El Chupacabra

Sideshow banner at the 2005 Erie County Fair (New York)

The first reported sighting of the chupacabra came from the town of Canóvanas, Puerto Rico in 1995.

The original depictions of the creature is akin to that of a typical "grey alien", but with claws and spines running down its back. According to Benjamin Radford, this version of the chupacabra is a result of the eyewitness confabulating Sil from the film Species with reality.

Other illustrations show the creature as being more dog-like, due to the attribution of chupacabra attacks to wild dogs or coyotes.

These types of attacks have been reported since the 19th century, but I don't think that there was ever an eyewitness account of what the creature perpetrating the attack looked like until 1995.

In any event, Rebel Minis makes some 15mm Cabras (RMPC1) that are perfect for use as 1/72 chupacabra.

These chupacabra scale out to about 3½' tall, and are very reminiscent of the canine-headed chupacabra depicted on the Erie County Fair banner at the top of this post. Another similarity to the banner is that the spines along the back are not quills as seen with most chupacabra depictions.

I modified some of them by removing their daggers, to make them appear more like the typical chupacabra. Most were painted green, with a couple in gray, and one in blue.

One explanation that both skeptics and believers seem to have missed is that chupacabra are actually kobold vampires. How else do you explain blood-sucking dog-headed humanoids that sometimes have bat-like wings?

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.