#cactus characters

Today's incredible illustration was created for us by @ecto-stone! Mysterious, glowing in the darkness, as if just photographed by an ROV exploring the depths, today's subject is once again our big fish Sangreal!

Represented in all his sinuous length, his body stretching downward like a silver ribbon, filling the space... it's a stylized work of great visual impact, simultaneously encapsulating Sangreal's mystery and character in a way that fascinates, unsettles, and, upon closer inspection, moves. We absolutely love the way its eyes were drawn, so round and bright. Big blue eyes are truly one of Sangreal's most distinctive features. We couldn't help but notice that the background isn't completely black, but has small, lighter areas. This actually gives it greater depth, making the abyssal darkness seem more absolute, and Sangreal's glowing body even brighter, a rare, almost supernatural vision in the still darkness. The composition is incredible, the style is incredible, and the textures chosen are perfect for harmonizing the various parts. This is another one of those illustrations that needs to be printed and hang on our walls!

It's the moment of truth, and time for Benedetta's friends to finally meet Penelope. But how will they react...?

Work in progress for another spider-themed illustration for a Cactus di Fuoco Book!

If you can read Italian, you can find the beta version of the book HERE. Otherwise, wait a little while, because the book will soon be translated and published (all illustrated by us!) on Amazon.

He just wants to be your (boy)friend!

"Sweet shrimps are made of this, who am I to disagree?"

Today's drawing was created for us by our colleague and friend @lovelywingsart!

Sangreal returns, accompanied by a shrimp, as in the most iconic illustrations depicting him. His mono-type diet (he eats only small crustaceans) apparently inspires people quite a bit… but it's a bit like the "potato theory," right? You know it, right? When a character mentions their favorite food just once, even by mistake, and as a result, everyone starts to associate them with that food as if it were the most important trait of their personality.

We call it "the potato theory" because the character who first comes to mind when we have to describe this archetype is Sasha Braus, a character from Attack on Titan who, if you're just a casual fan of the series, you'll remember as "the potato girl," since at the beginning of the series we meet her as the young recruit who innocently steals a potato and eats it simply because she was hungry.

Unlike her, however, Sangreal is truly defined by this very strict diet, having never eaten anything other than crustaceans, which he catches and raises. In short, it's kind of his job! Even if the definition of "job" for pistrix isn't exactly the same as it is for us humans.

A delightful illustration, showing the entirety of her body, and a half-innocent, half-astonished expression at seeing this shrimp that, from its bright color, almost seems… already cooked! A nice boiled shrimp (and maybe it is, right? Someone might have given him one!).

Sangreal's relationship with cooking food is certainly interesting: even before coming into contact with human culture, Sangreal knew that some people alter the nutritional and organoleptic properties of food with heat, using hydrothermal vents for example, but he himself has never consumed cooked food.

After meeting humans, he will be struck, almost obsessed, by their way of altering and combining flavors (we feel justified in saying that Ratatouille would be his favorite Pixar film), and yes, of course, even cooking shrimp!

His expression is one of wonder, even if it's due to the unusual color, that pale pink, without any white or fuchsia, uniform and tender, that captivates him.

Today's drawing was created for us by @baphometphonetic-art (for ArtFight, in which our official artists are participating)!

There are all kinds of things we expect to receive... 3D models, digital drawings, traditional drawings, pixel art sprites... but if there's one thing we absolutely DIDN'T expect to see, and that really surprised us, it's a buildable paper doll of Sangreal!

(We don't know how long this link will be available, but this is the printing template, in case you want to print it at home to build your own articulated fish! But we warn you, it'll be a lot of work.)

It's incredibly long! It's beautiful! And it's also incredibly complicated! We've probably never built a puppet as complicated as this one, but that's precisely what blew us away: the complexity and perfection of the details, all remembered and perfectly placed. We can't believe someone made something so beautiful for us! Can we just say we love the way the face was drawn? It's absolutely perfect for Sangreal: his round, fish-like eyes, contrasting with his full, well-defined, and decidedly more "human" lips, are his trademark, that thing that gives him a slight "uncanny" that we love so much, and which has been captured so well here that we couldn't have done better. Even the nose, voluminous and aquiline, with a beautiful rounded, unbroken curve, is truly his.

It's perhaps one of the most precise and perfect pieces of Sangreal fan art we've ever received.

Sangreal must have certainly left a mark... and that's something we're incredibly proud of. Look at this bizarre fish guy!

And the best part is that now we can print it, put it together (will we be able to? We really hope so. For now, half of it is put together and attached to our fridge, we hope we can finish it all!) and have it with us always. A beautiful gift, in short, is what we received.

Today's drawing was created for us by eeluminighty (for ArtFight, in which our official artists are participating)!

Crispy and elegant, a youthful and mysterious beauty in this semi-anime style, Seras Alkahest is stunning in this drawing.

Her mysterious gaze, not exactly neutral but not clearly assigned to a single emotion either, a bit of superiority, a bit of mystery, fits well with the composition: the tentacles, despite not being the center of the drawing, dominate, iridescent (how beautiful the purple tips) in the background, so large and preponderant that they emerge from the "screen", leaving one to the imagination what could be around her, or what these tentacles are doing (oh yes, Seras always has her tentacles busy doing something!).

Today's drawing was created for us by anthonymakessomeart!

Wow, how cool! Very often, people who draw Sangreal  choose to highlight his "goofy" side... after all, he's a big fish who's never hurt anyone (yet. We dare say: for now.), who keeps having unfortunate things happen to him, putting him in... uncomfortable positions.

This time, the music is completely different, because the Sangreal in this illustration is cool and menacing. That's probably how merfolk see him: a mysterious creature, with strangely luminous eyes, a very long, serpentine body, and complex, sharp-looking fins, which bring to mind images of sea serpents and other monsters that live in the abyssal depths.

Ultimately, that's one of the things we love most about Sangreal: its dichotomy, the fact that it can seem so menacing despite being a mostly peaceful creature. Mostly.

We love the use of color here, but even more so the way Sangreal's figure was framed, as if seen from inside a rock tunnel, an underground cave. Behind him, twisted, tentacle-like structures almost make us want to spoil a scene where something like this... really will happen. But hey, keep quiet!

The mysterious lights rising from the background, along with bubbles of oxygen, almost make the scene seem capable of breathing, more alive than ever, with a surrounding environment that seems more alive than Sangreal, who stands in the middle like a statue (a statuesque beauty?), menacing precisely because he is still, his neutral stance leaving no room for the viewer to interpret his intentions, the darkness enveloping his face obscuring the ability to clearly read his facial expression.