#simon's zoo

[papermonkeyism]

I almost forgot! Today's April 16th, which means it's the annual Draw A Centaur day! Which also means my annual excuse to doodle Simon's zoo stuff. Here's Pony greeting Rivers and her cat.

[papermonkeyism]

Yesterday was the annual Draw A Centaur day. I didn't have enough time to draw anything proper, but I did manage a little messy doodle of Pony cramming herself and her human on a sofa.

Might finish this sometime later, but I have a friend coming over today to hang out for easter, so will likely take a while.

[papermonkeyism]

Smooch! Artistic level-up: drew a kiss and it doesn't actually look all horrible?? Harder to swipe one off their feet when they have a back up pair. I think that might be cheating?

[papermonkeyism]

Another visit to Simon's zoo! Ramses the criosphinx is OLD, and can't always wear his claws down like he once used to. Thus, the zoo's caretakers clip his claws regularly to keep his old paws happy and healthy. Ramses is also a total sweetheart, and the only one of the animals that can be handled in person by pretty much everyone. Here's Sven, the intern (a troll), taking care of Ramses' old little pawsies. Ramses thanks him by grooming him in turn. (Criosphinxes have very rough, cat like tongue evolved to help tear flesh from bone.)

[papermonkeyism]

Aaaaand the first drawing made completely in 2018 is a random doodle of Pony being jealous of human skill of standing tiptoes.

And I somehow had to erase the year from the signature twice before writing the right one.

[papermonkeyism]

I do have some idea! I didn't have anything quite solid before, just a general idea of "circle with something in the middle" with different animals being classified as "left animals" and "right animals" (with nue being middle front and any aquatic -meaning just ahuizotl right now- in the back). So here's a little tour! Which I do hope makes sense in some way. The entry gate is middle bottom. Right next to it is a little combined ticket sale booth and souvenir shop. Behind the building, out of visitors's way is the building for staff and the zoo's clinic. Once you get inside, to your right is the biggest enclosure, built onto a rocky hillside and with plenty of roofed airspace, and it's for the harpies. Following along the next enclosure is the gaja-vyala (the elephant lions), which is also quite big. This one has a mote and pretty heavy walls, and it also shares a bit of a pond with the harpies. Continuing on is a smaller enclosure for the tatzelwurm (snake kitty). There is a small path behind the tatzelwurm's that takes to the visitor toilets (unisex). There's also a small tool shed, which is off limits from visitors. Simon lives in it. Continuing the tour, there's pretty large enclosure that's partly built into a small lake/pond located on Simon's property. This is where the ahuizotl live. It used to be all single space when the zoo only had the two males, but when they rescued Henrietta, an injured female the space was divided in two, so the boys wouldn't harrass her. (there's a little dock/wharf/pier thingy that goes around the water end of the enclosure, so visitors can see all of the ahuizotls swimming too) Circling back down from the pond and... There's actually more space than I had anticipated. Probably room for more animals in the future! But in the mean time the central block has couple of enclosures, the nearest one to the ahuizotls is Olavi the unicorn, with forest-y environment. And behind Olavi's there's the nue (Japanese chimera). The nue enclosure has also a little shallow pond in it. Then moving away from the center block there's another big enclosure, which is partly rocky and has quite a bit of sand in it, no matter how often the staff might have tried to sweep it off. This is the Egyptian enclosure with the two sha (the Set animal) and Ramses the criosphinx (ram headed sphinx). The sha make sure the sand stays. Always. (the enclosure walls are also quite thick, though they seem pretty worn from the inside because it houses two living magical sand blowers.) And lastly there's the hippalectryon (kind of like reverse hippogriff, with horse front end and rooster behind). Not shown there's also benches pretty much everywhere and all places are wheelchair accessible. All enclosures are built in a way that the animals can have places to hide out of sight if they so wish, and they have indoor spaces for sleeping in and bad weather. There also should be some place to hold presentations in, let's put thay somewhere in the ???-area, or if I make up another animal to put there, then maybe to the park-sorta-place left from the front gate.

[papermonkeyism]

Inktober #6

Olavi the unicorn from Simon’s zoo. He’s a butt. A very pretty butt, but a butt nonetheless. For being such a relatively small and slender creature, he has an impressive track record of harrassing everyone and everything that comes within his reach. The tip of his horn is filed down a little and covered in a fiberglass blob to keep him from impaling things.

The zoo’s staff has monthly bet going on about which of the zoo’s animals manages to be more of a jerk, Vermin Vermilion the hippalectryon or Olavi. You’d think Vermilion would rule the lead, being twice Olavi’s weight, but Olavi makes up for it by being just barely smarter enough to make it even.

(The proportions are a little off, but I still think this is the best and unicorniest unicorn I’ve ever drawn. Yay!)

[papermonkeyism]

Oh, reminds me, I've been wanting to draw a little comic on how Pony and her girlfriend first met. I need a computer for that (not enough space on a small sketchbook page), so it'll have to wait untill I return to my den, but I'll just put this up here and hope it works as a reminder. It involves a sofa. Also a pun. (and gosh, I need to find out how people dress for parties...)