Anthony Scott Waters
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thehairycanary.bsky.social
Anthony Scott Waters
@thehairycanary.bsky.social
840 followers 140 following 290 posts
Concept Artist, Illustrator, Author, Art Instructor. Old school Magic the Gathering artist. No AI, no NFTs, thank you please.

www.patreon.com/fyreant
Wateryant@gmail.com
Prints and playmats: https://www.originalmagicart.store/
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thehairycanary.bsky.social
I'm gonna be at Geek Fest West this weekend in Everett, Wa this weekend! Come by and say hi!
July 17, 2025 at 6:39 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
I'm excited to announce my appearance at Geek Fest West this weekend in Everett, WA! Hope to see y'all there!
July 15, 2025 at 6:35 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
If you see this, post your painting/drawing of a dragon
My cover for the 300th issue of Dragon magazine. MAN that was a long time ago.
A golden dragon hisses at you from the interior of a nightmare. Its jade green eyes glow with malice. Behind it lies a landscape of corroded metal, scarred and stained by old fears and regrets. Hopefully you'll wake up before the beast can manifest the rest of itself.
April 16, 2025 at 6:27 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Still down in a hole. I'll rise out of it. Grief runs on its own timetable.

This and last Monday's art post were both sketches I drew after losing Ellie Mae, my last pupkid. I don't yet know if I'll be sketching to release the pressure for losing VI. #mentalhealthmonday
A thread of particulate darkness spirals up from the ground, through a child and into the rising spirit of a dog. It goes on, leading the dog spirit away from the worn-out body that held it down.
April 8, 2025 at 12:08 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Bless the staff at Village Vet for making this terrible day endurable.

Fly high, Violet Sherman Waters. Go play in fields full of bunnies and hamburger bushes.
The spirit of a beloved dog takes the form of a ghostly transparent white shape. Within this spirit is an abstract framework of pink bones. The dog spirit rises into a field of stars from within a flaming red tongue of flame.
April 1, 2025 at 12:18 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
I bring you a little darkness for #throbackthursday. I created this for an article in FX Magazine, back in the 2000s. I didn't realize at the time that I'd just unlocked a door with a whole lot of scary shit behind it. #arttherapy #mentalhealth #selfcare #digialart #horror #monsters
A tiny head screams helplessly at the giant faces inside the Grief Well. Some of these frightening totems are unable to speak or see; others have jaws lined with teeth that are perfect for crushing fragile souls. The howling head glows with a green light the color of Mountain Dew.
March 28, 2025 at 2:31 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
So if you're poaching while fishing does that mean you're scaling? Inquiring minds and all that. (Another piece from my stint at Carbine.) #conceptart #digitalart #scifi #spaceopera
A pair of fishermen are attempting a little poaching downstream from a dam, deep in a canyon of jagged dark rock. Snow-covered peaks rise in the distance. It's a day of high, featureless clouds. They will be caught soon and sent to scrub the viceroy's bathroom floor with their bare feet.
March 26, 2025 at 10:47 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
If you see this, quote with your Night/Dark art! #horror #monsters #art #digitalart
A winged demon soars through the sky, hunting for souls to reap. This is what you get for messing with the wrong mage. Pop goes the bubble and the next thing you know, your skin's dissolving off your bones. The tomb of a Sith lord, untouched for ten thousand years. A Queen of Lolth looms over a pair of her bodyguards. I painted this for an article in Dragon magazine (or Dungeon, I forget which) from many many years ago.
March 25, 2025 at 7:26 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
This was always my favorite of the concept pieces I did for Carbine. It came together fast (for me) and I was happy with the vibe. Man, I want us to visit a small onsen one of these days.
A team of demon creatures make their way through a jagged mountain pass, moving from sunlight into the blue-green cold of shadows cast by masses of fractured rock.
March 25, 2025 at 2:52 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Butts come marching through my front door and set up shop in my head. The next thing I know I’ve got butts all over the place, cheekily blocking my view, denying me perspective, trapping me between the cakes of self-doubt.

