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For this creature I wanted to evoke strange design of the ant lion. I reversed its orientation, so that it attacks from above. It protects its softer abdomen by hiding it in branches, while its lower body can spring and swivel to attack creatures on the ground. I tried to show its juxtaposition of weak and strong by making the abdomen soft-looking and slightly trasparent, while the business end looks hard and exoskeletal. To make the creature a little creepier, I removed recognizable eyes, and gave it empty sockets, as though it detects fields or vibrations like an antlion or pit viper does.
I wanted to combine some of the scary elements of a few sea animals; the shape of the shark, the translucency of jellyfish, or any deep-sea creature, and some of the general oddness available in the strange evolutionary adaptations of the oceans.
I wanted to combine snakelike qualities with the alienness of insects. The head is based on the amazing sort of naturally complex joints found in crab claws.
I took a more cartoonish approach to this challenge. I wanted to catch the feel of hyperactivity, so I amped up the colors, gave him stripes, extra limbs, a goofy grin, and hyperthyroidic eyes. I wanted him to seem as though he was just slightly trembling, always.... the sort of thing that might spring out of your sock drawer with the remains of your deodorant oozing out of his mouth, and make you regret bringing him home.
The challenge was to design something that lived on a comet. I imagined these beasts as something that might float around like plankton in the galaxy, and open like a spore when caught in the gassy trail of a comet. It would then swim upstream and fasten onto the mass of rock and ice, and bore into it, feeding on the frozen ammonia and building its crystalline carapace. Waste is emitted as a column of reddish light, streaking the tail of the comet.
