Level9Drow

I'm making my own Monster Manual. I'm kind of getting fed up with D&D monsters more and more as I read books on myth, legends and what not.  I finally decided I would just make my own Monster Manual from the floor up, only it would be more accurate to the lore of the creature being displayed…generally. And what I mean when I say generally is that a lot of these creatures are form separate lore, cultures, and times, so to cohesively put them together in the same world you have to bend a little, not as much as D&D (they got ridiculous with it) but just a bit. For instance, I put Hydra under the species of Wyrm even though it's a creature born from a titan; but in order to have that I have to have Greek creation myth in my world and if I have that than what about non-Greek monsters and on and on, the snowball effect of it is apparent, as you can see. So this is why a Hydra is no longer the child of a titan and a species of Wyrm instead. We could say that the Greeks THOUHGT it was a child of a titan and had no knowledge of wyrms and so, in this hypothetical instance, mistook it for a god spawnling, and could think of nothing else it could be. But the Hydra is essentially still a Hydra.

It can be difficult adding all these creatures together, especially when some are so similar and even more so when a few different creatures are the same but changed through history, as with the example of the Vampire; Starting off as Ghouls (basically bloated flesh eating blood drinking corpses that went out at night and went back in the grave during the day) then changing into more of the Nosferatu type (animalistic blood drinkers and horribly ugly) and finally becoming the "Vampire" which is an intelligent undead capable of blending in with an affinity for blood. I won't go past this point as the Twilight Vampires are just too gay for my tastes and will never be vampires in my eyes nor will I accept the "diseased" vampirism pop-culture myth as it is no longer an undead but a mutated human with an affliction, and I feel being undead is a strong defining characteristic of a vampire. And of course splitting off from ghouls was pop-culture Zombies who eat flesh and turn others to zombies, when actually that is the description of ghouls and REAL zombies don't eat flesh or turn others at all, they just kill and are created by witch doctors or necromancers. So we can see how a myth evolved in different directions. I am then stuck with the decision to keep them separate or unify them sometimes. Many times I keep them separate if the individual myths (as in the case of the vampire) are strong enough in their identity to feel separate and are in good taste. Other times I just meld them together if they are similar enough, like the hundreds of different evil water nymphs/female fairies existing in Russia, Celtic myth, Scandinavian, etc. all having different names and all practically looking basically the same and all doing the same thing, dragging men or children to their deaths. So in this case I just make it one creature and say it has many different names and is known by many different cultures, we can't have 20 evil water nymphs/hags all being and doing the exact same thing in a single cohesive fantasy world.

Many of the creatures are already finished, inked and markered and many are still in the pencils, about 30 or more are done another 30 half-finished and many, many in pencil form. But I will not be releasing it all at once.  Some of my other categories are going to be used for the Monster Manual anyways, like many of the demons and angels in the Hoof Horn and Wing series, I didn't feel it necessary to illustrate new pictures for the same thing, but who knows, maybe I will. I purchased the Goetia a year ago and in it have very interesting depictions of classic demons. Or maybe I'll just make my version of the Goetia demons, as they are kind of dopy looking even though they are skillfully done, making them a bit more hellish and scary looking.

As a last note I would like to say, as I always do, that the vast majority of my work (characters, creatures and races uniquely created by me, NOT traditional races like high-elves and orcs) are registered with the Library of Congress and are legal intellectual property of Isaac Horn. I got the papers to prove it (along with the original artwork) so no stealing, please (have some decency). A lot of viewers take my art and display it on other sites without asking me. I can't stop this from happening, it is the mistake and curse of showing your art online, but all I ask is to give credit where it's due. Put my name on your gallery please. If by chance you make money of my intellectual property, consider it mine, as I will have the legal right to sue and take it all.
I apologize for the nervous overly protective nature of my art, but as you know there are a lot of jackals out there and a lot of artist who have fallen victim to them, I'm just trying to cover my ass. If I would have known this was an eventuality I might have never posted, but I'm here now and have to make the best of it.

In any case here is the direct link to the Monster Manual section of my gallery --->  lvl9drow.deviantart.com/galler…

I am just clearing the old journal. Got tired of looking at it all the time and felt I should refresh this old page.

My shift at work is changing to night shift (i work at 1-800-MEDICARE) so I will have a bit of time on my hands. If they allow me to doodle I may even be able to pick up a few commissions to supplement my meager income. Cubical work is so bleary. To be fair I don't like to take on giant loads of commissions, I work full time and am not a full time illustrator. As such, I may turn a request down if I am already doing a few. I do traditional fantasy. I won't draw real people, just not interesting, or realism or modern things. I know you may say, "Your style would be perfect though." But I am sorry, I live and breath fantasy, that's what I do. I take sci-fi on a case by case basis, I like it but am not specialized in it. I'll do adult art if it isn't too bizarre and is not offensive to me. Send me a note, or contact me at level9drow@gmail.com.

