#labrea the smilodon

[dynoguard]

"And we're back." Linda DuPree smiled into the camera, doing her best to appear natural. "With LaBrea... Uh... Is that your first or last name?"

The camera panned over to Linda's "guest." At first glance she appeared human, though the illusion broke down quickly. The size was the immediate tip-off: nine feet tall, with chalk-white skin and half-feline features.

From her short muzzle a pair of dagger like fangs dipped to just under her jaw. She "wore" an evening gown and opera gloves made of viscous liquid tar, the same material that formed an impossible mane upon her head.

The liquid moved and shifted with a life of its own, and a tendril of her floor-length "tresses" was presently dancing behind Linda like an agitated cobra, dripping rivulets of shimmering black oil that flowed along the ground back into her dress.

"Just LaBrea." Her voice carried an odd mix of valley girl inflection and a Hollywood Count Dracula accent, somehow unimpeded by her tusk-like fangs. "Thank you for asking. And Linda, can I just say that I am so thankful that you had little old me on your show, to get to know all the good people at home?"

"Thank, yes, I would like to-" Linda paused, and gathered herself. "I'd like to thank you, very much, LaBrea, for allowing the paramedics to give Sarah and Pauline transfusions."

"They were deliciously boring, dahling." She smiled. "Not like you. So. What do you want to ask me?"

"Well, what are you?" Linda winced. "Was that rude? I-"

"No, Dahling, you're just timid, frightened, like a little mouse. I like you." LaBrea tapped her chin, the slick mass of tar on her head shifted into a raised secretarial bun, a pair of glasses frames forming on her face, evoking a 'thoughtful' look by way of a fashion photo shoot.

"I'm a sabertooth tigress by death, a vampire professionally, an actress by calling and a Fossil Ghoul in general."

"Lets talk about that last one."

"Oh, acting! I don't have representation yet, but you have seen me on the news! And now here! On the hostage episode of The Squadt with Linda, Sarah, Pauline, and the husk formerly known as Darla!" She made an old fashioned 'call me' gesture into the camera with her tar-dripping claws.

"She'll be fine. I mean... not psychologically, but in a few categories I'm sure."

"I meant lets talk about the Fossil Ghouls. What does that mean?"

"Okay, so, like, I'm sure you've heard all kinds of things from the DynoGuard and their little juicebox pals, no offense."

"None taken."

"Wasn't a request. Like I was saying. You've heard that we're some kind of alien species that feeds on fear that's come here to bring an age of suffering and ultimately extinction upon you all. And I just want to let everyone know that couldn't be further from the truth."

"I, for one am glad to hear tha-"

"Yeah, species implies we reproduce and create life like mortals, which is downright offensive. Also, we feed on all forms of evil that you both commit and suffer, not just fear."

"So what are you then?"

"I'm the bones of a sabertooth cat, a whole lot of tar, a mass of your species superstitions, fears, and desires brought to life with a dark heart."

"A Dark Heart... is that metaphorical-?"

LaBrea plunged a hand into the tar at her hip, digging around in it as it were a pocket, before withdrawing a pulsing crystal the size of a cantaloupe. It was shaped like a human heart, carved crudely out of a sickly amber-yellow crystal. Inside, Linda could see a shadow moving around like a bug in a jar.

"This is a dark heart. Made form the ichor of Apothis herself, and holding a poor little soul that was too wicked to get fully digested after the master's last stop." LaBrea turned to the heart and its tiny shadow. "Who wasn't digested? You weren't, you weren't digested were you? You little atrocity you!"

Linda flinched as the shadow slammed itself against the wall of the heart nearest to her. She couldn't remember what it looked like, only that it had many teeth and claws it ought not to have, and was scrabbling furiously at the crystal in a futile attempt at escape. The camera did not pick up the finer details.

"You need a lot of evil, a lot of entroplasm, to make a little monster like this big and strong enough to be a real Fossil Ghoul." LaBrea said. "So you see, by letting us run roughshod over your world, you're actually helping us thrive. Isn't that fun?"

"You mentioned Apothis... That's the meteor that killed the dinosaurs?"

