Troll_Man

Cynognathus

Another, another very old illustration for my Cynognathus Assemblage Zone project in permanent stasis. This is it, Cynognathus itself, a wolf-sized predator (about two metres in total length) of southern Pangaea during the Early Triassic. This would've been the main character, following a pair of adults attempting to rear offspring in a harsh environment.

This is one of the last large-sized predatory synapsids, before the age of reptiles dawned and ousted these guys fo...

Skuascraper (juvenile) (WIP)

The last skulossus juvenile (so far, at least). The most aberrant skulossus has what may be the most aberrant growth as well. Starts off more as a bungalow before growing into a high-rise.

Dwarf Skuggernaut (juvenile)

By far the smallest skulossus species, the dwarf skuggernaut is a native of the distant Trang Island, and by far its largest endemic denizen. Although the smallest species, and with the smallest young, weighing less than eight pounds at birth, it bucks the trend of largest skulossus species having longer growth times by having the longest growth time of all, a consequence of an environment where adults have little fear of predators and can easily live for decades past maturity. It can take up...

WWD: Acheroraptor temertyorum

This is a replacement of Dakotaraptor since new information (informally) has come to light suggesting the animal may not actually exist. It seems likely that it is in actuality a mixture of bones from various different animals rather than a true taxon (it was already established its supposed bones came from a multi-species jumble that likely constituted a riverbed location at the time). This is on top of the original descriptor being of dubious merits (although I won't get into detai...

Greater Skuggernaut (juvenile)

The growth pattern of the skuggernauts mirrors that of the original skogre, with a longer legged terrestrial juvenile stage which evolves into a more aquatic and heavily armoured adult stage, although even more exaggerated with a further ten millions of years of evolution. As adults in the polar basin, no predator is large enough to threaten them, but the aquatic hunters are plenty large enough to prey upon the small infants, juveniles, and younger adolescents of the species, being born at on...

Greater Skuggernaut (juvenile) (WIP)

Juveniles of skuggernauts exhibit the exact opposite growth pattern of the true skulossi, beginning as long-legged animals that become more squat and heavy as they mature (which is closer to the ancestral condition of the groups' common ancestor, the skogre).

It does not have a slit eye, it has a horizontal pupil which is able to rotate inside its socket to always remain level with the horizon, similar to many herbivorous mammals on Earth. It changes to a round pupil as an adult, since ...

Regal Skulossus (juvenile)

As a very close relative of the monarch skulossus, the juvenile regal skulossus bears a very strong resemblance to the juveniles of this related species, which shouldn't be unsurprising as they only diverged from a common ancestor about five million years. Their growth patterns are also similar, but differ primary on the rate of growth and length of growth time. This is evident through their size difference; the monarch skulossus can reach more than ten tonnes heavier than the regal skulossus...

Regal Skulossus (juvenile) (WIP)

Juveniles of the regal skulossus and the monarch skulossus are almost identical (which shouldn't be surprising because they only split off about 5 million years ago), so this shows an even younger life stage, before the body proportions start to elongate (early juvenile vs late juvenile).

End of Serina (real)

Rough concept art of the sophonts of Serina leaving to colonize deep space, an inevitable fate when the death of their world looms near. Escaping to the stars and worlds beyond in vast generation ships, each over a mile in length, holding tens of thousands of travellers, and the gene banks of numerous colonizing organisms to seed distant worlds for habitation, a journey that will take many, many decades, if not centuries.

The immense rings of the generation ships, each over six-hundred ...

La Carcargne (Concept Art)

Some unfinished illustrations for a redesign of the alien condor kaiju from The Giant Claw. I thought it would make a funny (and high-effort) April Fool's entry, but I can never quite get the design exactly right, getting that balance between different, nasty, and retaining some of the inherent goofiness of the original. Ah well, I'll get it eventually (probably).

I didn't get to thinking up an exact origin story for this version yet, but it probably isn't an alien with an "ant...

FOM: Deuterious/Deutalios (Concept Art)

This was the design of Deutalios that was used in the "Firebombing of Davao" illustration. The design is of course half-rat (probably a stowaway on a shipwreck) and half fish, probably something deep-sea, like a coelacanth, or maybe a ratfish (just for the pun). I didn't include an entry for it (yet...), partly because one-off entries were starting to bloat the story a bit and because the origins of this species shouldn't be revealed until the second saga.

Although many hybrid kaiju are...

FOM: Maguma (Concept Art 2)

A coloured conceptual art for Maguma. This one looks a little less grotesque, but the detail was a lot cruder, due to all of the kaiju being drawn to scale in the coloured sketches (well, some of them like the Mokele-Mbembe and Nessie were done later).

This might be the only design that actually used the older design of the initial sketches over the newer one, due to the fact it had greater detail and had a much more formidable, and recognizably hominid-like appearance compared this ver...

Monarch Skulossus (juvenile)

Adult monarch skulossus are one of the largest animals to ever walk Serina's surface, but they start out as pudgy chicks weighing only about thirty pounds at birth. Of course, emerging so small, a gigantic adult female can produce between twelve to twenty chicks per litter. Chicks are born heavily armoured, and immediately toddle off into thicker undergrowth where larger predators are less common. Their hides are duller and more cryptically coloured as they rely on camouflage as their primary...

