["Uni-corn": pen and marker drawing of a horse with a corn cob horn and a leafy stalk mane]

Here are two joke maps.

The first is from a D&D game my husband ran several years ago: As play progressed, he slowly unveiled what awaited us in the Tower of Horrors, yet at the end of the first play session we still had a large chunk of the map left unexplored. I decided to preemptively fill in the blank areas with things such as a secret door leading to the Bifröst, a tarp ("It's a tarp!"), an in-game reference to Sam & Max's "Just You And Me (And Ted E. Bear)", a day spa complete with a rubber duck filled bubble bath and a half-giant sized massage table, and a room full of magical kittens. We ultimately got none of those things.

I don't know why I drew this second map, or what it was in reference to, but it also has secret kittens. Other highlights include an area with a save point and no enemies, an area one does not go, certain doom, lots of big treasure, and one place with "Ehh, okay treasure, I guess..."

A series of images from his 31st birthday, in which I pulled out all the stops. I set up an elaborate treasure hunt, I decorated with the finest accessories the Dollar Store had to offer, and I had a grand surprise waiting for him at the end of the trail.

(click images to view full size)

top row, left to right
1. Two notes hang under the "Happy Place" sign on our front door:
A birthday hunt awaits you here. 6 gifts are hidden somewhere near. Follow clues around the house until you find your loving spouse.

Clue #1: Though small I'll catch your cares with ease. Start out where you rest your keys.

2. The first prize is a small ceramic trinket dish resting on his bedside table. It is inscribed, "pray more. worry less."
Clue #2: No need for Travelocity where I roam, I'm in the guest room of your home.

3. The next gift is a gnome plush with a big hat and super long legs, lounging on top of the guest bed.
Clue #3: You'll never miss us in the dark. We're prowling where you keep your Quark. (the cheese, not the ferengi)

4. Gift three is a bundle of various glow in the dark dinosaur toys including one Grow and Glow figurine, and a two-pack of dinosaur bone model kits. I wrapped them in tissue paper and hid them in the fridge.
Clue #4: DASH now to the TV screen. There I'll greet you "bween, bween, bweeeeen!"

bottom row, left to right
1. On top of the TV is perched treasure four, an imported figurine of Tron Bonne using a servbot as a chair.
Clue #5: In the top drawer by your computer, waits a litter than couldn't be cuter.

2. The next prize, found in his computer desk drawer, is a package of holographic kitten stickers.
Clue #6: In the office a treasure find. Learn to see what once was blind.

{insert minor explanatory detour}
The whole time he had been on an adventure quest around the house, I had been silently hiding in my office with The Big Gift.

As many of you know, my husband is colorblind. He considers it his only party trick, but I know there are times he wishes he could see the intricacies and vibrancy in color that everyone else around him experiences. So I bought him a set of EnChroma glasses, which aid in filtering color perception for people with colorblindness, often allowing them to experience certain hues for the first time. I was expecting them to blow his mind.

Unfortunately, the glasses did not end up doing as much as I'd hoped. While certain things, like his plaid shirts, registered as noticeably different, it was more of a "Huh, that's kind of cool. This shirt looks less dull than usual" and not a tearful "Green! I can see green! Look at this shirt! Have you ever seen a more wonderful shirt in all creation?!" Most things looked more or less the same. Sadly, we ultimately ended up returning the glasses at the end of the trial period because we just couldn't justify the price tag for the little they did for his specific condition.
{end detour}

3.+4. Long view and closeup of the party decorations. I splurged on every bright and colorful thing I could find, hoping to give him plenty of fodder for his new glasses to soak in: multi-colored paper stars, paper streamers, a hot pink princess tablecloth, rainbow candles, two different Happy Birthday banners, a hoard of balloons, and a generous smattering of dice. Even though the glasses didn't work out, we had fun pelting each other with balloons for the next few weeks.

Drawlloween 2015
Day 9: Eyeball
"Eyebat"

Sure, sure, a beholder would have been a more appropriate D&D-inspired enemy for this challenge, but I like the weird and weepy abomination that is the eyewing (the original inspiration for almost every TV and video game eyebat enemy that exists today).

From the AD&D 2nd Ed. "Monstrous Manual":
"Eyewings are loathsome inhabitants of the Abyss. They are obedient, loyal, and dumb - perfect servitors for the dark gods and their more powerful minions.

An eyewing's body is a fat, egg-shaped ball covered with matted black fur. The 5-foot-wide body is supported by a pair of five-foot-long leathery bat wings. Each wing is tipped with a set of three razor-sharp talons. An 8-foot-long rat's tail dangles from the back of the body. The tail ends in a small, sharp spur. It has no feet, and has never been known to land.

The body is dominated by the single, bulging, 4-foot-wide eyeball. The eyeball is black with a blood-red pupil. A vile blue fluid continuously leaks from the eye, soiling its fur. Great leathery eyelids squeeze this fluid out and away from the creature. The stench is unbelievable..."

Other fun facts:
1. Their special attack is crying on people.
2. They have no mouth or lungs, and are sustained only by magic and evil thoughts.
3. They have been known to live on the moon.

[inked pencil drawing of an eyewing with a red pupil]

Drawlloween 2015
Day 6: Pumpkin
"Jackie O' "

I was playing around with the idea of doing a female anthropomorphic "jackie-o'-lantern," and my mind immediately jumped to Jacqueline "Jackie O" Kennedy Onassis and her legacy as a fashion icon.

I attempted a faithful version with the gloves and pillbox hat.

It was scrapped for looking too much like a flight attendant.

Thus I ultimately created a modern fantasy dress design instead of copying her signature style, but I at least kept the hair Jacqueline-reminiscent.

[digitally-colored inked pencil drawing of a female anthropomorphic jack-o'-lantern with a carved face, green 60's-inspired hair, and a poofy-skirted pumpkin dress that uses the stem as a sculpted bodice and vines as sleeve details.]

Drawlloween 2015
Day 3: Goblin
"Snob-lin"

Nathaniel helped me come up with the idea for this one. Goblins are usually portrayed as dumb and/or reckless dime-a-dozen monsters, so we wanted to show a posh and pretentious variant - a goblin who drinks tea with his pinky out, wears a monocle, and looks down his elongated nose at you.

[line drawing of a snobby goblin drinking tea and thinking "Uncultured swine..."]

Drawlloween 2015
Day 1: Ghost
"Ghost in the Shell"

All I knew was I really wanted to use that "Ghost in the Shell" pun, so I drew a fairly decent-looking seashell, then realized I had absolutely no idea what to do for the ghost part; hence the spiky tendril mess with the dumb face.

[inked pencil drawing of a conch with a dumb-faced spiky ghost coming out of it]