Maegsul - Orc Gryphon

My second entry to the #GryphonArtistsUnited contest, details are here: [link]

The aim was...
"choose a universe from your favourite novel/game/movie or whatever and then design the gryphons as if they exist in that universe."

As my screen name suggests, I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan! So of course I had to design a LotR gryph for the contest. I did an elven one first and then this one, a servant of Sauron.

I imagined these gryphons as a back up force for the winged nazgul that fly from Cirith Ungol. They are stationed in the peaks of the black mountains, to the east of Gondor and forming the western border of Mordor.

The orcs here are from mordor, and are described as being small and gangly compared to those from the misty mountains or the uruk hai from Isengard. As the race of orcs originated from elves, tortured and mutilated by sauron, I figured it made sense that a orc gryph would exist if a elven one did.

I've called these beasties 'Maegsul', which means 'Piercing Wind' in Quenya, one of the old forms of elvish in LotR. (You can't do something based on LotR and not have something languagey in it, thats the whole reason the series exists!)

The elven gryp is here: [link]