I finally finished my design for my Creatures Anatomy class. This is a value study for the creature I will be using in an illustration later. The premise of the story behind the illustration goes like this:
"A group from a village deep in the heart of Siberia has decided to investigate a small town in which no one
has heard from in over a week. As they get closer to the isolated town, they see several trees have been
leveled. These trees, as well as several others still standing, have several deep “scraps” on its surface.
Nearby, they discover large footprints with massive claws that are arranged in the fashion in which a
quadruped walks. As they follow the footprints through the village, they discover the bodies of the
townspeople have been aligned under underneath the surface of the snow. They are covered in a film that
looks to preserve the bodies. While cutting back the film from the victims, a small portion of the substance
touches one of the villagers face and a tingling sensation instantly occurs. At closer investigation, they see
that there are severe bruises all over the victims and puncture holes on the left and right side of the temples.
These punctures seem to be the only cause of lost blood. They villagers follow the footprints from the village
to the edge of the forest where the come across a large construction made from the trees found the area.
The construction has a wide opening that goes into the ground. The villager’s face that came in contact with
the film is now completely paralyzed."
My design for the creature incorporates parts from various animals. The body references a walrus, the hands are like moles for digging, the frills around the neck are like the dilophosaurus's, it's tongue can extend and retract like a chameleon's and the tongue spits out poison. The animal is toothless but its jaws detach like a snakes so it can swallow a prey while it lies in waiting like a wolf spider in a burrow or an ant lion. When it swallow's it's prey, the prey is stored in a pouch like sac in its throat like rodents where the creature then secretes a film around the prey. Back at the burrow, the prey is left to age in a marinade of digestive juices filling a transparent membrane sac. The creature returns periodically to drink the fluid from the sac for nourishment since it is hard to come by prey in the siberian region.
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From top left clockwise: Study of head (notice the frill used for sensing the size of tunnels the creature moves around in and the tongue that spits paralyzing venom), Membrane Sac with a hapless prey still inside, Three quarter view of the monster in its entire glory, the pouch for storing prey (one is a transparency so you can see how the prey creates a bump in the skin so you can tell whether the creature has been eating or not). |