Korean Bul-gae
Every month zestydoesthings creates a creature feature prompt and we in the community design that creature.I was a little behind on this one because this is February's prompt. Bul-gae.
Bul-gae are mythical, fire dogs in Korean mythology, hailing from the kingdom of darkness that chase the sun and the moon, causing eclipses when they bite both sides of the celestial bodies.
The one that was first sent to retrieve the sun for their master Gamangnara was burnt when he tried to bite the sun and so another was sent to retrieve the moon, however it was frozen and both abandoned thei mission.
I decided for this prompt to design both dogs. I had originally thought about designing then as different breeds each. Although Bul-gae are typically depicted as jindo Spitz, inu shiba or Asian wolves, I wanted to play about with fitting the dog to the celestial body they represented. Picking a cold hardy breed like the marema or St. Bernard as the ice dog and a warm weathering bread as the fire dog like a greyhound or a doberman. In the end I decided to make them both phaoroh dogs, which was a bread I found particularly interesting at the time. They look ancient, obviously. As they're the bread that would have been around and remain unchanged since ancient Egypt. I found fitting for a piece of ancient mythology. I didn't want to pick a bread associated with the mythology because I wanted to play about with the concept a bit and investigate some different possibilities. I have personally always been a big fan of skinny, muscly breads of dog like the greyhound, doberman or phaoroh dog and so that's why I decided on this bread. They are similar enough in design to be part of a duo but the differences in their ears, paws and tails gives them their individual personalities.Mar 13, 2021
#creaturedesign
#animal
#mythology
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