Gecksford

Monster #: 405,988

What Is It: A very excitable lizard-type monster.

What Does It Want: To run around, have fun, that kind of thing.

Is He Friendly: Yes, very.

Will He Be My Friend: NO!

Why: He’s MY friend!

The Witch of Distant Valley

Monster #: 245,035

What Is It: A cruel witch who lives just beyond our world.

What Does She Want: To be left alone so she can terrorize the inhabitants of the Distant Valley.

Why: Well, it's either terrorize or be nice and terrorizing is probably more fun.

Her Morals Are Pretty Shaky Then: Super shaky.

The Lems

 Monster #: 983,954

What Are They: Very cute little creatures that live near the sea.

What Do They Want:To play in the ocean as long as they can.

Can They: Oh no, not a night.

What Happens At Night: That's when the Lem Eaters come out.

What's A Lem Eater: That's a monster for another time.

3 Years of Monsters

I feel like I'm becoming a broken record but it remains true: I'm sorry for the long break! Things got extraordinarily busy (hell, they still are) and there just hasn't been the time for more monsters. And that's terrible. There should always be time for more monsters.

But don't worry! I'm still here and I'm ready to post some more. And before a new deluge of monsters, I thought it'd be time for another anniversary post, this being my third year and all at doing this.

Looking at the artwork over the years has been fairly strange; some of the art I produced still looks pretty good and others really show their age. There are some monsters I remember being pretty proud of that I now find slightly embarrassing. You're always improving as an artist and it's good to acknowledge that for a moment. Even if you don't think you're getting better, you are.

Another thing I've noticed is how abstract some of the monsters have gotten. There's some truly strange and surreal looking ones made during this last year. A lot of pictures don't even really have backgrounds beyond some weird splash of the texture brush. I can't say there was ever a conscious decision in that regard ("Many, Many Monsters," has never been about conscious decisions), but it's somewhat intriguing. What will this new year of monsters look like? I don't know yet but I'd sure like to find out.

Until then, thanks for being a reader and I only hope I've brought to you some manner of enjoyment. All I really want to do ultimately is make people happy and I'd love it if this blog is a way of doing that.

Thanks again,
Ryan

Here are some favorites from the last year, in no particular order:

The Boggler

Monster #: 67,205

What Is It: A very befuddled monster.

Why Is It So Befuddled: Life man. It's crazy, you know.

What About Life Is So Crazy: You know... the daily grind... stuff like that.

You Don't Know, Do You: Well, neither do you!

Two Years of Monsters

Hey folks, sorry for the lack of monsters recently. I've been super busy lately (storyboard tests, job interviews, etc) and monsters unfortunately fell by the wayside

But now we're back! And this month this blog celebrated it's two-year anniversary!

I talked a little bit about the origins of the blog in this one-year anniversary post and not a whole lot has changed since then. I still produce these things pretty fast as I'm trying to tap into my subconscious. I think it's really fun to discover the monster as I draw it.

What has changed over the year is how experimental the monsters have become as I've really started playing around with different mediums and materials. I now create monsters in Illustrator and Flash as well as Photoshop and I try to use as many different dry media brushes as possible. I really like texture so any opportunity to make the stuff I create digitally look more tactile is fine by me.

I'm still learning how to be a better artist and I'm really happy this blog has managed to gain something of an audience. Ultimately, I want to entertain and I hope all of you are having a good time.

Here's to another year of monsters!

Best wishes,
Ryan

Here are some of my favorite monsters from the last year:

The Happy Bear

 

The All-Seeing-Eye

 The Lelps

Tembo

Sydney

Whoops!

Sorry folks for the lack of updates for the last couple of days. I got to take a storyboard test for an upcoming TV show and that took up pretty much all of my time. When the show airs I can post it. I think it turned out really well!

I also had a job interview earlier in the week.

But don't worry, there'll be a monster tomorrow and many more after that.

Thank you for hanging in there.

Your friend,
Ryan

Ghosts #374

Monster #: 1,212

What Are They: Another in an endless series of classifications of ghosts.

What Are They Doing: They appear to be engaged in some sort of mating dance.

How Can A Ghost Wear a Bow: I don't know, maybe the bow's dead.

How Can a Bow be Dead: How come you can't shut up?

Mr. Bones

Monster #: 671

What Is It: Your friendly neighborhood creepy skeleton.

What Does It Want: To scare you, of course.

Why: Not much else skeletons can contribute to society unfortunately.

What About as a Skeleton in a Science Classroom: That’s a tough gig to get. Not all skeletons are that privileged.

The Eyap

Monster #: 761

What Is It: A goofy little critter that wants you to take its survey.

Why: The Eyap's make all of their decisions based on surveys.

What, Really: Yes, really.

That's Amazingly Inefficient: Make sure to mark that on their next survey.

Loose-Limbed Lucy

Monster #: 451

What Is She: A spirit who takes the form of a human so she can have fun.

What Does She Want: To have fun. Didn't you read the above?


Can She Ever Have Too Much Fun: No. Never.

How Can I Meet: The spirit only comes out once a decade. Sorry!

One Year of Monsters

Hey folks, earlier this month was the one-year anniversary of "Many, Many Monsters," and I thought it might be appropriate to talk a little bit about this blog and how it's changed over time.

The very original reason for the site was to teach me how to use Adobe Photoshop. I had just received the program earlier in 2011 and I wanted to get up to speed, fast, and I figured I needed something that would force me to constantly produce material. This collided with an earlier idea I had to make a website that hosted monster drawings. From there came the origins of "Many, Many Monsters."

I decided when producing the artwork that I wanted to work as fast as possible: no pre-planning, just  drawing. I like to think that by working this fast the drawings come straight from my subconscious, which makes them weirder and more entertaining. Even the drawings I'm not wild about I include because sometimes the flaws make them more interesting than the mild successes.

The early days of the blog were pretty interesting as I worried I wouldn't be able to continually produce material three times a week, but as time went by I really fell in love with the process. There's something fascinating and interesting about running out of ideas and then breaking through to find even more.

Here's the first week of monsters:

Trok

Strictor

Eckt

A few months ago I started getting tired of how flat the colors were. I'm always in constant fear of stagnation, so I started experimenting with digital painting techniques. I did some painting in college so I wasn't a complete neophyte, but it's been an interesting learning experience.

Dooley

Gepp

The Tropical Worm

The Forest Beast

You can see a lot of experimentation with line-weight, gradients and digital paint. How successful any of this is is of course up to the viewer, but I think I'm on a good path. At the very least, I'm having fun, and that's the most important part.

Here's to another year of monsters.

Best wishes,
Ryan

Skipson

Monster #: 312

What Is It: A cheerful monster that likes to run around and pretend to fly.

What Does It Want: To have a good time. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hey, He Kinda Looks Like Gumby: No he doesn't-- Oh, he kinda does.

Except Without the Thing On His Head: Yeah, yeah.

I'm Not Sure What That Means: Beats us.