As mythological creatures go, I’ve always had a soft spot for cockatrices (or is it cockatrixes in the plural? I have no idea.) This is because I think roosters are incredibly pretty, and adding a snakey tail to just about anything makes it even prettier, except kittens. Or wait, maybe a kitten with a snakey tail would look prettier. I’ll have to toddle off to my lab to run some experiments on that. Anyway, this brings me to my problem. I couldn’t find any satisfactory Victorian engravings of a cockatrice for my bookplate project (of which I’ll write more at a future date) so I had to sit down and draw my own.

The key to a satisfactory cockatrice is to keep most of the beautiful features of a rooster—the gorgeous cockscomb, the extravagant tail, the powerful clawed feet—and just add a bit of snake. Not too much snake. And for heaven’s sake, no fangs! Fangs are utterly unnecessary. And finally, a satisfactory cockatrice should NOT look like a velociraptor. Just sayin’.

This little image was sketched and inked quickly (and furthermore I couldn’t find my preferred inking pens, so I had to make do with a blasted fountain pen and a dull black sharpie) so it’s rather less tight and tidy than my other black-and-white efforts. It’s supposed to look engraving-y, but the shadow lines are too random. Oh well. “Ink in haste, Photoshop at leisure.”