August MOTM: mother-of-pearl shark monster - concept sketch + design commentary // nsfw

thanks again to sasha for suggesting a shark monster!

this guy was simultaneously easy and challenging to design. from the start i knew i wanted to give him legs rather than a merman-esque type of anatomy, because i had this mental image of a very beefy underwater lad and i felt like muscular thighs would suit that idea better than a shark's tail (how do you even make a fish tail look beefy?). him being so muscular also goes well with the fact that sharks are very efficient hunters that are feared by a lot of people--his build makes him look formidably intimidating and like he could easily cause a lot of damage. he's supposed to give the impression of someone no sane person would willingly fight, since it'd likely just end with him tearing his foe apart (...and possibly eating the leftovers). 

the appearance of his face serves the same purpose, but was more of a challenge to design. i've long loved the idea of sharky monsters, but i always found it tricky to design the heads and faces of bipedal characters inspired by fish and other ocean-living creatures that ... have no neck. y'know what i mean? the mental image of a were-creature with a neck that doesn't bend and a shark head where the nose just points straight up is hilarious but not exactly sexy. however i definitely wanted his face to have a distinctly sharky look, rather than being too humanoid, and i needed his neck to bend like that of any other were-creature, allowing him to face forward when standing upright. 

i decided to go for a very thick-necked silhouette and my first concept doodles show a quite square head-shape with rounded corners. but even with the big toothy mouth it didn't seem sharklike enough. turns out the simple solution was to give him a pointy shark nose but humanoid mandibles worthy of a snowplow. the combination of a thick, relatively long neck merging into beefy shoulders and the pointiness of the upper half of his face gives him a shark-like silhouette, but the jawline and more human-like placement of his mouth makes him more appealing.

of course i gave him a big ol' mouth full of classic shark teeth and the idea is that he can't fully close it, so his facial expression is locked in a sharp-fanged grin or grimace. this combines with the immovable ridges above his eyes to give him a scary expression that doesn't always reflect his mood and intentions, and that furthers the idea that he's dangerous and blood-thirsty. his many scars, in the same vein, gives the impression of a battle-hardened killing machine who has come out on top of a lot of fights, with both prey and foes. 

naturally, he's got the dorsal fin and tail of a shark, and the texture of his body reflects the smooth and shimmering appearance of both shark-skin and mother-of pearl. despite all his beef i wanted him to look streamlined, so i tried going for smooth lines and an almost 'slippery' appearance. the mother-of-pearl theme also made his colour palette a given--it mimics the pale, pearlescent hues of said material.

there's a few shark features i made sure to incorporate after doing some research about sharks, such as the ampullae of lorenzini (aka the 'shark freckles') and the lateral line (though you can only really see it on his tail). his skin is covered with dentacles (so it feels rougher than it looks), he's got gills, and though we can only see one row of teeth, we can safely assume that there's more.

his fingers (and toes) end in sharp points and the idea is that the skin of his fingertips have hardened into something claw-like, because i think that avoiding actual claws (not to mention pawpads) makes him look more ... underwater-y. on the concept sketches above he's got a few mini-fins here and there, but i decided to ditch them for the final drawing. on the other hand i very much ran with the idea that his pelvic fins sort of protect his groin until he's aroused, at which point they part to reveal a couple of dicks.

as for his personality, at first i was tempted to make him behave exactly like you'd expect from looking at him: like 'a mean asshole who everyone's afraid of because when he's hungry he'll kill and eat people without discrimination--and he's always hungry.' but then i decided it'd be more interesting to go with something less stereotypical and to make his personality partially contradict his appearance. yes, he's lived a life of fighting and yes, he's carnivorous--but he's also honourable, loyal, and not a barbarian, so he never eats other supernatural creatures or humans (...unless they really, really deserve it). when meeting new people he's often misunderstood because of his threatening appearance, but all his friends know that he's really a sweetheart who's very protective, caring, and helpful. he is skilled in the field of violence but doesn't fight without a good reason, and most of his scars are from protecting the people he care about from things far worse than himself.

last but not least, kubi suggested that he's got a throng of pilot fish merpeople fans following him around, trying to get his attention and flirt with him, and isn't that just the most adorable/hilarious idea... 

// art + character © me.