Gryphons, gryphons, GRYPHONS!
Hey hey Creature Keepers!
I’ve been working on shaping the new Unusual Gryphonry and deciding how I want it to look…and we are ready to launch it on the 1st of November!
So what’s different about this project?
I…need a break from the Menagerie. The account has become pretty stale for me, and if I’m honest, my attempts to pivot and reshape it just aren’t really cutting it. Between instagrams terrible algorithm (and the amount of punishment I get for being a biz account that doesn’t pay for advertising) I just feel like I need a reboot to start off my social media fresh. So I’m going to be starting a whole new account for this project called @unusualgryphons on instagram and tiktok. I’m sort of hoping this will be a chance to create more focused content and create more consistent. We shall see.
Back to Unusual Gryphons.
I’ve struggled with focus a lot the past four years. Originally I wanted to make ‘faeries’, but after a bad encounter with another artist stealing lots of my faerie ideas and designs, that avenue went a bit stale. in 2019/2020 I thought perhaps I would start to focus on dragons. That was fun for a while, but I lost passion for that as well. I felt a bit adrift in a sea of dragon artists without any real ideas how to stand out. Probably because Dragons aren’t really my particular passion (they were more Bryce’s thing).
But Gryphons. I am ALL ABOUT gryphons. More specifically I am hugely into birds. I grew up with a large assortment of pet birds (my first being a green cheek conure I got at 9 years old. The Menagerie is actually named after the rescue I got my conure from in Summerland, The Bird Menagerie.). We had finches, lovebirds, parakeets, button quail, canaries, chickens, japanese quail, parrotlets, and a rescued African Gray Parrot in my childhood home.
To say I am a bird person is putting it mildly.
My bird obsession went into my cockatrice designs originally, which were my very first artdolls to use plastic armature. I also tried to make a hummingbird Gryphon very early on, but lets be honest, I did not at all have the skillset required to execute them well back then. A lot of the reason I’ve bounced around so much between all different kinds of creatures was to develop my doll making abilities. I made creatures I thought I could realistically make look decent. And up until the past year or so, I did not feel ready to attempt anything as detailed as a gryphon.
However, I feel much more confident in my abilities now. And as a former bird breeder (parrotlets and canaries, specifically) I am really really excited to be bringing this energy and knowledge back to the Menagerie with a fun fantasy twist!
So here are my goals for this new project:
One new gryphon design every 3 months.
Set up a Gryphonry for story content (photos, videos, ect) including cages, nests, incubators, and candid shots of the gryphons around the house. I haven’t got to play with my dolls in ages, and what’s the point of making them if I never get to actually play?
5-10 dolls a month to be placed in good homes (with Creature Club Members getting first dibs)
Finally learn stop motion and use it to create more silly/fun creature content!
Of course, the whole Unusual Gryphon project is kicking off with the Club Exclusive pre-order for the Squirrel Gryphons!
This pre-order will kick off November 6th at 12pm pst. I’m going to have 10 slots available for custom color choice. You can pick one of the 3 example colors, use a ref picture of a specific parrot, or just pick your own colors to plug into one of the example designs. Message me ahead of time with your color ideas to get them approved before slots open! Slots will be available in the Exclusive Shop; multi-colored gryphons will be $325usd+shipping each, and single-colored Gryphs (like the albino one) will be $300usd+shipping.
Edited to add: I am going to be taking a big break from making other creature designs this next year. The only exception will be Jackalope Season, in March/April. I also will probably make a handful of fairy dragons over the next year, but otherwise, I want to focus primarily on Gryphons and only gryphons.