Monarch Skulossus (juvenile) (WIP)

Sketch of a juvenile monarch skulossus (about the age of an elementary school student). The first part of a sponsored commission for the juvenile stages of every skulossus species seen so far (so five juveniles total).

For each species, the anatomical changes, growth patterns, and ecological niches of each species' life stage as a juvenile and change into adult will be discussed in the descriptions (also they'll be put together into a parade at the end, as the adults of each species wer...

FOM: Godzilla (Concept Art 2)

This was the initial design for Godzilla back when the idea of the redesigns was more visceral and Shin Godzilla-inspired. I didn't end up finishing the tail texturing, but you get the idea. Initially, the umbilical cord organ curled around the tail, but I was talked into making it more subdued in appearance, going around only only the underside. 

The other body horror aspects were also downplayed as the idea for the story developed and became an amalgamation of every Godz...

Serina: Ogre Calacarna

With the melting of Serina's icecaps has come the return of an environment which disappeared during this period of intense glaciation: the ocean depths, so far deep that sunlight does not penetrate the countless layers of ever-deepening blue. On Earth, this is the ecosystem which takes up the most space on the Earth's crust, but Serina's seas are much shallower than Earth's, and near the end of the ice age, so much of the globe's water was locked in glaciers, virtually all of the seabed was s...

Ogre Calacarna (WIP 4)

The snarkfall of a long-dead kraviathan, the largest creature in the sea. Even a beast as large as this may eventually succumb to age, illness, or the forces of nature. Its gnawed remnants the legacy of one of the most powerful predators to have ever lived on Serina. It utterly dwarfs the smaller ogre calacarnas, which circle around its carcass like vultures.

Note that most snarks do not have hard internal skeletons (larger terrestrial species obviously excepting). Calacarnas are intern...

FOM: Gorosaurus (Concept Art)

Coloured sketch of Gorosaurus, King of Mondo Island.

For nearly two-hundred million years, the Earth was ruled by reptiles. Not since the primordial nuclear age did life proliferate at such immense scale, for they were only surpassed in might by the grandest daikaiju of old. All of the lands of the ancient continents and the churning seas were dominated by the vast scaly behemoths, until an unexpected cataclysm wiped them out almost completely. However, on the Skull Continent, they cont...

Ogre Calacarna (WIP 3)

Ogre Calacarna (WIP 2)

The background is just a placeholder; the full illustration will be a scene with more animals.

Ogre Calacarna (WIP)

Sponsored commission for a species of large, deep-sea oceanic calacarna; this is the most common large predator of the floating forest region (although it is not strictly endemic and usually dwells far beneath the seaweed layers) and the apex predator of the abyssal depths.

(This will be part of a much bigger illustration, similar to the previous floating forest picture.)

Serina: The Skulossi

And now, after posting all of them individually, here's every 290 MYH skulossus species (so far) posted together in one image for scale (along with the brontocorn, since, as previously mentioned, it was originally meant to live at the same time). They're seen from profile here so it's not evident, but they are rather wide (compared to the comparatively more slender gantuans).

These animals are like one-third macronarian, one-third ankylosaur, and one-third iguanodont, although the ratio...

Serina: Weedy Calacarna & Sea Pony

The vast oceanic habitat of the floating forest is a veritable undersea jungle, harbouring hundreds of unique endemic species living in close proximity. Many relationships between different animals have developed over millions of years as the environment grew and evolved. Those of predator and prey, parasite and host, niche partitioning of competitors, and the symbiotic relationships which benefit both parties. 

The sea pony is a relatively small species of sea hor...

Serina: Skuascraper

One of the most aberrant skulossus species is the forest-dwelling skuascraper, only weighing about five tonnes, but able to crane its head over thirty feet high to browse into the canopies of trees. This animal spends the summer months gorging itself in the nightforest, when the midnight sun fuels rapid plant growth able to sustain the countless migrants from southern lands. A neck longer than the rest of the body allows the skuascraper to browse much higher, with its natural...

Sea Pony & Weedy Calacarna (WIP 4)

Sea Pony & Weedy Calacarna (WIP 3)

Sea Pony (WIP 2)

Sea Pony & Weedy Calacarna (WIP)

Preliminary sketch of a sponsored commission for a scene including a species of floating forest-dwelling sea horse and a species of small, facultatively symbiotic calacarna which often associates with the sea horse.

WWD: Death of a Dynasty (Redux)

And the sixth and final compilation is complete after a couple months of intermittent progress, showing every single animal that appeared in Walking with Dinosaurs (with the exception of insects) in as cohesive a manner as possible, including those which appeared in The Ballad of Big Al and the distant prologue of Walking with Beasts. I didn't include the butterfly, but butterflies are not known to have evolved until the Eocene, long after non-avian dinosaurs died o...

WWD: Triceratops prorsus (adolescent)

I completely redid the Triceratops to more accurately represent the individual in the episode, specified as being a "young" Triceratops (so about medium rhinoceros-sized instead of mega-elephant). Exactly how young is left ambiguous, but I thought this was a good opportunity to show the ontogenetic growth stages of Triceratops. The adult Triceratops will just be a Patreon exclusive until I figure out a use for it I suppose.

As previously mentioned, th...