AlphaBeasts Week XXI: Ugnaught / Underpants Gnome

It's time for another weekly alphabetical project! Instead of living, breathing animals, we're now doing an A-to-Z of mythical creatures and fictional monsters called ALPHABEASTS!

I knew right off the bat that this week there would be a plethora of unicorns being submitted for "U", and the list of mythical creatures on Wikipedia left a lot to be desired. Thus, I decided right away on one of two different modern fictional entities from my childhood: Ugnaughts, the porcine, dwarfish humanoids who comprise the workforce in the Cloud City of the gas giant planet, Bespin; and Ultraman, the super-powered Japanese sci-fi hero which spawned generations of spin-offs and pretenders (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers being probably the most well-known).

I began by sketching some ideas for Ugnaughts from what limited image search results I could find on the internet. I also grabbed my "The Empire Strikes Back" DVD and tried to get some good shots of them from freeze frames. Having found few decent references I started researching Ultraman in its countless forms, but felt like it would be less satisfying.

Then I thought of another "U" beast that would be fun and silly and ridiculous: the Underpants Gnomes! These whimsical little people from South Park dwell in caves and steal underpants from the unsuspecting populace for profit. Notwithstanding their incredibly stupid and pointless business plan (seen here South Park Underpants Gnomes Profit plan), they are cute little guys and I thought I could knock one out without any problems.

But then I thought, whose underpants should he be stealing? So I went for it and had him stealing an Ugnaught's underpants! As if Cloud City isn't drafty enough with it being suspended several thousand feet above Bespin's cloudy atmosphere, now he'll be suffering from some extra shrinkage. As Ben Towle suggested on Twitter, at least we now have a better understanding of the Ugnaughts' grumpy expressions.

Microns, Sharpie, white gel pen, and Prismacolor markers on 11x14 drawing stock.