When I saw the contest thread I saw that the developers of Starbound requested a monster. Now most people tend to think of 'monster' as something akin to Grendel from the old tale Beowolf, a creature so grotesque and horrid that it can't be described. I think the contrary. The scariest monsters are in fact the ones that look as if they could really exist. Ones that have an alien appearance to them, something the human eye immediately identifies as not natural. At the same time an elegance is needed, as any organism that has evolved over many millennia would need to be very good at what it does to exist. Another aspect is the fact that Apex Predators are the most respected and feared creatures in any ecosystem. What is cooler, the rabbit or the lynx that hunts the rabbit? Many would say the lynx is the cooler animal. So, I let my imagine make my hand draw. I grabbed a dull pencil and some old graph paper, sat down in the kitchen and drew up the Beluga Dog. I imagined a creature that would be scary yet very pleasing to look at, one that would amaze someone as a Jaguar does when it kills an antelope. I wanted something that instills fear not from speed or sharp appendages, but from toughness. Because to be spread across multiple planets a creature has to be tough. I drew inspiration from the Beluga Whale for the fact that is has a hydrodynamic and alien shape to it's body. For adaptability I added characteristics of the Canidae and Ursidae (dog and bear) families of animals, both fearsome and adaptive land predators in their own rights. The capabilities of the B-Dog are based on the fact that it is native to an Arctic Ice type of environment, and like the Polar Bear must be capable of killing on land and in water comfortably and easily. Capabilities of the Beluga Dog: -The B-Dog has no teeth or claws. It's mouth is like that of a whale or deer, it bluntly crushes food with extremely powerful jaws. To kill prey it swipes or 'slaps' with it's massive flat two-toed paws. The sheer blunt trauma caused by a swipe of these paws crushes and tears through bone and sinew alike. When it eats it simply crushes meat and bone and swallows it whole, digesting it over a few weeks time. -The B-Dog has a thick hide with large amounts of blubber. This makes the B-Dog capable of living in Arctic conditions comfortably. The blubber provides buoyancy and energy reserves to keep the B-Dog moving even in times of bad hunting. Small-arms are unable to damage the B-Dog much if at all. -The B-Dog is blind. It has no eyes, but inside the dome at the front of it's skull contains a sensitive batch of organs that give the B-Dog immense hearing. It hunts by echo-location and is quite sensitive to Electro-Magnetic fields generated by living organisms to help it hunt in water and on land. This works against Astronauts, as their high-tech equipment creates EM-fields much more powerful than most organisms and this can easily attract a B-Dog that is hungry! -The hydro-dynamically shaped body of the B-Dog allows it to swim with ease through frozen waters to great depths. It's skull can bash through ice to surface and cycle atmosphere into it's lungs. It has a thick and short tail that propels it at more than adequate speeds in water, but it's easily just as comfortable on land. -The size of the B-Dog is up for debate to the developers of Starbound, though in my mind I imagined a creature about the size of a Grizzly or Polar bear. Big enough to knock an unprotected man down in one slap. And now for pictures. Mind you I am not normally an artist, my 10yr old little cousin is much better at drawing than me, plus I only did these with an old dull pencil I had laying around. Yes I will accept criticism: Original sketch and first pattern variation: Second sketch and the Orca/Leopard pattern variation: Third sketch and the Bi-Tone pattern variation:
