Illustration Friday- Monster

I thought this was quite a difficult I Friday challenge - it was really hard to decide on a single idea that summed up 'monster'. Plus i have a few of monsters in my portfolio already and i wanted to do something different from the other thinsg i've done.

At first i thought about cybermen, Autons, or daleks - monsters from Dr Who [a long running BBC sci-fi series thats recently started again after many years].
I remember finding the Autons and Cybermen particularly terrifying. The Autons becuase they were malevolent showroom dummies that could shoot people and of course the real 70s dummies looked like they could come to life at any minute and run amok = which made shopping trips worrying ; and the cybermen probably becuase they seemed so alien yet vaguely human in form - like Tin Man from Wizard of Oz gone bad.

The daleks , though , were in a class of their own. Bizarre pwepper pot machines with living creatures inside created by the megalomaniac genius Davros. They had weird weapons seemingly made from sink plungers and whisks and metallic catahrral sounding voices that shouted brusque phrases - like , "seek , locate, destroy" and "you will obey the daleks" -and especially "E_X_T_E_RM_I_N_A_T_E " before obliterating people with their whisk ray gun.

I realised how terrifying I'd found the daleks when I visited a Dr Who exhibition aged about 15 and screamed when a dalek came towards me shouting "E_X_T_E_RM_I_N_A_T_E ". I probably wasn't the only person with that reaction - the daleks were definitely well loved but terrifying monsters for a lot of people my age.

I decided against Dr Who monsters , though i had toyed with the idea of pop-art style daleks and cybermen.

I then thought about people that have been described as monsters- especially folk like Vlad the Impaler and Erzsébet Bathory both of whom had the reputation for incredible brutality and mass murder and were part of the insiration for Dracula, but i decided against them as well.

I thought about giant creatures next and even did some sketches of the South American giant centipede Scolopendra gigantea, which can grow to around a foot in length [30cm] and has a poisonous bite - enough to potentially kill a human [though apparently this is a rare occurance and usually people have severe pain and swelling and palpitations due to the action of the venom on the heart].
Not so long ago a British man found one roaming about in his house which must have been a shock.

I gave up on that and decided to do something different and imaginary - a child monster but not a cute one - well as much as i could make it. I also wanted to do some horns and multiple eyes as these are quite difficult to paint- at least for me.







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