I missed some and I will have to look them up!

Love this. I have one not quite so scary but he is covered in moss.

I like the composition of greenery shapes captured in the background. Rounded, then horizontal lines. The interplay of dark and light is nice, too.

Thanks, NJCher!

More to come.

And the guardian does look fierce.

This elegant, ferocious beast guarding the lush greenery behind. Wonderful juxtaposition!

The whole photo has a 3-D feeling.

Thank you!

A uniformly dark background gives good separation and the lighting is classic portrait light. This would be split light with half of the face illuminated and the other in shadow. Had the light moved more to the front by about 40 degrees the left side (as we face it) would pick up a highlight on the "cheek" and be called Rembrandt light. If it were directly behind you it would have been full or sometimes called butterfly light. Butterfly because the highlights on both cheeks looks like a butterfly. On people anyway, Gargoyles not so much

Each has it's use; split for wide round faces, Rembrandt for most and butterfly for narrow faces.

'Course it's not easy to move either light source or subject in this case but you used what was there very effectively!