Mantis Man - Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary Art

I love drawing monsters and weird creatures. It is a lot of fun. I especially like to reference real-world critters in my work as there is an incredible variety in the animal world to draw inspiration from. These Mantoid guys have their roots in Advanced D&D and became quite ubiquitous as part of the Dark Sun campaign setting (which was much more of a sword and planet setting than a high fantasy - i.e. John Carter vs Lord of the Rings). I missed a lot of the 2e days and thus a lot of the cool settings but have gone back and picked them up. Dark Sun is pretty intriguing and these critters are rather interesting. Of course this was done for Adventures Dark and Deep with is NOT AD&D but an Old School Renaissance re-imagining of what 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons might have been if Gary Gygax had stayed at TSR and continued to develop the line rather than what actually happened. Still, mantoid men on a dessert planet setting ravaged by sorcery is still pretty compelling. And of course I had fun drawing this guy. Anyway, happy gaming gang!