Perna Studios has recently (June 2019) released their newest trading card set, the twelfth of their published sets, ‘Creatures of Myth and Legend’. The set will focus on creatures from myths, legends and folklore like Bigfoot, the Mothman, the Jersey Devil, Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra and many more with a few creatures from mythology added into the mix like Hippocampus, Kirin, Manticore, etc…
I was lucky enough to be asked to work on this set as an artist and it is my ninth set working with the Pernas since coming on board in October 2014 with the first ‘Hallowe’en’ set. As a writer of horror short stories (not to mention a huge fan of The X-Files since I started watching it when it first came on TV – I know – I’m old haha), working on a set of mythological creatures was right up my street.
It was also a huge artistic challenge as I would be drawing creatures and animal amalgams that I had never worked on before.
So, I thought it would be fun to include a little bit of the lore for each of my choices of creature included in my contributions (all of which you can see in my work portfolio) and perhaps a little bit about why I chose them.
La Llorona (recently depicted in the Conjuring universe film of the same name) has been an interest of mine since I saw Mama by Guillermo Del Toro. She is also known as the ‘weeping woman’ and the folklore stems from Mexico. According to our friends over at Wikipedia, The lore states a woman was abandoned by her husband and was left alone to raise her two sons, whom she instead drowned in a river out of grief and anger. As a result of her actions the woman is condemned to wander for all eternity until she finds the bodies of her children, often causing misfortune to those who are near or hear her.
Being from the UK, I tried to fit in a number of different pieces of British folklore, Nessie being one of them. I’ve always imagined her as looking like a graceful underwater dinosaur, but – instead of sticking with the traditional plesiosauria look – I wanted to give her a more mythological, dragon-like feel. I also wanted her to look calm as opposed to threatening as I always imagined her as being this docile, shy creature (which is why she hasn’t been caught of course).
Mama D’Leau is the protector and healer of all river animals, according to the folklore of Trinidad and Tobago. She is usually depicted as a beautiful woman with long, golden hair who sits on a rock at the river’s edge. When angered, Mama D’Leau becomes serpent-like with each strand of her hair turning into a living snake. An armour of shining scales covers her upper body and arms and from her waist downwards twists into coils. Her tongue becomes forked and she holds a golden comb which she passes through her snaky hair.
Possibly one of my favourite words to say! Haha. But yeah, I really wanted to have this guy in there just to add a little extra light to the monochrome deck. I also thought it would be fun to play with the style of snow in black and white as well as with the perspective of his arm. I wanted to make him look quite ape like but with a bit of something different to have him stand apart from Big Foot – hence the horns.
This was actually quite a personal choice for me to add into the set. While the original story of Black Shuck is about a black dog that wanders the countryside, I personally connect quite strongly with the image of the black dog. Winston Churchill famously nicknamed depression as ‘The Black Dog’ and consequently that is what I have come to nickname mine. My partner and I have a running joke that on certain days he is a puppy and on other days he is more like an Irish Wolf Hound or a wolf. So, adding Black Shuck into the set was pretty important to me.
The story of the Manananggal has always fascinated me. A blood-sucking witch from Philippines folklore, the woman would be able to separate her torso from the rest of her body and fly into the night on dragon like wings, her innards falling haphazardly from her body. She was said to use a long proboscis like tongue to suck the hearts of fetuses from pregnant women (!) Sprinkling salt, smearing crushed garlic or ash on top of the standing torso is fatal to the creature. The upper torso then would not be able to rejoin itself and would perish by sunrise. There is a similar story in Japanese lore about a flying head whose spine falls behind it as it flies. It’s said that by placing nails or thorns on your windowsill, this would trap the creature’s dangling innards as it tried to break in, letting it stick there until sunrise and killing it. I actually based a character in one of my old Vampire The Masquerade games on this lore.