For those of you who play WoW I am on the server Doomhammer, horde side. My main is an 80 orc Warlock, named Morlum. My secondary is a blood elf mage named Melchore. I hope to see some of you there.

As a last note I would like to say, as I always do, that the vast majority of my work (characters and races) are registered with the Library of Congress and are legal intellectual property of Isaac Horn. I got the papers to prove it (along with the original artwork) so no stealing, please (have some decency). A lot of viewers take my art and display it on other sites without asking me. I can't stop this from happening, it is the mistake and curse of showing your art online, but all I ask is to give credit where it's due. Put my name on your gallery please. If by chance you make money of my intellectual property, consider it mine, as I will have the legal right to sue and take it all .
I apologize for the nervous overly protective nature of my art, but as you know there are a lot of jackals out there and a lot of artist who have fallen victim to them, I'm just trying to cover my ass. If I would have known this was an eventuality I might have never posted, but I'm here now and have to make the best of it .

Thanks guys! Hope to see folks on WoW.

The Feral Race pics were 16 pictures with 3-7 "attractive" female examples of various fantasy races (or as attractive as their respective fantasy race can get). I asked viewers to pick their top 5 favorite fantasy fems. Here are the results:

8th places: The Dwarf, High elf, Quickling, Nylpid, Drull, Moren, DryadPandoran,         Imp?, Centaur, Sahaugin, and Vytherine were all picked only once.  

7th places: The Orc, Djinni, Leprechaun, Luren, Trixie, Sylphid, Litc?..wow..Gnoll, Spriggand, Lamia, and Siren were all voted on 2 times, which I think is generous for some of these wicked ladies.

6th places: Sylvan elf, Deep human, Cuar, Mordreg, Nerim, Vampire, Banshee, Gigas?, Night wolf??, and Naga all were voted for 3 times each.

5th places: Nymph, Sphinx, Werewolf?, and Weaver received 4 votes each. Some did worse than I expected.

4th places: Amazon, Gylphid, Ettercap, Sproutling and Mermaid all received 5 voted each.

3rd places: Dark elf, Succubus, Shryne, Salamander, ans Medusa (gorgon) were voted on 6 times each.

2nd place: Lulari was the only one voted on 7 times all by here lonesome.

1st places: Fianally the Wraith(wraith??), and Sky Nymph each received 8 votes each.

Wow the wraith got first place? I expected the Sky nymph to do well, but the wraith? Well there you have it. Any other fantasy fems that aren't here didn't get voted on once. They are all in 9th places. Poor ladies. But seriously guys, the Litch? She beat so many hotties that didn't even get voted on. Oh well. I picked orc as one of my faves. What we can concur is that people like cute aliens and undead goth girls.
Let me know of any thoughts, outburst, shocks, and I guess opinions on the results.

So I'm gonna' be publishing an art book about demons and angels and consequently I will be downloading some of the pics here. I looked around at other depictions of "demons" and I was shocked . I looked up names like Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, Baphomet, Belphagore, Azael, Bel, Beelzebub, Baal, Amezyrak, Samyazza, etc...

I have to say, anime is giving demons a BAAAAAAAD name. Why are dark princes and rulers of hell and forces of infernal will and blasphemy depicted as soft skinny human "men"? I dunno' but I challenge that shameful, emasculating, derogative, deballing, testical shrinking depiction of demons. Am I the only one that thinks demons should A: Be terrifying or at least superhuman in aspect and B: Not look like a soft girly humans? The grigori can be handsome, I'll give them that but they should be 7 or 8 feet tall with horns and hooves, they were likened to be akin to giants and their children the nephelim were said to devour humans . Asmodeus was also called the "vessel of wrath" and "raging fiend" not Boy George , he could look like he is a little capable of overpowering a 12 year old school girl, please. Anime is cool for a lot of things like violent cartoons, hot chicks, badass samurai but as far as demons go, they suck more than George Micheals in that video he was in when he was pretending to be straight, oh wait, was that ol' Georgy? Could have been Baphomet according to manga. Take a look guys, tell me what you think, and if your a girly boy bishonen fan don't wanna' hear why you believe demons should look like pretty angels and that angels are pretty and so why shouldnt' demons be? Demons are the stuff of Metal, Death Metal. I tend to think of stuff like, Clive Barker, Iced Earth, Morbid Angel, Drag me to Hell, Dante's Inferno, the Balrog from LotR and World of Warcraft .

So yea, let me know what you all think, I wanna' know your opinions. And also...why? Does anyone know why it happened? Demons don't listen to Nickleback or Him (God I'm gonna gag).

See ya'and talk to ya' soon.