#ganchua

Imps thrive in dark, enclosed spaces like burrows and caves. What's an ogre's stomach but a warm, squishy cave? XD

Sharing this extremely old doodle for the Valentine's Day Tumblr crowd. Just two big goobers being cute.

Got some VERY soft asks in my inbox, so I thought it would be appropriate to introduce one of the biggest softies in my roster. This guy's been around a looooooong time on FA, but it's been way too long since I last drew him. Admittedly, a possible reason for that is that my official "reference" for him was made almost a freaking DECADE ago, so needless to say it's a bit out of date. So instead of making things harder on myself and referencing several old and often incomplete drawings of him, I finally buckled down and made something more refined.

As is typical for ogres, Ganchua set out on his own into the wilderness as soon as he was fully grown and independent. Mostly keeping to himself, he lived a peaceful, solitary existence in the woods (excluding the occasional stressful encounter with terrified campers and lumberjacks). But his soft, friendly demeanor meant he wouldn't stay alone for long.

One night, he crossed paths with an imp named Puck, panicked and desperate to escape from a flock of predatory harpies. Ganchua immediately stepped in and saved the small creature from a gristly fate by hiding him away in his first "storage stomach" (despite his immense discomfort and aversion to eating meat, ESPECIALLY the living kind). Discovering the little imp had run away from his colony and had nowhere else to go, the ogre offered Puck shelter and companionship, which Puck was quick to accept.

From that day on, the two were practically inseparable, despite Puck's habit of causing mischief. In fact, the little "found family" would continue to grow when a strange, dopey minotaur named Torro visited their neck of the woods...

More info under the cut:

They kinda have a (platonic) thing going on. No one eats anyone, but one of them scolds the other for putting dangerous things in his mouth. XD

That actually gives me an adorable idea for a story or series of drawings, based on the folk tale “Anansi and the Talking Melon.”

(I loved this book as a kid, and I think it definitely had some influence on my weirdness today. XD)

The idea: Ganchua is lumbering around looking for a ripe watermelon to eat, when one of them starts talking to him. Unlike the animals in the story, he quickly figures out what’s going on when he picks up the melon and notices a small hole in the rind. Turns out it’s just Puck putting on a silly voice; the imp gnawed a hole in the melon and squeezed inside, but after gorging himself on the fruit, he was far too bloated to climb out the way he went in.

His name is a play on Gargantua, a famous giant from a 16th century French novel with the same name (and where the word "gargantuan" comes from).

Fun fact: I'm pretty sure I came up with Puck's name first, and so I was originally going to name his big ogre buddy "Oberon" to keep to the Shakespeare theme. Ultimately, I thought the name was too similar to Aveon and went with Ganchua instead.

As for his design, I don't think I have a particularly interesting story behind it. I just went for a good ol' fashioned ogre/orc design and gave him some special markings to help him stand out a bit more. Here's my first concept drawing I made of him: