S is for Sazae-oni

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts! is probably about as close as I've ever come to painting a pin-up. Not exactly my usual genre! :-O

Sazae-oni is a shape-shifting bakemono who lives inside a turban shell. Sometimes she disguises herself as a beautiful temptress in order to lure sailors to their... dismemberment, shall we say?

I decided to depict the moment afterwards, when she begins to reveal her true, rather crabby nature to her poor victims. After all, vamping it up can be fun, but sometimes a girl's just gotta relax & be herself.





Acrylic on illustration scanned from Wonders of the Heavens, Earth and Ocean, 1887 (with some Photoshop touch-ups in the grand pin-up tradition) ~5.5"x8.5"

Lakelifter

More characters (created in Photoshop) for the painting I'm working on, with background added from an old school music book.

N is for Namazu

This week's critter for AlphaBeasts! is Namazu, a giant catfish monster who causes earthquakes & tsunamis whenever he manages to wrestle free from his usual captive state. I thought it was interesting that catfish do tend to abandon their normal bottom-feeding habits when they feel tremors; their unusual activity at such times probably led to this legend.

Acrylic on illustration from Cornell's Primary Geography, 1873. (And yes, I know catfish don't live in the ocean. Namazu is a river-beast. But I figured he might wander seaward when he's in mid-mischief.)