Legendary and mythical creatures are best seen with the inner eye of imagination. When we bring color to mythological creatures, we invite others to behold the fantastical. We have the opportunity to conjure up an encounter as visceral as it is visible. Hence, we should strive to be inventive, inspirational, and provocative. A unicorn, for example, would not optimally be pure white. Pristine as the creature may be, pure white doesn’t tell a story, and story is the driving force of myth. Even the subtlest of shades are required to establish poetic dimensionality. Peter Beagle, author of the The Last Unicorn (1968), took great care to distinguish between two shades of white on a unicorn’s coat. He described a very old unicorn as being “no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night.” The following two colours illustrate his description:
Unicorns Have Also Been Described As:
by Sebastiá Giralt.
Some Unicorn Palette Inspiration:
Unicorn Fun Fact
The Royal Crest, seen on British passports, features a lion and a unicorn, two animals not exactly seen often in the United Kingdom. Why?
The lion on the royal crest symbolizes england, and the unicorn scotland.
The lion makes reference to the “three passant guardians”, that are used in the English coat of arms since Richard the lionheart.
The unicorn is used in the Scottish coat of arms.
The lion is crowned, and the unicorn is chained (unicorns were originally considered to be dangerous beasts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_coat_of_arms_of_the_United_Kingdom
Header Image by Philocrites.
About the Guest Author, Craig Conley
Website: http://www.OneLetterWords.com
Craig is an independent scholar and author of dozens of strange and unusual books, including a unicorn field guide and a dictionary of magic words. He also loves color: Prof. Oddfellow
