Phoenix - I agree, that's awesome!! The Petrichor, Duskwald and towns like Foundermeer were all heavily influenced by the zone Gilneas in World of Warcraft (
here's a short preview video of it) which is very similar in atmosphere to the town in that piece.
Blackie - Untouchables are listed as a very rare caste for a reason, but if you stick around and are active in Limn I'm sure you'll have a good chance of getting your hands on one eventually. Also, gryphons only range in price from 5k-8k in normal sales so hopefully gold shouldn't be too much of a problem! The only thing I've gotten gold from since joining Gaia is posting on the forums, and I make at least 50k a month just hanging out in Limn.
I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience with that artist, it's possible she may have just become paranoid after repeated instances of art theft, which I've seen happen before. As far as using Limn art goes, our first rule is "do not steal our art or otherwise use, edit, or modify it in any way." I'm a lot less picky about this when the art is being used within Limn--for instance if you draw a fruit hat on your gryphon to be silly, sketch on top of it to show a colorist the custom items you want added, mess around with some gryphs to portray an RP event or pairing, or even animate them like you're suggesting I really don't mind, as long as this is happening within the context of Limn and you aren't using the images you've altered to replace the standard appearance of your gryphon (ex, giving it giant bat wings and horns and uploading it on the wiki to represent your character).
Using my lines credited for school work is fine too, assuming the work is only being used for practice and not being entered into any kind of competition or displayed publicly on a school website or something. I would never, ever allow my lines to be altered in any shape or form and sold for currency (whether digital currency like Gaia gold or rl money), even if I'm being fully credited. However, if you're drawing Limn fan art you are free to sell it, it is after all your own work!
Sorry about that wall of text, but artwork usage can be a really dodgy territory.