Sphinxie sketch.

PLEASE CRIT THIS! I know it's just a scribble, but there is something that I seriously need help on!

I don't know why I did this, to be honest. I said I was gonna swear off YGO until Konami shaped up, then eventually found a number of excuses to do it. Can I outright reject one of my favorite card designs? Probably not.

Unfortunately, this is one of the classic examples of 'cool design, but you TOTALLY screwed it up,' that runs rampant throughout the game. Seriously, it's hard to believe that they made a Greek sphinx this watered-down; WTF?

For those of you who don't know, besides being a Greek mythological monster (some would say originally Egyptian, but I've heard various stories questioning that), the sphinx also semi-appears in the Bible, alchemy, and certain related texts (such as some for Thelema). Because it contains a combination of the four sacred beasts - the face of the goddess/youth (Aquarius), the tail (sometimes horns) of the bull (Taurus) the body of a lion (Leo) and the wings on an eagle (Scorpio/Ophiochus), it is said to embody all elements and four Biblical prophets. To reduce such a creature to a card that's all but useless is wrong on a number of levels. For this sphinx in particular, the epithet 'Teleia' seems to only appear in reference to the marital aspect of Hera; more blasphemy, eh?

Umm, yeah, something THAT mystically-loaded really doesn't deserve to be crap.

Way to go, Konami. You may have a knack for turning almost every freakin' thing into a dragon, but the mystical properties of the Grecian sphinx? Blew it.

As for critiques...there are little things, such as the shading on one of the forelimbs, that still bug me about this sketch. Mostly, however...I need help drawing chains. Badly. Feel free to tear this little scribble of mine apart, except for the fact that it just so happens to be on an abridged version of Heliodorus' "An Ethiopian Tale." Yeah, kinda ran out of sketchbook paper.

Sphinx Teleia (c) YGO (which belongs to Konami), not me. The rant kinda belongs to the internet (researched there and almost nowhere else), but Le Chevalier d'Eon manga helped get me started.