing on the banks of Wyrmsmere, from Walter Wangerin Jr's The Book of the Dun Cow. A seriously awesome book. Anyone who considers themselves a fan of epic animal fantasy, like Warriors for instance, ought to read this (except that this is WAAAAYYY better than Warriors in my opinion). It's not a massive door-stopping tome, only two hundred-something pages, but there's more beauty and meaning and sheer epic-ness in those little two hundred-something pages than many books have in three times as many pages. No really. It's like Lord of the Rings meets Animal Farm. 

My design for Cockatrice is a combination of vulture, python, dragon, dromeosaur (you can't see them in this picture, but he has giant sickle talons on his feet like a Deinonychus), and Sumatra rooster. Seriously, look up pictures of Sumatra roosters. One may not typically look at a chicken and think "majestic", but I'm telling you, those things are the Spanish bulls of the chicken world.


By the way, is the red in the background too much? I wanted to give this image a little bit more color because Cockatrice himself ended up looking pretty muted. What do you guys think?



Gimp Water Brushes