"Oh sweet little mouse! Apothis comes for everyone eventually. As a civilization gets big, and gets smart, its capacity to both inflict and experience evil swells. And when you're ripe, the monster meteor herself comes to feast, leaving a mass extinction in her wake. Before moving to the next star to do it, and the next, coming back around when your world has a new set of annoying talking matter that knows how to scream and mean it."

LaBrea shook herself from her ravings and regained her perky, if uncanny, posture. "Annoying talking matter and you, Linda. We're besties. Obviously!"

"How, how many times has Apothis done this?"

"To Earth? More than a couple by a few, dahling." LaBrea. "The lizards were the only ones to do something about it, and we'll have them dealt with soon."

"Why are you telling us this?" Linda asked.

"Because, dahling, it won't help. Not knowing, not begging, not even worshiping me." She tilted her head and smiled. Both the tilt and smile went farther than they ought. "Not that you shouldn't do all three anyway. They're fun!"

Linda blinked, unsure of how to respond.

"I mean fun for me." LaBrea grinned into the camera, then took a long, low inhale through her nose. As she did, Linda saw tendrils of smoke roiling from the cameras, the audience, and even herself, rushing into the creature's oddly petite nostrils. The smoke was an impossibly dark and deep purple and it smelled of burning decay.

She could taste the wisps flowing out of her mouth. They tasted like her divorce, her broken leg, her father's funeral-

"Don't turn that dial." LaBrea said in a mocking parody of Darla's voice. "Some of us will be right back after a message from these sponsors."

[noxaeternaetc]

Alexis Rockman (1962- ) Labrea tar pits - smilodon from the Field drawings, 1998-1999. Tar on gessoed paper, 12 x 9 inch.

[theawkwarddinosaurs]

Done great murals from my recent visit to the LaBrea Tarpits. Thanks everyone for joining me in my first IG live feed yesterday! . . . . . #cenozoicera #labrea #paleoart #prehistoric #mural #murals #smilodon #sabertoothedtiger #DINOSAURS (at Labrea Tarpits Dinosaurs) https://www.instagram.com/p/CZWrR2Llwqp/?utm_medium=tumblr

[therobotmonster]

Dire Roadster Sculpt in Progress

The Dire Roadster is an example of a small-scale vehicle, being a little over 3 inches long, and scaled to the small 2″ scale DynoGuard figure designs. 

Dire Roadster features an opening jaw with “chomping action”, and I’m probably going to articulate the over-the-tire claws. 2″ figs will stick out the jaws a bit, but smaller “critter” sidekicks can probably be fully gobbled.  

At this point I need to sculpt the “steering column”, the back of the “seat” (tho I might make it into an open-back chariot, or I may create a second, raised platform to one side for a passenger. After that its just the tongue (I”m thinking tire-tread texture) and the engine. 

[photozoi]

Smilodon fatalis

Sabertooth Cat , Pleistocene epoch, North America

[dynoguard]

Oops, hand slipped.

Edit, now with alternate color options.

[dynoguard]

DynoGuard Art Round Up: Evil Fossil Ghouls

[dynoguard]

Wandering Monsters

Yorik fills new Fossil Ghouls LaBrea and HodgePodge in on what it means to be monsters! 

Illustration: Trent Troop

[therobotmonster]

LaBrea the Vampire Smilodon - 2″ figure sculpt in progress.

Taking a little break on this sculpt before I add the rest of the drips and oozes to her tar-hair. 

Edit: added some earlier WIPs on the model, and the promo art for the character the sculpt is based on.

[photozoi]

Smilodon fatalis skeletal restoration at OMSI in Portland.

[dynoguard]

LaBrea 3d Model, Early Progress

Working up a 3d model of LaBrea for 3d printing and possible animation purposes. I’ve been making some design tweaks as I go, particularly in the upscaling of the hands and feet, and more animal-like hands. 

I’m still working on the face shape. I don’t have much experience with this particular mid-point on the anthropomorphism scale (I’m normally more of a “slap animal head on there, make slightly cartoony’ TMNTish school), so its trickier than other elements.

