Today's palette comes from a fabric pattern designed by Constance Irving in 1918.


I admit, I was super excited about the blues and decided that whatever cryptid poster I was doing next, it needed to be an ocean-dwelling cryptid. I got a few suggestions, but the one that both resonated with me and fit the palette was from TheDragonAuspex, who, among others, suggested Trunko.

Trunko hails from gorgeous Margate, South Africa. Seriously, look up photos of it, the beaches are stunning and have these very cool rocky outcroppings.

Trunko is alleged to be a whale-type animal with two major distinctions: Its trunk (hence the name), and its wooly coat. After Trunko washed up on the beach, someone claimed to have spotted it from their boat on their way into the harbor, saying that they saw Trunko fighting with some orcas.

I didn't really look into the theories behind why Trunko has a trunk or hair because honestly it's pretty obvious when you see the picture(s) that it was just a whale carcass. Really, even the claim that it was "fighting" some orcas backs that up — orcas are very energetic eaters, I can believe that someone saw them chowing down and thought their dinner was still alive.

But honestly, who could resist a fuzzy whale?

The one thing I did find interesting is that when I was looking up reference photos, most of what I found was artwork, most of which depicted Trunko straight up as a whale with an elephant head.

As much fun as I had figuring out the water and the way it interacts with the rocks, and getting the fur right on Trunko? This was a motherfucker of a project. Not because drawing it was particularly hard (though I did have a time figuring out the rocks), but because I lost HOURS of work, MULTIPLE times.

First Corel crashed and I lost everything. Then Photoshop crashed my tablet and while I didn't lost the file, I did lose the palette. Then I downloaded Clip because the lovely michaelclarkart informed me that they were bullied into not pivoting to a subscription model, but I had already done like an hour of work before I realized that I had already used up my free trial last year and I wasn't allowed to save anything. "Just buy a license!" you say. I did! But I couldn't convince the version that was already downloaded on my tablet to acknowledge the license and the baby had woken up from his nap. It took me another couple of hours this afternoon to figure out that I needed to uninstall it completely and re-download it. Which was a pain in the ass! But at least now I have it.

Anyway! If there are any cryptids you think need a little more love and attention, let me know! I've got 81 more palettes left and I haven't run out of steam yet on these designing these travel posters!