#mbwun

[slabmangrave]

Mbwun, He Who Walks On All Fours

[comixqueen]

A couple of warm up doodles from yesterday and today

Zigzagoon and the Mbwun.

[somelameloser]

Mbwun

A friend of mine loaned me her copy of Preston and Child's Relic, and I finished reading it after class Monday afternoon. Being brief, I'm a huge fan. I loved everything; the characters were great, the setting gave a great atmosphere once all hell broke loose, the writing style of the authors was fun to read, among other great aspects. I really recommend checking this out, as well as the rest of their Special Agent Pendergast series, if you get the chance. I just need to figure out how to get my hands on a copy of Reliquary as the library doesn't seem to carry one.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is that I decided to do a couple quick concept sketches of what Mbwun might've looked like. This full body one I did Monday

And this head shot I did today

Seeing as how Mbwun **SPOILER ALERT** used to be human, I tried conveying that in some aspects of his design. The longer hind legs and lack of opposable thumbs indicates a bipedal primate, though clearly Mbwun is a quadruped so I tried making it look like a natural position. The longer arms that are more indicative of knuckle-walking apes helps with that, I think. In the face I made the hairline and forehead (not brow) at least resemble a human's, as well as the chin and ear. I also left out the third molar in each mouth quadrant which makes it very clear the wisdom teeth were removed.

Of course there are still aspects I'm not thrilled about and would change, still fitting in the novel's descriptions of course, but that's to be expected of the first concept sketches where I just wanted to get some ideas down. Excuse the unnecessarily long post and less than stellar phone camera quality and have a great day, ya dorks

[thatdogmagic]

Early 2020, from the 'draw six fanarts' meme. I solicited audience advice for what to draw and this was one of them.

The Kothoga/Mbwun from The Relic film was a chaotic mess of traits. Like, as a design, it fails on several levels, which IIRC was primarily the fault of the director deciding to go with an 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach to character creation.

Now, I'm not saying I did a better job here by simplifying it (I absolutely didn't LOL), but it's one potential take that I would've found significantly less cluttered.

And yes I did at least attempt to sketch out the original Kothoga design, too.

[kaiju-z]

Rewatching “The Relic” from 1997 for the first time in liek 5 years.

Good movie, very good acting and the monster’s great. My damn brain getting distracted these days, tho > _ <

[guloboreartist]

(First original post on this blog!! 🎉🎉) My interpretation of the Mb'wun; the main antagonist/monster of the horror novel The Relic. It’s a long but AMAZING book if you like horror and mystery!! There’s also a film adaptation of the same name that’s loosely based on the book. It’s a good standalone movie tbh.

[c-g-ricks]

Mbwun, a creature from The Relic, written by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston.

I've never seen a depiction of this guy that I was completely satisfied with. In the book, the creature was described has having "extreme posterior-anterior dimorphism", in which the front was very ape-like while the hindquarters had a lizard tail and dinosaur feet. Wrinkled face, human like eyes, possibly sparse hair.

To spoil the nineteen year old surprise ending of the book and the movie associated with the book, the creature is a result of a human being fed a certain water lily with mutagenic properties by the Kothoga, a remote civilization of people in Brazil. The idea is that the lily has a virus/reovirus within it that infect the consumer with gecko genes. The resulting mutant, the Mbwun ("He who walks on all fours") is dependant on hormones in the lily fibers in order to stay alive, and the tribe capitalizes on this, forcing the Mbwun to be their protector. The only other source of the hormone in within the human hypothalamus, and with no other option, will resort to cannibalism.

In the movie adaption of the book, the beast's name is switched with the tribe, and also possessed tiger and stag beetle genes due to the virus. This resulted in a creature that was a bit too over-designed considering what it is.

It's also a creature with a human mind, and the idea of a mutated creature that could figure out simple traps that have been set for it, be inconspicuous in it's activity, and learn "Hey, my right arm is a lot longer that my left arm, when I'm at rest I should put my weight on that one" is an interesting beast. It's described as being as fast as a greyhound, but I can't really imagine it being lithe, like a panther, but simply aware of and familiar with it's body's odd qualities and the easiest ways to make it work.

Also there's a statue of it.