In honor of Tolkien's Birthday, here is the Oliphaunt Bow Tie Guy. I looked to the poem recited by Samwise Gamgee in The Two Towers for inspiration on the look.
“Grey as a mouse,
Big as a house,
Nose like a snake,
I make the earth shake,
As I tramp through the grass;
Trees crack as I pass.
With horns in my mouth
I walk in the South,
Flapping big ears.
Beyond count of years
I stump round and round,
Never lie on the ground,
Not even to die.
Oliphaunt am I,
Biggest of all,
Huge, old, and tall.
If ever you'd met me
You wouldn't forget me.
If you never do,
You won't think I'm true;
But old Oliphaunt am I,
And I never lie.”
The ears are bigger and the trunk longer and snake like. I also adapted many of the prehistoric elephants that I have studied this year to give it a different feel. It has the lower tusks of the stegotetrabelodon and the head and upper tusks of a mammoth. It was a wonderful challenge to give myself.
