For October this year I thought it would be fun to showcase some of my favorite creature designs from fellow artists, one artist per week. I may continue posting beasts after Halloween into November and, heck, maybe even into December. The Yule season has its own parade of monsters, after all, beyond just the Krampus that has so recently been gracing American Christmas.
First up this week will be works by Stanton Fink. Stanton has an extensive portfolio of illustrations of monsters and strange creatures on his Deviantart page. He's also created an exhaustive visual encyclopedia of prehistoric animals, some of whom have never been reconstructed before. Definitely have a look at those as well.
He's also created several coloring books filled with facts about obscure prehistoric animals. Here's one about placoderms. And here's one about trilobites.
The monster featured today is Phorcys, a sea god. Because I never resist a quality crustacean god. Here's a description taken from Stanton's Deviantart page:
"Phorcys is the son of Pontus, the Sea, and Gaia, the Earth. Phorcys is an ancient sea god who, together with his sister-wife, Ceto, was the personification of all things frightful about the Sea.
Very few mortals worship or even revere him, though, all are respectful of his power. Phorcys is best known for being the father of the Phorcydes, a collection of among the most horrifying she-monsters ever known, including the Gorgons, the Graea, Scylla, Charybdis, and Echidna.
Phorcys bears a large grudge against the Olympians for their direct and indirect roles in the abuse and murder of his children and grandchildren. Ironically, he is loath to act on his festering enmity, as he is also fearful of sharing the fates of his half-brothers, the Titans, the Gigantes, and his son-in-law, Typhon."
I based his appearance on a mosaic that depicted him as a red 'mer-centaur' that had crab claws instead of horse's hooves. But, then I decided to snazz him up by making him a mer-eurypterid with viperfish as horns.
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