King Frederick Of Sweden Received A Lion As A Gift And Was So Proud Of Him, That In 1731, When He Died,

King Frederick of Sweden received a lion as a gift and was so proud of him, that in 1731, when he died, the king wanted him preserved, but there was no taxidermist available, so he began to decay. They finally found one who likely had never seen a lion before, so this is what the king received back. To this day, King Frederik's Lion can be seen at Gripsholm Castle, a former royal residence that is now a museum in Mariefred, Södermanland, Sweden.

The taxidermist based his work on a Lion of Medieval Art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_of_Gripsholm_Castle

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

A Mélange of Miscelaneous Lizards

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Pencil sketch only this week, due to various reasons I didn't get the opportunity to ink it (this was finally going to be my second attempt at Mike Mignola's style), maybe I will repost later if I have the time and energy to tackle the inking at a later date, but I wanted to get what I did have up.

Original description and a couple of brief notes below the cut;

Nglushogog

The Nglushogog is so called because it has the face of a frog.

Lots of inspiration from leopard geckos, particularly in terms of its tail.

Hrutdearya

The Hrutdearya is a lizard which goes blind when it grows old; it enters a crack in a wall and, looking toward the east, it bends its gaze on the rising sun and regains its sight.

A bit of inspiration from skinks and anoles here.

Rukhgarukh

The Rukhgarukh gets its name from its colouring. For it is adorned on its back with shining spots like stars. Ovid says of it: ‘Its name fits its colour; it is starred on the body with spots of various colours’ (see Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5, 461). It is said to be so hostile to scorpions, that the sight of it paralyses them with fear.

As this is the most aggressive and actively described of the three, I went for something with a good gape display, in this case a monitor lizard, with star-shaped osteoderms on its back. It's menacing another strange creature that might be familiar...

“Our culture suffers from terminal brainworms when it comes to artistic expression. We are under the impression that art is something ‘special people’ do, and to do it well makes you a genius and to do it poorly is embarrassing. This sectioning-off of ‘the art world, for artists,’ from regular life and regular people is completely artificial and it is bad for the soul of your society.

You see, for most of history and in current cultures that do not have this psychological disorder, you do not sing because you’re a singer, you sing because you’re a person—it’s fucking singing! Religious institutions are one of the last places that we still understand that singing is an innately human participatory social act, not the exclusive domain of fuckin’…Ariana Grande.

The result of removing this stigma and arbitrary qualification required to do something as simple as draw or dance isn’t just less self-hatred, less insecurity, less anxiety, better community, better connection to your body, more holistic communion with others and the world around you, and simple indulgence in your fundamental humanity—it also results in categorically better artists.”

CJ the X, 7 Deadly Art Sins

if you fuckers do the skeleton war shit again this year we’re deleting the website for real