Singular Sensation: Yurgod the Gryphon

This Singular Sensation entry showcases my illustration of Yurgod the Gryphon that I did for the wrap-around cover of issue #37 of Oziana Magazine.  Yurgod the Gryphon is a character from the Russian Oz series of books.  When The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was translated into Russian, it seems that it took on a life of its own, and several follow-up books were written in Russian, completely separate from the Oz books that L. Frank Baum continued to write.

I was completely unfamiliar with Yurgod, but the challenge for the cover was to showcase characters that appeared in stories inside the issue.  Some characters I knew, but others, like Yurgod, I only had was a couple of images of him provided by my editor.  However, he was a visually appealing character, and I was eager to try my own take on him.  How could I resist the chance to draw a fantastical creature like this?  The drawings I had were very stylized, and I wanted to inject a sense of realism in anatomy to my version.  In order to depict him in a way that he would fit in even better with other Oz characters more firmly established in the canon, I wanted to add the bow to the end of his tail to echo the bows on the ends of the tails of the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger.  I think the bow makes him look decidedly "Ozzy."


Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, and Photoshop.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011

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