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So this summer I spent about 3 and a half weeks in the Himachel Pradesh, a province in Northern India that is part of the Himalayan Mountain range. Also should premise this with the fact that I am an anthropology student, specializing in religious studies. Now I have spent the past 2 years focusing on Buddhism and Hinduism in school so to go to the country of its origins was extremely exciting for me, and while I was there I was surprised by the sheer amount of as we call it here 'Tibetan Buddhism', which is called Himachel Buddhism over there. And almost all of the temples had these beautiful strange creature heads on the corners of the roofs, some kind of cross between a dragon and elephant I thought. It was nothing I had seen in my studies so far. I found out later in the trip via one of the accompanying grad students that these are called Makara (in Hindi, in Tibetan it is called the chu-srin). It is an artistic rendition of a crocodile, a half-terrestrial half-aquatic creature that has a long snout, and sharp teeth. The swirling mane and tail were additions by the Tibetan mythology. Never seeing a crocodile the long snout was interpreted in a similar way to an elephant! I thought the were absolutely beautiful and couldn't wait to draw them, and so here it is!

It is all copic markers, the colours are a smidgin off because it is lit by artificial and I cannot seem to get it any better than this in photoshop...Sorry! Anywho if you managed to read all that congrats! Thanks for looking

Description
So this summer I spent about 3 and a half weeks in the Himachel Pradesh, a province in Northern India that is part of the Himalayan Mountain range. Also should premise this with the fact that I am an anthropology student, specializing in religious studies. Now I have spent the past 2 years focusing on Buddhism and Hinduism in school so to go to the country of its origins was extremely exciting for me, and while I was there I was surprised by the sheer amount of as we call it here 'Tibetan Buddhism', which is called Himachel Buddhism over there. And almost all of the temples had these beautiful strange creature heads on the corners of the roofs, some kind of cross between a dragon and elephant I thought. It was nothing I had seen in my studies so far. I found out later in the trip via one of the accompanying grad students that these are called Makara (in Hindi, in Tibetan it is called the chu-srin). It is an artistic rendition of a crocodile, a half-terrestrial half-aquatic creature that has a long snout, and sharp teeth. The swirling mane and tail were additions by the Tibetan mythology. Never seeing a crocodile the long snout was interpreted in a similar way to an elephant! I thought the were absolutely beautiful and couldn't wait to draw them, and so here it is!

It is all copic markers, the colours are a smidgin off because it is lit by artificial and I cannot seem to get it any better than this in photoshop...Sorry! Anywho if you managed to read all that congrats! Thanks for looking