Shrykies! New Zen Series

If you thought the stock Star Shryke stamp was cool, oh boy, you’re gonna love our latest Zen Series design featuring the cute, but bloodthirsty bird in a two-color design.

Our Zen-Series-In-Chief artist Marm O. Set came up with the remarkable life-size design of two shrike birds locked in a yin-yang like pose. It’s his fourth Zen Series effort.

More about the Shryke disc:

Released in 2016, the Shryke gained popularity quickly because of its ease of use. A mild high-speed turn puts the Shryke in glide mode, which along with its high aerodynamic speed, give it incredible distance.

Plastics available in the Zen Shryke are:

GStar, Star, Luster Champion, Champion, and Shimmer Star. 

More about the design

If you look up the shrike bird on YouTube, what you’ll find is a rather cute looking creature not too dissimilar from a sparrow or a robin, but catch it during dinner time and you’ll see the bird’s fierce nature revealed. Known as the “Butcherbird” the shrike often impales its prey with whatever is handy often thorns or barbed wire. Insects commonly fall victim to the shrike, but bigger things like mice and lizards can also receive a fatal blow.

Shrike: the unassuming assailant

Marm O. Set wanted to illustrate that idea of the shrike bird being an unexpected killer. It looks like most other birds when you look at the head, but when your eyes reach the feet you can tell it isn’t one to be trifled with.

“I added a little ferocity to the eyes but left their intent relatively veiled; there’s no telling what he’s thinking until those claws come out!” said Marm O. Set. “I didn’t even know about this little avian assassin until I did my prep research for this stamp. I don’t know that a cooler bird exists!”

Marm O. Set complemented the birds’ in-flight pose with their hunting tools of choice. In a tattoo like style, one shrike is wrapped in barbed wire while the other is tangled in thorns. An earlier draft included chains, but he thought those gave it a too confining feel. “The birds really need to fly rather than be chained down,” said Marm O. Set.

Unlike many stamps of animals, this stamp will actually be life-sized said Marm O. Set, which motivated him to really add as much detail as he could.