Ang’s Vault of Horrors: Gargoyles

…or more commonly called the pile of ages old artwork stuffed under my bed which I have never dared to share before! There was a time when I was obsessed with an old Disney cartoon series called Gargoyles. Throw faerie myths, Shakespeare, and King Arthur into a blender with modern mythologies and you have a combination for win in my book. I loved this series, and STILL love it. The animation still beats all the half-arsed cartoon series I see on tv today.

I was fascinated by the glowing eyes, proud demeanor, and aerial prowess of these gorgeous creatures and drew them ALL the time. To say that they influenced my early artistic development, both as an artist and a writer, would be an understatement.

Enjoy this peek into my early obsession with winged creatures. Many of these characters evolved from gargoyle wanna-be’s to the main characters of my obligatory never-ending fantasy epic (more on that later). Just about all of this work is from the 1990’s.

Just goes to show that we all start somewhere!

This was the very first image I did of the gargoyles sort featuring an ooold character named Nava. Done in cheap crappy marker and Precision pens! I miss those pens sometimes. Notice the crappy Photoshopped spliced photo background. I did that a lot in the old days till I learned better.

Here’s Nava and her boyfriend, Matayo. I had a thing for Spanish names and tragic couples back then. By this time, I’d finally discovered Prismacolor marker.

This one’s from middle school! Egads, the bad comic book anatomy.

This red gal here (Natalia), became my main obsession after awhile. She’s gained a few fingers since that last picture!

Natalia’s daughter, Helena. How we get blue from red is thanks to her very blue daddy. I recall drawing and coloring this particular pic entirely during a high school algebra class (and somehow still passing the class). Discovered Prismacolor Color Pencils around this point.

More evolution of Natalia and my anatomy skills. It seems I loved complicated tattoo and jewelry designs even back then. I still love her little wing arms in this one. Even they have blades!

Last one for now! This is Natalia’s red daughter, Coronada (wee more Spanish names!). She was the mean one who could use the little ribbons around her arms as weapons with moon blades on the ends. Still loving this design. I will have to do something new with it sometime!

And that’s all for this peek into my artwork chamber of horrors. Stay tuned for more as the excavation under my bed continues!

Do you all have any old work or ideas you’d like to share? I would love to see that I’m not the only one who made up strange tales of red and blue people when they were a kid.

9 comments

  1. I had one brief stint at creating a Gargoyles fan character, long before I knew such a term existed. I don’t remember her name or anything, but the character spawned out of that episode (or was it a two-parter) where there’s the whole apocalyptic future scenario that I assume Puck was putting Goliath through. Details are vague. I just remember random funky metal bits on gargoyles and so whipped up my own character with similar metal bits. It was also my first attempt to colour with a set of Derwent pencils I’d gotten for a birthday. That picture probably still lurks in my drawers somewhere >>…

    I’m also willing to admit that I was very fond of Brooklyn in that show, and if I’d actually done anything with this character, I’d probably have tried to pair them. I didn’t like the annoying cat-gargoyle chick they stuck him with (again this is all coming out of vague, half-formed memories).

  2. Hayley, ahah oh man I didn’t post the fan character I made up. Her name was Tallion and she was a red-skinned gargoyle with feathered wings. Her concept spring boarded off the whole notion of exiled Gargoyles.

    A cyber Gargoyle sounds like a neat idea. I’d loove to see that old sketch of yours.

    The futuristic episode you’re talking about was Days of Future Past, a one shot episode where Goliath thinks they’ve returned to Manhatten 20 odd years in the future. I love that Brooklyn ended up paired with Demona in that one, considering how much the two hated one another.

    I was a bit of a Brooklyn fan myself. He actually ends up with no one at all in the course of the show, not even the cat chick. But hey he becomes the new head of the clan so he at least has power!

    I think there were some fan-verses where he ends up with a Japanese gargoyle from the past, but I’ve not read them.

    I will stop my fangirly rambling now XD

  3. Ahh yes, thank you Ang, you’re bringing it all back to me now. It was more of a crush with the cat chick, wasn’t it? She still drove me bonkers. I recall her as being incredibly pathetic.

    And you’ve also reminded me why I loved that futuristic stuff so much: it was the Brooklyn and Demona pairing. After all their animosity (I recall that early episode where he thought he was teaming up with her to help Goliath, or some such… and things went downhill form there) it was strangely compelling to see them together, and they made a good pair too.

    If I get the stomach to open my old sketchbooks, I’ll see if I can find that old sketch. I’m pretty sure it’s like a blatant rip-off of something between Demona and Angela, in garish purple. This was back before even Virana came along. Incidentally, while Virana seems to have some Demona-roots in her hairstyle, there was actually no connection XD I didn’t even design her hair myself… a friend did when doodling out ideas for characters, and gave her inverted Vegeta hair XD

  4. Maggie the Cat was her name. She gets a little tougher later (not by much) and ends up as Derick/Talon’s mate.

    I’d like to know just how the heck Brooklyn got over his disdain for Demona, though. I imagine it was one heck of a beatdown that started that relationship. Never noticed she and Vana had similar hair, but it works somehow. Come to think of it, Keo with her red spikes REALLY has the doo. Maybe they all went to the same salon?XD

    Yeees open your old sketchbooks to me! Bua ha ha:D

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