Creature 2 and 3 - Thunder-Bird and Desert Runner

Ok, ok, I put too much into the Mino-centaur and neglected the other two. But I still pulled some good anatomy research into the two.

On Abby's advice, I looked into the Thunder-Bird crypt-zoology. Now if I saw something that big fl

ying around, you'd wonder why the AA guns aren't blazing away everyday.

Either way, for my aerial creature, I wanted something as majestic as an eagle, but to also be intimidating/imposing. So I looked into beak designs. The black hornbill is my favourite.  

Of course, I looked into eagle anatomy to get a better look into how a bird works, and I have to say, it really loses a lot of prowess without it's feathers ^^; . I'd put the pictures up but blogger doesn't seem to want to ~_~.

Anyway, my final creature is the Desert Runner. Not a lot went into this, but I still tried xD.

Looking into desert dwellers, I couldn't help but appreciate the Cephadrome from Monster Hunter. This is a large basis for my design, but less "swimming" based, and more for running. 

This led me to look into aquatic creatures for their stream lined bodies and ability to flow through water in a similar sense to aerodynamics.

Furthermore, due to the arid environment and harsh climate, I thought it suitable to look up reptilian anatomy, etc to see how I can overcome that hurdle in the next term.

Creature 1 - Mino-Centaur

This is my first creature idea. Based on combining two elements of Greek mythology, the Minotaur of Knossos palace and the Centaur's of lore, I wanted to make a powerful, and sturdy mountain climbing creature.

How am I going to make this believable? With a lot of difficulty.

I started straight off by looking into the style and anatomy of horses. This was a bad start, because horses don't really climb mountains. But stocky, sturdy, mountain goats do! Even so, looking into horses wasn't fruitless. In fact, it was  one of the few muscular structures I could find whilst looking around.

So using this, and my newly acquired knowledge on mountain goats (http://www.oricomtech.com/projects/leg-clmb.htm), I found this skeletal image and decided to apply the horse anatomy to the picture. 

Using this, I have to figure out how to attach a human torso, whilst retaining balance and stability for optimum climbing.

Admitting to Submission

So, I have been COMPLETELY unfaithful to my former post, and haven't done a thing for this blog. As it is submission day and I have left it so late, I am obligated to give at least a synopsis of my work over a few posts.

So where to start?

Since my project is based on the believability of creatures, I looked into various animal studies and veterinary anatomy work. I tried getting out to London Zoo, but during the winter months this was difficult, so I decided to head off to the Natural History Museum. It was a lot easier to take photos of models and taxidermy than real mobile animals :D.

With a bit of primary research in hand, I set about finding the hard-to-get imagery of anatomy work. I'll go into more detail in my creature posts.

I looked into a load of good game examples too; Metroid Prime, Shadow of the Colossus and Monster Hunter Freedom 2G.