The lesson: don’t get caught beneath your butt. Send it packing.
Life is kinda butts these days, so I'm giving you this stomping butt monster. He stalks towards you on weird arm-legs. Do not accept his advances. Kick him in the face--butt--butt-face?--and send him flying into the Valley of the Eternal Stench.
March 25, 2025 at 4:29 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Doing pre-viz development for the Ravnica block was a pure joy. Nothing can match being the feeling of being set free on a blank map. #ravnica #M:tG #art #conceptart
It seemed to me that a world-spanning magic-fueled culture would find ways to infuse each region with its own character. These are the Swamps of Ravnica, otherwise known as the sump level of this gigantic city, a zone saturated with poisons both mundane and magical. Stylized heads vomit sewage. In the background is the lowest level of a structure that reaches all the way to the surface. Here’s the colorized version of the concept sketch. Milky light shines down from above, filtered through layer upon layer of temperature inversions, illuminating a hanging forest of structures stained by the muck of ten thousand years.
March 21, 2025 at 1:44 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Bluesky's open, quote art to promote yourself.
A band of fiendish soldiers accompany a magically shackled prisoner through a gap in the jagged rocks of a high mountain pass.
March 21, 2025 at 1:41 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
I was awake this morning at 5am and the demons, they were talking. And when they get talking, they lay down some demonically rude grooves, good God y’all. I can shush them once I get my day rolling, but during the witching hour, they are LOUD.

#mentalhealthmonday #arttherapy #mentalhealth
My Little Kid is falling towards the hungry ghost of past years. Ghosts can bite. This one is armed with shark’s teeth and a complete lack of pity. I’ll get to him in time. It doesn’t feel like I will in the moment, it’s true, but I know how to step in the monster’s way. And his teeth don’t work so well on me.
March 11, 2025 at 2:24 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Happy Thursday, folks! Here’s an automated soldier from M:tG’s distant past. I used Chris Rush’s original design as my starting point. You are missed, good sir Knight. #throwbackthursday #art #conceptart #automaton
Alt: An automaton warrior stands ready for action, bearing a standard in one hand. Its head has a crow’s beak shape to it, with pennants attached to the back of the head, trailing in the wind like twin war banners. Ammunition belts are draped over the back of the neck, feeding crossbows mounted behind the face plate. The body is stocky and crouched as if ready to spring. Alt: This sketch shows an alternate head design for the Yotian Soldier, one with an exposed crossbow mechanism in the middle of what would be the forehead. It would have been a heavier version than what the standard soldier would have been equipped with--something less than a ballista but heavier than your standard crossbow bolt, capable of punching through wood paneling or maybe through magical protections. The ammo belts run from the machine’s back and over the shoulders into the head. I extended the length of the soldier’s skull in order to accommodate this upgrade in firepower. A second sketch next to the first reveals the soldier’s teeth. I imagine it would be a lot like getting bitten by a set of industrial shears.
February 27, 2025 at 9:34 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
It hurts to be alive sometimes. I get it. I know how that feels.

There’s no rule in the manual for living which says you have to do everything by yourself, including things you couldn’t possibly know or manage on your own. We’re allowed to lean on each other when we need to. #mentalhealthmonday
A small boy hangs pinned by his head between two massive blocks of stone. His head is made of stone as well, and he’s cracking under the pressure. He’ll surely fall if he breaks.
February 25, 2025 at 2:33 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Hey all you Sweet Boos. Happy Thursday! I came across this thing I did for the Star Wars RPG, way back in the day. Only after the assn was complete did I think of drawing this thing scratching its ass on the leg of an Imperial Walker. Bummer. :/
Depicted here is a herbivore from some backwater Imperium planet. It's built like a cross between a funny car and a Mack truck, with sharpened hooves at front for fighting and digging, and powerful hind legs for pushing things around, like boulders, trees and wild lorries. Its belly is smooth tough hide the color of pale jade. Its hips, shoulders and back are protected by asymmetrical scutes and plates of green, violet and mauve. The bulbous shapes of its armor makes it harder for a carnivore to get in a good bite. This armor does not always work as advertised. Prized for their hauling ability and slow intelligence. Universally disliked by their handlers for their tendency to hold a grudge. One such rider is perched high on the beast's back, trying to look calm for the camera. The beast has noticed the photographer. This will probably not end well
February 20, 2025 at 5:45 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
In honor of my 666th watcher I give you a sneak peek of my work on the Mind Flayers for D&D. I was tasked with inventing what a Mind Flayer "city" might look like and boy howdy, did I have fun with that. Behold the Chamber of Orcus and the Pool of the Elders:
Within a vast chamber far underground there is a statue dedicated to Orcus, patron of the Mind Flayers. In his lap is a pool filled with the preserved brains of the honored dead, carefully sealed in holy canisters, where they dream troubled dreams about being eternally trapped inside a ceramic jar while their relatives steal all their stuff.
February 20, 2025 at 5:26 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Art therapy piece from 2017. When I drew this I was in a very, very dark place.

