Mortasheen Hi-Res preview: Heartsucker (Patreon)

I'm having SO much difficulty settling on the base color for this monster's body! A real flea looks pitch black until it's in direct light, and then it's usually a translucent amber. I can't seem to pick a middle ground that I like, especially for a human/flea hybrid that might not retain the exact colors of either creature anyway.

I designed this monster with its "helmet" removable, too; there are real fleas with strange helmet-like head growths of chitin, the functions of which aren't really known.

This is one of the oldest Mortasheen creatures, and the original concept behind the design was that a human combined with a flea might look like a cartoonist's impression of a flea; a hopping thing with a pointy nose.

For this remake, I wanted it to look a little more like a human hybrid. It's fleshier and it now has four limbs, but I gave it severely reduced hind legs so that the arms and hands are what it leaps on. The chitinous helmet allows it to keep the weird, pointy nosed look and a more flea-like appearance while also homaging Giger's xenomorph, which fleas have always heavily reminded me of.

I just don't know about the color scheme....a real flea can look amber, black, or mahogany depending on the lighting.