Hi-res Mortasheen and notes: updated Vampiathan (Patreon)

When I first designed Vampiathan, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do for a whale-based monster, or how to make a whale seem "vampiric." What makes a whale most interesting is that so much of it is a huge mouth, so in the end I just made the mouth a bit more "alien" by making it tripartate, and then I made the rest of the creature unsettlingly wrinkly. The idea of a huge vampire swallowing tiny victims whole is a disturbing one, and brought to my mind the Sarlacc from Star Wars, though I like the idea that Vampiathan's prey don't really suffer at all; like the victims of any classic vampire, they don't really feel much of anything and are kept under a spell. Since they're also kept alive long-term as vassals, I've come to imagine a Vampiathan as almost working like a vampiric submarine with a parasitized "crew."

I decided to keep this updated version fairly close to the original, though it accidentally came out looking a lot "happier," and I feel like I already miss how tiny and lower down the original one's eye was; something I totally overlooked when I only briefly referenced the old artwork.

Besides the larger flippers and the addition of barnacles, the biggest change in the new design is the baleen instead of teeth, something I actually wanted in the original but didn't really know how to draw to my liking with only paper and pencil. Baleen is one of the visually weirder characteristics of any whale, and makes more sense for a vampire that keeps prey alive anyway.

Finally, I also based the interior of the blowhole a on the look of a bat's nose :)


Download the PSD file if you want to play around with the raw artwork!