Museum Entry: Venomous Hydra, Quingnathous Blacktail

Hello. It's been a long time since the last actual content post. We had to redirect our resources for a bit due to the removal of the pony content from our on-line store. While it was unfortunate, we are currently looking at other avenues for selling the pony buttons. Also, as a follow-up to the previous post, we will not be attending Everfree Northwest this year due to not being selected as a vendor.

Now that the administrative matters are done, let's move on to the actual focus of this post. I've been talking about the hydra papier mache project for a while and it seems like ages ago since I put up the WIP shots. Now that the piece is completed, it's time to reveal it.



Front View

This is Quingnathous Blacktail. To answer the first question most have, I should talk about its name. I wanted to find a name that was unusual, yet still appropriate for the piece. A friend of mine suggested using some Greek or Latin. I used a pairing of Quin shortened from "quinctus" or five in Latin and "gnathous" in Greek which means "having a jaw". More or less, this name's meaning is "having five jaws" and blacktail due to the all black tail, more visible in some later shots.



Side View

Here's a side shot of the hydra. As you can probably see based on the scale compared to the rest of the room, this piece is gigantic. It's probably one of the biggest full-size monsters I've made so far, maybe second only to the black dragon for sheer width. Quingnathous' body is about eight feet long uncoiled and even in this position, it still takes up a lot of floor space. This shot also captures the color scheme of the pieces pretty well. I went for blends of greens and yellow for the main body with a black underbelly for contrast. After the first layer of paint dried, I went back and added some subtle blue stripes along the necks and main body and then blackwashed the whole thing. In order to give the tail some variation (and because it was becoming too hard to following the underside as it coiled), I made the last section entirely black with lighter blue streaks. This patterning was modeled after some of the venomous markings seen on reptiles and amphibians in nature.

Head 1

Head 2

Head 3

Head 4

Head 5

Here's a set of shots from each of Quingnathous Blacktail's smaller heads and the larger central head. As seen on the previous WIP shots, each of the smaller heads have a simple snake-like shape. I added a set of upper and lower forefangs and tried to model each head looking like its poised to strike. The larger central head is more dragon-like in shape with the horns and crest. There are much more teeth and I used a set of glass eyes to distinguish the expression. Also, the teeth for all the heads glow in the dark.

To summarize the piece in entirety, I wanted to convey a creature that looks like it could be from mythology while still having enough features to look somewhat original. Quingnathous Blacktail's elemental theme is poison and each of its heads is outfitted with the same debilitating toxin. Main motor control is governed by the central head and the smaller heads function more like limbs in a way.

I had originally wanted to post this piece with its own emblem but I haven't settled on a design I like yet so I decided to put the piece up now to get it out.

That's all for now. I'm working on a couple new projects including a new wearable mask following Dan Reeder's youtube tutorial. We're also still in contact with some new artists and will post details as they develop.

~Zan