One day I rented a new game from my local Block Buster video named "Demon's Crest" for the Super Nintendo and was blown away by it. The designs, the music and the world; a whole world full of monsters instead of people. After that I started drawing all these interesting characters based off of my own world full of monsters & that line was dubbed "Monster Wars". Eventually that line's name changed into what it is now known as: "Creature World".
In Monster Wars there was all sorts of different beings, people made out of mud, plant/creature hybrids, living trees (inspired more by the Inhumanoids Redwoods as I'd never even heard of Lord of the Rings or Ents until 2001), etc. Eventually, rock people made their way into my world by the name of an evil Ston'emm named 'Crackapart'. I believe the Ston'emm were created after my love of the Granites from Hasbro's Inhumanoids as to this day that is one of my favorite childhood cartoons & toy lines.
It's funny that 1st Ston'emm we see in my stories was evil, as now their race are generally very much the opposite (although there's always a bad egg or two floating around). It wasn't until further down the road, probably towards the end of the 90's & the early 2000's that I started to flesh out the Ston'emm race & explain their existence more (I'll get into their story-based history in another blog post).
I already showed you all the 1st drawing of Crackapart, but here's a variant I made of him called "Shatter Crackapart". Basically he got a furry loincloth instead of being just naked stone & now had the ability to telekineticlly control stones and form giant hands to grasp opponents.
This version of Crackapart came out in Series 15 and it would be another 5 series before we saw some Ston'emms again. He was a heavy-hitting member of the 'Bringers of Bloodshed' aka 'the Bloodlords' and was a thorn in the side of the heroes of my stories off and on. For whatever reason he didn't stick around as the Creature World story progressed and this would be the last time he was ever mentioned. It's possible I killed him off, but I really don't remember. The drawing is a little better then the1st one I made, but even then it's hard to make out the face on him due to the dark colored pencils I used, I really need to re-draw him with less black & dark gray. I'd really like to introduce him into the story that's going on now with the Ston'emms, as I think an evil Ston'emm that wants to align itself with the Armovors would be a cool twist and really hit the morale of the Ston'emms to see one of the own turning on the rest of their kind.
These next two debuted in Series 20. First we have another evil but very odd looking ston'emm with an almost snake/reptilian look to it. His name, is Sword. I know, very original:
I believe this design was based off an earlier drawing that wasn't a ston'emm but I liked the idea of merging the two together and drew this. I'd like to re-visit this character also, especially to give him an updated design & even sculpt it. I'd probably change his name to 'Swordstone' as at least that sounds better then just 'Sword'; that's like naming a barbarian 'Axe' or 'Warhammer'. Keep in mind I drew this character before I even knew Poke'mon existed so the idea of a rock-snake creature wasn't inspired by Poke'mon's Onyx. Odd similarities though, especially with the little crest on the back of the head that I think Oynx also shares (very eerie....O_o..). Sword was an expert Crystalline Swordsman and wielded 2 of these blades with deadly accuracy. The tail he has even ends in a razor-sharp crystal blade that he used to attack a 2nd opponent in combat.
Next we have the 1st Heroic Ston'emm character I created, the rocky member of the 'Warriors of the Woodlands' (aka the Woodlords): Rokk! (Yes I know his name is horribly generic, I was 15 & had NO concept of what Copyrightable names were)
Rokk may have had a different name, as I can make out in my drawing book that I'd erased a name & wrote 'Rokk' in it's place. I can make out an 'R' so maybe he was named 'Boulder' until I remembered the Rock Lord of the same name? Who knows, it's a mystery for the ages. Rokk has the ability to morph his hands into stone hammers, shoot his fists like missiles at his opponents and re-grow a new hand. With him was his pet Rocklecta named 'Clamp Jaw' but also known as 'Lil' Grind' which I feel is a much better name & less the love-child of Clamp Champ & Trap Jaw from Masters of the Universe. I had a very small amount of this gray colored pencil so that was the major reason why Rock got clothing; this is also the 1st Ston'emm I drew where you can actually see his mouth & eyes clearly again thanks to the lighter gray. In additional to his attack pet Lil' Grind he had a Ra'lok which are large stone creatures that the Ston'emm used as steeds and battle mounts on Slauria. This is Rokk's steed Grinder:
A Ra'lok is a rock-bear type of creature, they run on all fours but can rise up on their hind legs to attack with their front legs. They have some pretty large, wicked claws on the front paws so they're very dangerous when angered. They lived primarily on Slauria so you don't find them with the space-faring Ston'emms that are fighting the Armovors. Ston'emms are able to forge weapons from stone & rocks with their hands and you can see Rokk's axe on the saddle strap for Grinder.
I was actually 16 years old when I drew these last 3 drawings as on the page above Grinder a date was written down: August 28th 1996. So just a hair over 16 years ago I drew these Ston'emms. I wonder what my 16 year old self would say if I showed him the sculpted Ston'emms I created?
I have a few more Ston'emm drawings from back in the 90's to show you, but I will save that for another day. ;-)
-Bah'glenn
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