The Scottish Highland’s Most Wanted
So I’m going to guess most of you are pretty familiar with the Loch Ness Monster, the long disputed lake beast of the Scottish Highlands, but just in case here’s a real quick rundown: The first known reference to a water beast in the region appeared in writings from the 6th century and had the beast not in the loch but on the River Ness and his behavior was much more man eating giant water predator than lazy lake beast.
Jump a few centuries ahead and we encounter a series of sighting in the 1930s that tended to describe our hero as a combo of seal and plesiosaur dinosaur and more often than not lumbering across bits of land surrounding the loch. Right about that same time a series of photographs began to appear, the most famous being the “surgeon’s photograph” which has been featured in newspapers of the time and on at least 5 Discovery special I’ve seen and is most often explained away as a submerged elephant’s truck or a modified children’s toy. Regardless of the hoax claims around it, that photo has stirred imaginations and driven curious tourist to the area for decades.
Science has tried to explain him away as a sturgeon or giant otter or a log but still can’t find him, they’ve done full loch radar sweeps on at least 2 occasions, which to me says its more than possible he’s magical or coated in some sweet organic stealth technology. The loch opens to the sea, which to me says he’s more than capable of finding a food source outside of his poorly stocked leisurely swimming hole, so feel free to draw him anywhere (but please remember his Scottish roots). And keep in mind the base descriptors of aqualine, long necked, flipper footed and playful, but beyond that I leave the rest to you! Go forth and draw!
Our Judge this week is Mr Dean Ruppert! Now-a-days he’s a professional digital archivist and proud father of two. Long ago he used to work in a warehouse packing up import vinyl with me, fellow Witchbanger, Johnny and a host of entertaining and nefarious characters. Now I haven’t seen him in probably 15 years, so a lot could have changed and technically I could just be imagining these memories… but I’m pretty sure he went to Champaign in the era of Hum and lived on Green st (not true it was oregon st), played in a band (Grover or C Clamp or something, we can’t remember)… he lived at Cardona’s house when they found a torso in his dumpster (suspicious? also it turns out, untrue but its funny so it stays), and he liked his Bari’s mild (He claims this too is untrue, but I’m sticking to it…) but mostly, he was about as nice a guy as you could imagine and seemed to live in a state of perpetual awe at how stupidly the rest of us made decisions back then… and just so he knows I remember, most importantly, he taught me that washing your coffee cup with soap is for pussies!
