Commission - Colossal Dreadmaw
Added 2023-09-10 03:17:13 +0000 UTCThe piece is awaiting final clearance by the client, so there's a chance minor changes may be made, but I was once again commissioned to produce an MTG proxy art for one of Ixalan's pseudo-tyrannosaurs - the infamous "Colossal Dreadmaw" in this instance. I'm beginning to really love this particular kind of wildly inaccurate and deliberately grotesque hypermuscularity on saurian bodies like this - there's a clear lineage here traceable to my fascination with Monster Hunter's "Deviljho" design, the kind of uncomfortably vascular and swollen body redolent of overbred and overfed pitbulls.
The client wanted this to feel like a portrayal of a malevolent god - my thumbnails (included here) ranged from the iconised/stylized depiction of a religious mural to a more brutal "realism", and the client opted for a combination of the two. Rendering the Dreadmaw's vibrant plumage as cascading chromatic fire was extremely satisfying.
As a final note: I think i'm prouder of the way that the lower talons sink into and compress the flesh of the Altisaur neck than any other element of this piece.
