Monster Encyclopedia: Barlang

First, I want to say this: I LOVE THE BARLANG. I think it is cool, interesting to look at, interesting to think about, and I sort of feel a bit of empathy for it. If I were a monster, I think I’d be a barlang.

Barlangs are cave monsters. They like the dark and the quiet, and most of all they like to be left alone. They are solitary, introverted, peaceful, for the most part. They largely eat bugs, lichen, bats—the sorts of things you might find in a cave. That said, if you wander into their house, they will eat you, or at least fight back.

They have two big climbing arms, with claws that help them grip the rock. They have several smaller arms that they use for grabbing and pulling, and they are a little sticky so it helps them move around rocky areas. They have big teeth, great hearing, and are sensitive to light.

The easiest way to kill one is with a powerful blow to the skull, but you’ll need a crossbow for that, or a gun.

Here is the full-sized illustration of a barlang:, and I honestly think they are just neat

Image of a monster with a bone skull being held up by two muscular arms, pointed ears, and several swinging shorter arms.

You can learn more about why I love barlangs so much by reading the book! Click here to grab your copy on Amazon.

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Monster Encyclopedia: Gyiks

Image of a gyik, with sharp teeth, lizard-like body, running on hind legs.

Gyiks, gyiks, gyiks. It’s hard to say three times in a row, but also fun because of the hard “y” sound. Gyiks appear in the very first chapter of Tentacles and Teeth. They are a little like lizards. Lizards the size of dogs, that is. They have sharp teeth, grumpy faces, and are ravenous. Absolutely ravenous. And they run in packs. It’s rare you’ll see lonely gyik—usually it’s surrounded by its brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, second, third, and forth cousins—you get the drift.

When I invented gyiks, I needed a monster where you thought you were safe for a second, but then they just kept coming. I also needed a type of monster that was really aggressive, but simultaneously quite cowardly when anything bigger showed up. Hence, meet the gyiks. I have a feeling gyiks are going to be playing a repeated role throughout the series, mostly because they’re easy to kill and give the characters a little bit of a break.

To kill a gyik, all you need is something sharp. They are soft and fleshy, so you can spear them or chop off their heads. One thing to remember, however, is that they don’t really feel pain, so if you only injure them, they’ll just keep right on coming.

The stippled illustration for this monster is the only one I’ve done in color so far. I really wanted to do it in color, but found that the time investment was incredibly high compared to simple black and white, because I wasn’t just doing shading, but also blending colors. So I did this one, and then went right back to black and white.

Picture of a blue and green gyik, done in pointillism style.

This was also one of the very first stippled illustrations I’ve done, alongside the nagy and the pok.

Good news, everyone (channeling my inner Professor): the book is available to read now! Click here to grab your copy.

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Monster Encyclopedia: Fulek

First off, fuleks facilitate fun for fidgeting fancy foals (a little alliteration for you on a Tuesday). Fuleks came about because I wrote a bad chapter and needed to replace it with a different chapter, and I wanted to show that not all monsters are to be feared. All of the other monsters up until this point in the book (hulla, pok, gamba, rarohan, nagy, kover) had the main intention of killing and eating everything. But not fuleks.

Fuleks eat plants primarily, and because of their more passive nature, are sometimes preyed upon by other, larger monsters. As a result, they have evolved a type of spray (like a skunk) that is acidic in nature and can burn other monsters. This spray is used as a defense mechanism, but also sprayed around the area they inhabit to warn off other monsters. They have long legs, weird ears, and can run fast. Their coloring allows them to blend in with tall grasses and low bushes.

An interesting fact about fuleks is that they are both male and female (asexual). Each one has all the necessary means to reproduce, so they tend to live as “families” which typically consists of one parent and several children, or groups of parents, which is made up of two or three parents and their children (or grandchildren, as it may be). When too many fuleks are inhabiting an area, one parent takes one or two of their children and migrates to a new area.

Another fun fact: the Lamplighter’s Society brings fuleks into the properties of the safe houses that they maintain, to help keep other, larger monsters away. But I won’t say too much else about that because [spoilers!].

An even better fun fact: The book is available for sale! Click here to grab a copy.

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Tentacles and Teeth Launch Party

The launch was a huge success—thank you to everyone who participated! We had a ton of fun at the party, and I just wanted to share a few of the details with you.

In case you missed it, you can now grab a copy of Tentacles and Teeth here.

I launched the book on March 28th, with a few online promotions and a Facebook Live video, which you can watch here.

Then on Saturday the 30th, I had a party at my house, were we ate monster-themed snacks, chatted about monsters, and acted out a short reading from the book. You can watch the live video of the reading here!

All in all, it was a wonderful event, and I am grateful for everyone who came and supported me throughout the process. Onto Book 2 (and 3 and 4!)!

If you want to stay more involved in the series as a whole, follow me on Patreon! It’s free—all you have to do is sign up and follow me, and I’ll be sharing monster sketches, fun facts, and whatever fun stuff I feel like. <3

A few notes about the party:

1. I tried to fit as many tentacles into my house as I could. I had a tentacles tablecloth, blanket, dishtowel, floor mat, wall decals, gummies, and a necklace, as well as a painting and some postcards and other imagery I made myself.

2. My friend sent me black roses on the day before—they looked AH-MAZING with everything else.

3. The marbled balloons popped really easily, and I may now be scarred for life.

4. I had a ton of fun making the food. Tentacles dirt cake, cookies with eyeballs, monster cupcakes—it was delicious. Thank goodness for candy eyeballs lol.

5. I had bowls of eyeballs around the house. I thought I had purchased some that were gumballs and some that were jawbreakers, but they all turned out to be gum. So now I have a lot of gum shaped like eyeballs in my house.

6. If you’re ever doing a monster-themed party, let me know. I have some stuff, haha.

Monster Encyclopedia: Hulla & Elnok

Image of a hulla: long curved neck, wings, and a human face.

This monster (to me) is one of the creepiest. They have human-like faces, but the bodies of birds. They fly, and can sort of talk—but they’re also kind of dumb.

One of the creepier parts of hulla is that they eat carrion—anything dead, too: monsters, humans, animals, you name it. They tend to sense when a battle or a big fight is going down, and they will fly around waiting for it to be over so they can feast. They rarely intervene in the actual battle, and when they do, it’s only because they think it means more food for them in the long run. They don’t care who wins in these situations, only that everyone involved dies.

The good thing about hulla is that they aren’t after you when you’re alive. They’re also pretty soft and fleshy, so if you do want to kill one, anything sharp should do the trick. They will attack from above though, so watch out.

Elnok is the Queen of the Hulla, and appears later on in the book.

In Tentacles and Teeth, hulla & elnok play a pretty important role both the plot and Askari’s realizations about the extent to which humans and monsters can interact on a civil (or not) level, so I won’t go into too much detail about them because [spoilers!].

Instead, I’m going to talk about the drawing process a little. I knew hulla and elnok looked similar, and when I did the first drawing, I liked it so much I thought it was going to be the elnok. This was my fifth or sixth drawing, and I was getting a lot better the more I did. I loved the tail feathers on this, and thought the face was pretty good.

Creepy bird with human face.

But I still needed another drawing, and when I got about halfway done with the second one, I realized that no, the second one would be the elnok. It was crazy better (in my opinion), and I had given it hands, which made sense that the Queen would have hands and the minions wouldn’t, because [spoilers].

I loved the detailing on the wings of this monster, and the sort of neck feathers. I thought (and still think) it was so creepy and weird-looking.

In other news, the book is now available!!! Click here to buy it on Amazon and read about all these monsters.

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