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Shy-Ru Creature design contest entry

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Here it is! The inhabitants of the planet I posted yesterday. Some info about them:
These tall creatures are found of fine cloths and material goods. Fine fabrics are in high demand, even those who may not be as wealthy will save up money to purchase finer clothing. The "Shy-Ru" as they call themselves, are a very artistic species. The Arts are very important aspects of their culture and all young children will learn at least three basic arts during their lifetime that are believed to be curtail to proper development; drawing, dancing and music. What specifically the child wishes to pursue in later years will be up to them. Even those who take on other jobs that don't directly involve the Arts are still expected to practice some variety of art on their spare time. Art competitions are extremely popular and competitive. There are four main representatives of their world, always two male and two female, each representative of their respective hemispheres, North, South, East and West. These represent ivies are influential on a galactic scale but most of the local governing comes from smaller countries and states. Biologically speaking, the Shy-Ru are "Synapsid Reptilemorphs". They belong to a group of reptilemorphs, a transitionary clade between amphibians and reptiles, that has one temporal fenestra, a 'hole' behind the eye. This has fascinated biologist for years. On Earth, amphibians evolved into reptiles and only then did synapsids and diapsids diverge. Shy-Ru have thicker skin than most amphibians and lay leathery eggs like a sea turtle, but they can still absorb oxygen from the water through their skin and have something akin to 'gills' on the side of their face. When out of water these 'gils' seal shut and normal terrestrial breathing resumes. The paleontology of their world is sparse, thanks to the abundance of rain forests and the lack of exposed rock for fossil hunting. However, remarkable finds show that Shy-Ru's ancestors lived in mangrove swamp environments. They started out small four legged Synapsid Reptilemorphs but evolved into tree dwelling animals, once the mangroves disappeared and gave way to drier thinner forest paleontologists begin to see bipedal adaptations. Partners pair bond for life. A female only lays one leathery egg at a time. The egg must be kept warm and wet, but not underwater. Temperature usually is not a problem of those equatorial residents. But egg warmers or humidifiers will have to be bought by those who live in drier or colder climates. Hatchlings are born mostly devoloped and take 20-23 years to complete development. They will stay with their parents for the same length of time. Both parents contribute equally to the raising of their young. Children reach maturity when their bright facial colors come in completely. They can live for well over 150 years thanks to medical advances. Sexual dimorphism is low in this species. Body proportions are roughly the same. The main difference is in the face. To distinguish males and females females have evolved more colorful faces and taller facial protrusions while males evolved a bright red wattle and slightly longer canines. In society females are considered equal to the males. Historically, this species didn't have the same level of sexism as seen in humans. They seems to be neither patriachal or matriarchal. It is thought that this arose because of the strikingly low sexual dimorphism in the species.
Cultural and biological editing will be done in the future. Still a bit rough. 
I am extremely proud of myself with this one! This image was amazing in that I was able to see just how much I already knew and just how much I needed to learn. I learned so much with this image! This creature was at times a huge pain, but I'm very proud of myself for sticking it through and creating a final image. It took forever just to find a concept I liked. I had to learn how to depict foreshortening and drawing the same thing from multiple angles. I also needed to brush up on human and therapy anatomy. The colors took forever to pick out and took a lot of tries before I found a complimentary color scheme that worked. I suck at clothing, I don't normally practice it and boy does that show. I seriously need to do some fabric studies now. Overall, I'm very happy with this image. Some of my first official concept art! :D Hopefully I'll win!
Shy-Ru are based on seahorses, lizards, salamanders and one of my favorite permian synapsids, Titanophoneus. This guy had an awesome skull shape that I just had to use. I had been meaning to create a creature based on titanophoneus for a long time but only now has it actually come together. This creature was partially inspired by another humanoid seahorse thing I created but was never really happy with. Permian animals just don't get the representation they deserve. :P They also make great starting points for creating weird creatures.
(c) Denece the sylcoe all rights reserved 
Image size
25178x4137px 17.39 MB
© 2015 - 2024 Denece-the-sylcoe
Comments5
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CrossDevice's avatar
They sound like a neat creation. Pretty cool looking, their faces are especially nice..

Ah, you might want to format the paragraphs a lil better. A block of text can be quite intimidating