You can’t see from that angle, but she has a stubby little smilodon tail. The tar effects will be the last thing done, especially since I have no idea how I’m going to execute them.

[dynoguard]

I answered this in an ask, but I realized I didn’t run down what DynoGuard is... So, from our “elevator pitch” document:

Sixty-five million years ago, the world was populated by talking, technologically advanced dinosaurs. These Dinosovians were protected by the DynoGuard, a team of rescue specialists clad in advanced mechanical Aegis Armor, and powered by the DynoBond, a machine-dinosaur interface that unlocks their innate super-abilities.

Then the monster meteor Apothis, a living nightmare that consumes the life of whole worlds, came to feast upon the Earth. With doom approaching, the lead researcher at Science Tower One altered his experimental Time Slip technology to send their civilization forward in time thousands of years to avoid the devastation.

But something went wrong...

An epoch later, Science Tower One partially rematerializes in the modern world, merging with Spire Observatory outside Granite Mountain, Colorado. It brings with it five Dinosovians: Sheriff Rex (a Dracorex), Brach (a Brachiosaurus), Linn (a Velociraptor), Kyle (an Ankylosaurus), and Zara (a Parasaurolophus). Marooned in a strange new world of mammals and unfamiliar technology, they cannot know when—or even if—the rest of their people will return 

This would have been difficult enough without the return of Apothis, injured and trapped in Earth’s orbit. Now he sends the Fossil Ghouls, an army of monsters lead by the ever-changing skeletal warlord Extinxion, to destroy the DynoGuard and make way for the restoration of their master.

It’s a good thing the dinos have human friends, like teen cryptozoologist Jason James, his astronomer father Sagan James and the backing of tech billionaire Gloria Anning, because the Fossil Ghouls are just the tip of the villainous iceberg! 

The battle is on! Roar into the Future with The DynoGuard!

-

The DynoGuard is, essentially, the story of refugees from a time-lost civilization of sapient dinosaurs banding together to defend their new home and friends against threats both supernatural and super-scientific. They do this by combining their natural powers with cutting edge power armor and an array of toyetic vehicles. 

They’re opposed by the Fossil Ghouls, undead villains created by Apothis, each combining prehistoric power and supernatural might into a unique monster.  They are lead by Extinxion, a skeletal warlord-warlock forged from fossil bone and cursed amber.

And include the sycophantic Yorik, mummy oviraptor, sorcerous priest of Apothis and master “monstersmith”

The vampire smilodon mistress of the unliving tar, LaBrea and her hulking ice-age Frankenstein manservant HodgePodge

and a host of other monsters including the two-headed Mr. Sea/Mr. Sky, the phantasmal Spectersaur, the volcanic Dimetrogorgon and the Dunkleosteus Pirate Queen/Ghost Ship Coldsnap.

While some aspects are revising day-to-day, this tumblr is a record of that development. 

DynoGuard Art Round Up: Heroic Dinos

[dynoguard]

Lets test out Tumblr’s new filtering with a little LaBrea and her favorite monstrous Speed Demon creation, the Two-Lane Terror known as the Dire Roadster.

Dire Roadster illustration by Jhomar Soriano, LaBrea Illustration by Ronald D. Smith

[dynoguard]

Velvet Koneko (@velvetkonetko) did this amazing LaBrea Art for my birthday!

[dynoguard]

Meet LaBrea, Smilodon Vampiress of the Fossil Ghouls. Born from the tar pits whose name she took, LaBrea is one of the DynoGuard's most wily and powerful foes. She commands living tar with her mind, forming it into weapons, armor and clothing. 

Illustration: Ronald Smith

[dynoguard]

LaBrea the Vampire Smilodon 2″ Toy Sculpt

I’m working on sculpts from DynoGuard and other “Battle Animal” characters of my own as a side-project to give myself something to free-sculpt on. LaBrea is the first Fossil Ghoul sculpt to be finished in this style. 

For LaBrea, I explored some of my recent fascination with 90s-era Playmates sculpting, but more toned down than the likes of Wakey-Wakey (Eggs and Bakey). The asymmetrical drips and the extra sculpted details in her “hair” were fun to do.

Thoughts, reblogs are all welcome.