Tengu

I absolutely adore mythology of any kind and being the wapanese chikita that I am, I have a special place in my heart for the bizarre monsters of Japan.
This is a Tengu. Tengu are sort of anthropomorphic bird people that live in the mountains and do spiffy things. The word tengu comes from the chinese language and originally means "Heavenly dog" the interpretation of the original Chinese has obviously been skewed. Tengu in Japanese mythology origionally appeared as Kite like creatures (Kite as in the bird or prey) but then transitioned into more Crow-people sorts of things.
Before Shintoism and Buddhism made nice with each other, Tengu were seen as evil creatures, but now they are seen in a more altruistic light.
Legend has it that a tengu trained the warrior Yoshitsune in the art of swordsmanship. (I typed most of this from memory, so if I'm wrong...whoops!)

I didn't really reference the armor, I was like "WOO feudal Japanese armor like yay!". So despite his basic design being that of a Yamabushi Tengu, he isn't dressed like a Yamabushi monk (Tengu became religious? Crazy!)


I have no name for this fellow but I think I'm calling that puff-ball crow "Reno" (pronounced Reh-noh), which would be the Japanese pronunciation of Lenore. (Haha! see cause it's a raven). I love that you can pretty much pronounce english words with japanese phonetics in japan and people will catch the gist of what you're trying to say.

so yeah, enjoy!