Okay tumblr wouldn’t let me publish this with all the images attached but this is obviously very important so I’ll do it as a screenshot.
Mutant neopets, one of my many practical and impressive areas of expertise, have long gone all out to the point of often being rather overwrought, and for people who don’t follow neopets, here’s an example of a more recent mutant pet, but probably my LEAST favorite of them:
….Which I’m not knocking as a design itself, but I am knocking as a “mutant” because what we’re clearly seeing here is more of a Space Balrog. For contrast, here’s some of my all-time favorites:
So, uh, back to this thing then:
This is the first mutant in two years, I know because “Mutant Day” is usually one of the only things I check back on neopets for, and obviously the art quality is kind of laughable compared to the standard they’ve established. This is to be expected after most of the site’s staff was laid off, of course, but come on, this looks like a 2002 neopet, not a 2015 neopet. It also looks an awful lot like all someone did was draw some stuff over the regular Wocky.
That said, there is a distinct charm to it, and I definitely prefer a poorly drawn but sort of simple, nasty mutant to another overdesigned Micheal Bay Space Balrog mutant.
I like that it has mouths for ears, and I like that it has a giant gross tongue. I think the awful tongue might actually be what saves it for me, otherwise you just have an angry dog-cat thing with a weird ruff.
5/10, a design that tried neither too hard nor hard enough but could look awesome in a more capable illustrator’s hands. Here’s my 15 second notebook doodle take:
ellievsbear
izzy806
gummygunk
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
gracieabrams
origamiaround
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
stormborns