Don’t listen to the inside voices, don’t listen to the voices coming at you from the outside. They’re wrong. Nothing but white noise. Remember you have allies. I’m one of them. Don’t jump. #mentalhealthmonday
A small boy stands on the edge of a precipice while voices come at him from everywhere, telling him to throw himself onto the jagged rocks below. It's easy for me to listen to those internal routines as they play on and on, assuring me that I'm without any value and yeah, go ahead and jump. Nobody's going to care one way or the other. I have to keep that little kid from taking the leap. No one else can protect him like I can. That's my task: to shut down those chants calling for him to throw himself away.
February 17, 2025 at 9:19 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Hello all you good peeps! I’m popping into your social media floorspace with a couple of concepts I created for Mirrodin, way back in…whenever that was. A long time ago. I hope you’re all doing well. Love to you, hugs, snugs, and bugs. Flugs. #throwbackthursday
Four head studies for a flying creature made of metal and flesh, blended together by magic. A cat creature clings for dear life to the neck of a flying dinosaur-like beast, doing her best to guide its flight using reins specially made for a monster with a savage metallic beak.
February 14, 2025 at 4:23 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Be good to yourself. It can get stormy out there.
#mentalhealthmonday
A small figure hides from the rain in the shelter of a spindly tree. It's not much but it's enough to keep him from getting soaked.
December 17, 2024 at 3:57 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Taking that quiz brought up a lot of old questions and thoughts I've had about what/what I am. Has it hit anyone else in the same way?
A child is embedded in the rock. Frozen in time and preserved at the moment of impact, he's a living artifact in the strata of my head that I can't do without, yet he's hard to look at dead-on.
November 10, 2024 at 11:07 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Hmm. Yeah....yeah, this fits.

If you're interested in taking this quiz, you'll find it here: uquiz.com/quiz/p0u5c3?...
November 10, 2024 at 10:02 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Where did all you new folks come from?? Holy cow. Lovely to receive this gift after being away from BSky for a couple weeks. Welcome. I'm glad to see you here.
A shadowy figure stands with his hands in his pockets, looking into a crater in the ground. It looks like a calcified, ulcerated wound. He left it behind some years ago, or thought he had. Atmospheric changes can make scars sensitive again.
November 10, 2024 at 8:16 PM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
In celebration of all my new followers (and the publication of my Karn art from Vanguard in the form of a lovely foil), here's the ORIGINAL version of the painting, before R&D had me clip Squee from the image. Happy Tuesday evening, all you lovelies!
Karn, a giant metal golem, stands in a slot canyon, looking up in surprise (and maybe with a little annoyance) at his friend Squee, the Weatherlight's annoying goblin mascot of the Weatherlight. Squee is hanging upside-down, reaching for his metallic buddy.
October 23, 2024 at 1:31 AM
thehairycanary.bsky.social
Time for another Throwback Thursday: a couple monsters from Mercadian Masques, from a quarter-century ago. Yeesh. 0_0
The Tileback is an arboreal predator found in the Rootwall Forest. About the size of a large dog, It's got zygodactyl feet, meaning it's literally all thumbs. This is a significant advantage when most of your food supply lives in the Rootwall's canopy. The Tileback's spine covered with hardened green scute-like growths that protect it from the beaks of angry birds and other bitey creatures. This Tileback is seen balancing on two branches high above the forest floor. Hey, it's the Two-Tongue! He's a big, lumbering grumpypants with great boney, choppy toenails and a giant mouth with which to chomp on those hapless animals it finds toothsome. It has a pair of barbed, worm-like tongues that it uses to manipulate food. It takes rather large bites out of its prey, you see, so it needs help maneuvering big chunks in order to chomp them into smaller bits. Two-Tongues are the kings of the Rootwall Forest, hunted by none and preying on anything dumb enough to stumble their way. Here a chestnut-colored Two-Tongue projects its brutal halitosis at a future meal, off-screen to the right, spraying spittle everywhere as it prepares to lunge.
October 18, 2024 at 3:04 AM