Being from a Celtic family, and a singer, I couldn’t NOT draw a banshee. These creatures are just so sad (but also great villains in DnD when you want to be really loud) and tragic. I wanted to try something a little bit different, however, from your traditional beautiful crying woman (especially as I had already drawn La Llorona), so I went with a macabre over-stretched jaw and some haunted images caught in her hair (possibly her ex lovers taunting her, or the souls of the people she had killed with her wailing).
Bigfoot is a hairy, upright-walking, ape-like creature who reportedly dwells in the wilderness and leaves behind footprints. Strongly associated with the Pacific Northwest (particularly Oregon, Washington and British Columbia), individuals claim to see the creature across North America. This one was for Mulder – who will always be looking for this guy.
Are legendary creatures, a type of water sprite found in Japanese folklore. In Shinto they are considered to be one of many suijin. Kappas are typically depicted as roughly humanoid in form, and about the size of a child. Their scaly, reptilian skin ranges in color from green to yellow or blue. Kappas supposedly inhabit the ponds and rivers of Japan and have various features to aid them in this environment, such as webbed hands and feet. They are sometimes said to smell like fish, and they can certainly swim like them. Their most notable feature is an indentation on the top of their head that holds water; this is regarded as the source of their power. This cavity must be full whenever a kappa is away from the water; if it spills, the kappa will be unable to move.
Ya-Te-Veo (literally ‘I See You’) is said to be a carnivorous plant that grows in parts of Central and South America with cousins in Africa and on the shores of the Indian Ocean. There are many different descriptions of the plant, but most reports say it has a short, thick trunk and long tendril-like appendages which are used to catch prey. Some even claim it has an eye to locate its prey with. I literally drew this one as my partner is terrified of carnivorous plants… so yeah… basically I’m an arse.
A legendary sea monster of giant proportions said to have dwelt off the coasts of Norway and Iceland. In modern German, Krake (plural and declined singular: Kraken) means octopus but can also refer to the legendary Kraken. The Old Icelandic Örvar-Odds saga referenced the massive heather-backed sea-monsters of the Greenland Sea named Hafgufa and Lyngbakr that fed on whales, ships and men. The creature was sometimes mistaken for an island and the real danger to sailors was not the creature itself but rather the whirlpool left in its wake. I personally like how he looks like he is shaking his ‘fist’ at the ship a bit like Grandpa Simpson shakes his fist at a passing cloud.
The Kelpie is a supernatural water horse from Celtic folklore that is believed to haunt the rivers and lochs of Scotland and Ireland. Its hide was supposed to be black (though in some stories it was white), and will appear to be a lost pony, but can be identified by its constantly dripping mane. The drawing of this was actually inspired by a Kelpie puppet that I saw when I was in Scotland for the Beltane festival – if not a little bit more terrifying considering how they drag you to the depths of the ocean to drown you.
In Greek mythology the Hippocampus has typically been depicted as having the upper body of a horse with the lower body of a fish. As those of you who follow my work might know, I have drawn a LOT of horses in my time due to the I Heart Unicorns book (and growing up on a horse farm) so having a couple of horse creatures in this set made sense to me. Plus the hippocampus is basically unicorn/mermaid (if you add a narwhal horn of course) so that’s always fun.
A mythical hooved chimerical creature known in Chinese and other East Asian cultures. Qilin generally have Chinese dragon-like features. Most notably their heads, eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward and beards. The body is fully or partially scaled and often shaped like an ox, deer, or horse. It is often depicted with what looks like fire all over its body. I wanted to draw the Kirin as a direct opposition to my card of the Hippocampus. While they are not a puzzle set, they would work very well opposite each other – especially with the water/fire opposition.
You can currently purchase the Artist Proof cards as personalized commissions via my Etsy Store, please check out the listing here for more details. If you would like the chance to see my official sketchcard work before it is released to the general public, as well as having a chance to suggest ideas and requests for my contributions (within reason), please consider becoming a Patreon over at my Patreon page. Every dollar goes towards helping me continue to create my own personal artwork as well as improve my artistic skill and experience.
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