Skull modification around the world

Arawe skull lengthening in Papua New Guinea 

Mangbetu skull elongation in DRC

The scifi illustration Through the Gate was inspired by elegant Mangbetu head shapes and hair-styles.

A (non-exhaustive) list of cultures that practiced head shaping for aesthetic or social reasons:

Dawn of the Eagle

Inspired by giant mecha anime and the soapstone eagles from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, a royal city active in the 11th-14th centuries. Robot design influenced by the African fish eagle, which is called "hungwe" in the Shona language..

Many thanks to the kind friends who assisted with modeling and critique.

• T-shirt available on Printify!
• Stickers, laptop skins, and more available on RedBubble.
• 11x8.5 print available on storenvy!

Sun Eaters, Moon Eaters

From Asia and the Americas, myths about animals/demons that devour the sun or the moon:

Jaguar Dreaming

I've decided that my tiger needed some company. :-) This is the 2nd piece in the Wild Cat Portrait series.

Jaguars in the mythology of the Americas:

• One of the aspects of the Aztec deity Tezcatlipoca is a jaguar who destroyed the world.
• The Mayans' many jaguar deities
• Priests of Chavin temple in Peru were depicted as able to shapeshift into jaguars (Paul Richard Steele, Handbook of Inca Mythology, p162)
• A Yanomamo Jaguar Myth

Get this jaguar as:

• 8.5"x11" (approx.) print (on storenvy.com)
• Masks, stickers, and more awesome products on redbubble.com)

Bird-like thunder spirits on both sides of the Pacific

Bird-like deities or monsters associated with thunder occur in a diverse range of cultures:

Culture	Thunder Bird	Description
Anishinaabe	Animikiig	Animikiig ("thunderers", singular animikii)1, are immense birds whose beating wings cause thunder.2
Lakota	Wakinyan	These Thunder Beings manifest as Thunderbirds, enormous creatures whose voice is thunder and whose eyes flash lightning.3 Wakinyan Tanka, the Great Thunderbird. has children, the smaller thunderbirds, whose calls are the small rolling thunders that follow the loud thunderclap of the Wakinyan Tanka.4
Quileute	Tistilal	This giant whale-snatching bird's yellow feathers are lightning and its flapping wings are thunder.5
Makah	Tatoosh6	This thunder-and lightning-deity is a humanoid giant who dons the head, wings and feathers of a great bird when he goes whale-hunting. He ties lightning-fish around his waist and throws them to make lightning.7
Chinese	Lei Gong	This Daoist deity, 'Thunder Duke', is described in the ancient book Classic of the Mountains and Seas as "having the body of a phoenix and the head of a human." He makes thunder with a drum and mallet, while his wife 'Lightning Mother' creates lightning with her flashing mirrors.8

More cultures with thunderbird myths:

Ndlulamithi Redux

Inspired by the late Ndlulamithi, a famous large elephant whose name means "taller than the trees" in the Tsonga language. (See Kruger National Park - The Magnificent Seven.)

Additional influences: Japanese giant mecha comics and anime. :-)

Many thanks to the kind friends who helped with modeling and critique :-)

Get the print on storenvy!

Also available on RedBubble as stickers, iPad skins and more.

2012 Retrospective

Been thinking of reworking last year's "The Djinn's Tune" for a while. Got the idea of adding butterflies after a long walk along some waterways. Went back to look up the species of butterfly that lived in Mali. Choose the Hypolimnas misippus as a reference. No claims made as to accuracy. Artistic license taken with color. ;-)

2012 version

Latest version