For some time now, more and more furry fans have been learning about an annual art project: The Rare Anthros Calendar. Each year, a group of artists get together, each one creating a painting of a ‘rare’ animal, anthropomorphized. Now the definition of “rare” has changed each year. In 2011, the theme was extinct animals. For 2012, the theme is mythical creatures, and recently the roster of artists for the 2012 calendar was announced. It includes the artists known as: Ashalind, CentraDragon, Tiina Purin, Donna Quinn, Mike Love, BubbleWolf , AlectorFencer, Katmomma, Qzurr, Nimrais, Heather Bruton, Bloodhound Omega, Windfalcon, and Kaji. Yes, that’s 13 in all: It’s a baker’s dozen of mythical creatures! Including such legendary beasts as the unicorn, the dragon, the gryphon, and the jackalope, as well as more obscure (rare?) mythicals such as the tanuki and the peryton. You can visit the official Rare Anthro Calendars Deviant Art Page to find out more about ordering next year’s calendar. There you’ll also find links to the pages for the previous years’ calendars, some of which are still in print as portfolios.
Mythical
Mythical Creatures
Fans of fantastic beasties from around the world might want to check out The Mythical Creatures Bible by Brenda Rosen (in softcover). This is from Amazon.com: “Fabulous animals, specters from the shadow world, nature spirits, and sacred beings: These are the monstrous, marvelous, and mythic creatures that have come down to us in folklore and legend. Some probably have their origins in reality; others spring completely from the imagination. And they are all here, in this stunningly illustrated bible. It’s rich in history and images, and international in scope, covering dragons and serpents; weird insects like the Aztec Itzpapalotl; zombies, golems, and banshees; the watery Undine; the Monkey King, Sun Wukong; and much, much more.”
