Hey everyone, and welcome back to Troop Spotlight! This is a blog series here on OgreWare.net where we focus each week on a different Troop from OgreWare’s debut project, Calling All Heroes. This week, we’re talking about the Snek. …I mean Snake.
One interesting thing about my art journey is the fact that only rarely have I drawn something that actually scared me – and when I did, it was usually a human or humanoid character, not an animal or mythical beast. Most animals, including ones deemed “scary” or “nasty” by the typical human, don’t scare me at all.
So in drawing the Snake troop, and a lot of the other Troops that are “scary” creatures, I made him more cute than scary, more endearing than gross, because to be honest, I love snakes. (I once had a boyfriend who owned a pet ball python named Vanessa. He loved Vanessa more than me, but she was so cute and wonderful that I couldn’t really blame him.)
My inspiration for the Snake illustration was largely some Tumblr cartoonists’ versions of pythons, but also the various snakes (including Vanessa!) that I’ve gotten to hold over the years. They always seem so sweet and gentle. There is some debate out there about whether snakes ever actually develop real emotional bonds with their owners, and whether these bonds may be just in the owner’s head, but to me, this debate is beside the point…Snakes are adorable, I love how cute they look, and they really aren’t as scary as many people think.
The Snake remains one of my favorite Troops, and while I still cringe at the massive error I made in the illustration (can you find it?), I smile every time I see it. But then of course OgreWare had to come along and make it scary after all:
That would be the Profane Snake next to the standard Snake. This thing really does creep me out. What do you think? Did OgreWare’s coloring job manage to make this little guy scary? Leave us a comment! And if you haven’t yet played Calling All Heroes, click here to check out the game.
Sincerely hoping this post didn’t give you snake nightmares…
-Admin Julian