I'm making my own Monster Manual. I'm kind of getting fed up with D&D monsters more and more as I read books on myth, legends and what not.  I finally decided I would just make my own Monster Manual from the floor up, only it would be more accurate to the lore of the creature being displayed…generally. And what I mean when I say generally is that a lot of these creatures are form separate lore, cultures, and times, so to cohesively put them together in the same world you have to bend a little, not as much as D&D (they got ridiculous with it) but just a bit. For instance, I put Hydra under the species of Wyrm even though it's a creature born from a titan; but in order to have that I have to have Greek creation myth in my world and if I have that than what about non-Greek monsters and on and on, the snowball effect of it is apparent, as you can see. So this is why a Hydra is no longer the child of a titan and a species of Wyrm instead. We could say that the Greeks THOUHGT it was a child of a titan and had no knowledge of wyrms and so, in this hypothetical instance, mistook it for a god spawnling, and could think of nothing else it could be. But the Hydra is essentially still a Hydra.

It can be difficult adding all these creatures together, especially when some are so similar and even more so when a few different creatures are the same but changed through history, as with the example of the Vampire; Starting off as Ghouls (basically bloated flesh eating blood drinking corpses that went out at night and went back in the grave during the day) then changing into more of the Nosferatu type (animalistic blood drinkers and horribly ugly) and finally becoming the "Vampire" which is an intelligent undead capable of blending in with an affinity for blood. I won't go past this point as the Twilight Vampires are just too gay for my tastes and will never be vampires in my eyes nor will I accept the "diseased" vampirism pop-culture myth as it is no longer an undead but a mutated human with an affliction, and I feel being undead is a strong defining characteristic of a vampire. And of course splitting off from ghouls was pop-culture Zombies who eat flesh and turn others to zombies, when actually that is the description of ghouls and REAL zombies don't eat flesh or turn others at all, they just kill and are created by witch doctors or necromancers. So we can see how a myth evolved in different directions. I am then stuck with the decision to keep them separate or unify them sometimes. Many times I keep them separate if the individual myths (as in the case of the vampire) are strong enough in their identity to feel separate and are in good taste. Other times I just meld them together if they are similar enough, like the hundreds of different evil water nymphs/female fairies existing in Russia, Celtic myth, Scandinavian, etc. all having different names and all practically looking basically the same and all doing the same thing, dragging men or children to their deaths. So in this case I just make it one creature and say it has many different names and is known by many different cultures, we can't have 20 evil water nymphs/hags all being and doing the exact same thing in a single cohesive fantasy world.

Many of the creatures are already finished, inked and markered and many are still in the pencils, about 30 or more are done another 30 half-finished and many, many in pencil form. But I will not be releasing it all at once.  Some of my other categories are going to be used for the Monster Manual anyways, like many of the demons and angels in the Hoof Horn and Wing series, I didn't feel it necessary to illustrate new pictures for the same thing, but who knows, maybe I will. I purchased the Goetia a year ago and in it have very interesting depictions of classic demons. Or maybe I'll just make my version of the Goetia demons, as they are kind of dopy looking even though they are skillfully done, making them a bit more hellish and scary looking.

As a last note I would like to say, as I always do, that the vast majority of my work (characters, creatures and races uniquely created by me, NOT traditional races like high-elves and orcs) are registered with the Library of Congress and are legal intellectual property of Isaac Horn. I got the papers to prove it (along with the original artwork) so no stealing, please (have some decency). A lot of viewers take my art and display it on other sites without asking me. I can't stop this from happening, it is the mistake and curse of showing your art online, but all I ask is to give credit where it's due. Put my name on your gallery please. If by chance you make money of my intellectual property, consider it mine, as I will have the legal right to sue and take it all.
I apologize for the nervous overly protective nature of my art, but as you know there are a lot of jackals out there and a lot of artist who have fallen victim to them, I'm just trying to cover my ass. If I would have known this was an eventuality I might have never posted, but I'm here now and have to make the best of it.

In any case here is the direct link to the Monster Manual section of my gallery --->  [link]