Grotesques are architectural features, often ugly humanoids, adorning European buildings. The Grotesque Guardian was (basically) a gargoyle in Runescape, an ancient game in the wayback machine. So...the original sketch idea started from...oogly...gargoyle...

I encountered this *very* colorful photo series from Jon Cornforth, an 'extreme' nature photographer. Holy cow talk about triadic colors!!!
I'm really new to this here Wacom, and not perfectly pleased with the linework (that's an understatement). Need more, much more, practice. Shaky hands, yo. Thank heaven for Bezier curves. Krita's smoothing rocks, too.
This project ranged from pencil&paper to Photoshop to Krita and back for even a tiny bit of Illustrator. A mess of a journey, but I finally arrived.
Kinda.