[Corporal Nobbs]

I made 3 sets of bases for my bookends.
Going to do Fiddler shooting the Dhenrabi, the Dragnipur wagon and one other, maybe Spite and Envy.
This is the start for the Dhenrabi.
 dhenrabi 1.jpg (143.57K)
Number of downloads: 5  dhenrabi2.jpg (124.72K)
Number of downloads: 2

[Sinisdar Toste]

very nice, but iirc, dhenrabi are described more like giant caterpillars than serpents, what with the segments of armour and the thousand thousand legs.

[Corporal Nobbs]

Ah, forgot about all that stuff. Legs and armour.
It was all segmented but just smoothed it out.
Should have read the wiki first.

[Dutch]

It's still a nice sea serpent

[rhulad]

And who's to say fid never killed a sea serpent?

[Studious Lock]

yeah, thats looking good, but just as a personal preference i always imagined them to be thicker, in fact im not ashamed to say in my mind they look a little like garidous (spelling?)

[Corporal Nobbs]

Typed that into google, got a pokemon called gyarados.
Pretty much how I imagined them too.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

I want your bookends!

[Corporal Nobbs]

I've done a little more. Mainly on the body, haven't decided what to do with his head yet.
 dhenrabi3.jpg (1.07MB)
Number of downloads: 3

[cerveza_fiesta]

make the head look less like the the sandworm from beetlejuice.



I imagined denrhabi as having heads more like a moth caterpillar...like this:



If you think about a sea creature like that, ask questions like what does he eat and how does he interact with his environment? He probably can't snap at and eat things whole like a snake on land would, he'd sink to the bottom of the sea while trying to swallow stuff and die from the pressure. Evolution would likely drive him toward a much more blunted face with large powerful crushing teeth (or mandibles) like a caterpillar for chewing up and crushing what he catches. Alternatively, he could have a round mouth with rows of fine teeth barbed inwards like some eels and fish have to shred prey as the contractions of the esophagus drive victims into its gullet. If you think about sharks, they cut prey to pieces before swallowing, but their jaws' front-to-back aspect ratio is much less than that of your denrabhi. Shredding stuff in one bite takes a lot of muscle power, so shark jaws are wide but don't protrude much beyond the hinge point. With jaws cantilevered way out like a classic fantasy sea-monster, it would look funny without heavier musculature around the jaw hinges.

He should also have a distinguishing feature to mark his primary hunting senses. If he's a motion-based predator, some vibration-sensitive appendages, like fine spikes or delicate fins along his back might be appropriate. If he uses echolocation like a dolphin, he'd have a bulbous feature on his head like dolphins have. If he uses sight, his eyes should be HUGE so he can see in the depths...and huge fish eyes always look scarier.

[Corporal Nobbs]

Thanks for that.
I'd got some caterpillar reference but nothing for the head. I think that one would work out pretty good.

[cerveza_fiesta]

The segmented body is already there, it definitely looks more insectlike than serpentlike from your most recent pic.

I think I realize what bugged me about the current state. It's a mix of 2 fundamentally different parts of the animal kingdom.

Invertebrates with exoskeletons (like your current segmented body and many legs suggest) don't have a horizontally hinging jaw and mouth like vertebrates (snakes) do. They have suckers, vertically hinged mandibles and multi-element mouths where there might be some large grabbing appendages out front and crushing elements within the head. I also think the huge eye thing would look way scarier and more deep-sea-alien-looking. Antennae also look awesome, and are a common feature on insect-like things.

Think about the business end of a lobster. Multi-element feeding apparatus, weird-shaped pointy chitonous face, eyes on short eyestalks, large antennae

If you're going underwater insect-like appearance, remember everything is segmented on some level. It's how exoskeleton animals work. Every joint in the leg or arm is a solid cylinder of shell, joined to the next by a membrane. Look at the lobster claws in the 2nd pic, and the centipede's legs. On something like a centipede the distinction between shell and membrane isn't always stark but it's very visible on a lobster. Segments always seem to narrow toward the membrane joints too.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 02 February 2012 - 02:46 PM

[Blackthorn]

Well great sculpt on this one too