Gargoyles

I (Dinko) did some heavy scholarly research on the fascinating, and highly academic too, topic of gargoyles - the grotesque stone-carved creatures you see on the outside of Gothic cathedrals and some other buildings. Why they put demons and monsters to drain rain-water form the rooftops of churches, when they could have just as easily put angels with hoses, and other sprinkling devices (a certain fountain in Brussels comes to mind), is not exactly clear to me to this very day. There are theories of course, but we won't dwell on them here, for lack of conclusive evidence.

The research technique I employed borrowed heavily from train-spotting and bird-watching, fascinating hobbies in their own right. So I went places, I saw gargoyles, and I took pictures, looked at them for some time, shook my head violently, and made these deranged-looking creatures. I guess it's all the dripping water that made them crazy.

"But what does that have to do with mythical creatures and their sculpting?" some of you may ask. Just about everything, I would say: gargoyles, and chimeras (the ones that are just statues with no water draining function) are often depictions of mythical beasts, and beast cocktails -1/2 part lion, 2/5 snake, 1/8 man, stirred not shaken etc. In a nutshell: If you are looking for some interesting ideas about mythical creatures, Google "gargoyles" and you will find some century-old and tested material.