Beast One: mandog
Mandog (also known as “Hey Noa, why is it shaped like that?”) is a hybrid between the muscular system of a human and the bone structure of a dog, combined with a few genes from Satan himself. This creature can be seen crouched underneath birdman, of which it has a symbiotic relationship. Oddly enough, it is a mutualistic relationship despite Birdman having apparent dominance.
Mandog can go up to a year without eating, and this is partially due to its exceptionally long lifespan of however many years it feels like living. We have yet to find fossilized remains of mendogs, meaning none have ever died though of the species their ages differ greatly. The only way to tell the age of a Mandog is through the age of Birdmen.
Beast Two: birdman
Birdman is a large skeletal hybrid of a bird, a tree, and a man. They can be found living with their mutualistic co-habitant, the Mandog. Birdmen live up to 20,000 years (and counting). The age of Birdmen can be determined by counting the rings formed in their bones like that of a tree. Birdmen can go a full year without eating as well.
In extreme cases, if left unfed, Birdmen will eat their Mendog companions. This is still mutualistic because this simply results in a respawn of Mendog, just five years younger. If the Mandog was five or younger to begin with, this would result in the spawn of two Mendog in their infancy; the stronger of the two then eats the weaker to jumpstart their strength.
Commonly, Birdmen and Mendogs live among each other for survival purposes. Birdmen are very slow, but are apparently telepathic and all-knowing. They can easily locate prey (literally anything), and then telepathically send the coordinates to their much more agile Mendog companions.
Since the two live in the fifth circle of hell and occasionally six years into purgatory, their average eating frequency ranges from every day to three months. If you noticed that hell seems exceptionally empty some weeks, that is likely due to the fluke birth of three Mendog instead of two.
Artist Statement
Sticking with my original skeletal plan, I decided to create two beasts that seemed as though they were straight out of Dante’s Inferno. The landscape itself was also in part inspired by the book, as I was interested in the concept of depicting hell while making the landscape. The two creatures depicted are called Mandog and Birdman, the plural being Mendog and Birdmen. A Nat-Geo-like description of the two are posted above.
The two creatures were made in Blender using the Sculpt tool. Rendering based on images proved difficult, so for time’s sake, both creatures were sculpted. They both have added armature and are animated to move slightly, though their loops are not seamless. Only Birdman has a skin; Mandog would only apply skin to half the creature.
Below is the link to view everything in VR.
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