Greater Thornrunner

_{Ric, jag fattar inte hur du kunnat ha sådant tålamod med mig - det är helt galet O_o </b>}
This is the ancient project with which started back in May '07. It has been a long journey, longer than I could have ever imagined 17 bloody months!

<sub>To make a long story short:
After the massive final degree project in upper secondary school, I offered Ric some help to design a (somewhat) unique creature for him. After many discussions by note - involving sketches and basic biology - this is the end result. Here is the first concept.
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I haven't worked on it for 17 months non-stop, not a chance. There have been enormous gaps of breaks between the sketching period and the whole colouring part, not to mention within the colouring part.
In the beginning everything was so exciting, because finally I had drawn two promising figures! But when I came to the background... the speed slowed to a minimum.

As you can see, I hate making digital backgrounds - anything digital at all, for that matter. I'm fairly new to Photoshop painting :< Everything except the creatures' linearts are made in photoshop from scratch.
Haha, if I remember correctly, this file contained about 47 layers and over 200 MB. It took me 20 minutes to save every damn time.
No wonder why I had so many breaks :/



What about this animal, then? I have decided to call it ‘Greater Thornrunner’ for now, but Ric may give an other suggestion later.

"The greater thornrunners are fast predators that hunt during dusk and dawn on the tropical islands of Nicaroa. The ‘great red’ subspecies belongs to the largest of the thornrunner family, but despite the different shapes and colours, all the species share the same behaviour;

The females live in family groups with one alpha leader, but the males are solitary from the day they are driven away from the group. While a male hunts for prey of its own size or smaller, the females are capable of taking down bigger animals (like the mighty Boulder elk) by attacking it in rounds and weaken it from blood loss. The extendable lower mandibles give the thornrunner a firmer grip of the prey while damaging it with the sharp claws. The fully extended mouth may also be used for scaring away rivals.

Only the alpha female is authorized to mate in the family. During that season the solitary males wanders off to visit the closest family territories. The male tries to gain the alpha’s willingness with gifts and dancing (accompanied by purring and chirping noises), and this ritual proceeds for several days.

The thornrunners are born from eggs, and the cubs are guarded by two of theirs sister while the rest of the group is hunting. Since the thornrunners aren’t the largest predators on the islands of Nicaroa, they have their nests among rocks to ward off threats. The females are more aggressive than the males, since the females need to protect their young in order to survive as a group."


This is all I have time to write before the New Year is here. I hope you like it, Ric.

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Coloured in Photoshop 7.0 ~ Time taken? TOO LONG.
Image and creature design © *Sakalah & ~DragonScythe
I have given #Creature-Lovers permission to use this picture in their avatar.</sub>