Manticore for Lex

Alexis Rudd did some fantastic pics for me, and in return she asked for a drawing of a manticore she'd seen in a dream, swooping down. This particular manticore is HER idea of the creature - hers has wings and a lionlike head, rather than the usual distorted human head with three rows of teeth. Hers also has hind feet that can grasp things, but were  supposed to still look vaguely catlike, rather than birdlike. She gave me a detailed description and I tried my best to follow it.

I wanted to practice more with my colored pencils, and decided to go for a stylized look that emphasized the creature coming out at you; I made the front paws extra-large on purpose. It's done differently than my usual - I wanted to try something new, rather than coloring  everything in solidly as I usually do. Unfortunately the scanner didn't pick up the subtleties of the colored pencil, and flattened everything out; the original has more depth.

Prismacolor and Design colored pencils on Canson Mi-teintes paper.  Scanned in two pieces (it's over 10" square) and merged and touched up  in Photoshop 7.