Building The Apothecary

I was doing a bit of nosing around in some old print books at school and also in and around some antiques markets the past few weeks.  It got me really inspired about  the thought of my very own Apothecary or bio lab... only filled with strange and wonderful fictitious creatures. It got me thinking about building a curio-cabinet filled with them... or rather a series of pictures that I could hang up on the wall.  I figured it would be fun to see if I still knew what to do in the photo-illustration world... seemed to be the best route for creating these kind of images the way my mind envisioned them. I tinkered around for a bit and came up with my first little creature.

I present to you the Trout Hound...

From here I'm thinking I'll see if my skills are up to snuff with mezzotint and start to turn this first creation into something dark and velvety on paper! I think it's just begging to be done and I can guarantee it will be months away. Anyways, thought I'd post the sketch up here. Enjoy!