Creature Design - Bhanmar

Overview

After several quadrupedal designs, I wanted to try something completely new. I knew of nudibranches (a colourful sea slug type animal that comes in scores of colours and shapes) and played around with what their designs might best enhance. Bhanmar came out of combining caterpillars with nudibranches and then using like creatures to play with a more unusual bodyshape.

Bhanmar was named by loosely combining nudibranch and pine marten.

Inspiration

Creatures:

• Nudibranch
• Catfish
• Jewel Caterpillar
• Pine Marten
• Weasel

Considered:

• Woodlouse

Process

In all honesty, this creature did not take long to design. It was very much an experiment with how much I could push my knowledge of forms, since I seem to stick to quadrupeds or birds. I also really wanted to play with the striking colours of the nudibranches, as they are fascinating little creatures with a fantastic array of patterns and forms, and this was a good excuse to indulge myself.

I wrote a list of creatures and started doodling shapes of what they might look like when combined. The coloured sketch used the clone tool on the nudibranch images (from google) to give a fast generalisation of potential colours.

Final design. They took a surprisingly short amount of time to create.

Design Notes:

• Though their legs are more advanced systems, they are placed similarly to a caterpillars. However, the Bhanmar run like weasels or pine martens, in a more bobbing motion
• They are fast, nimble, algae-eaters, and often hide on bigger, more recumbent herbivores. They will eat slow-moving bugs if one happens to wander in the path of their searching whiskers
• Their colouring is to warn predators away and feign toxicity, though the actual level of poisoning one could gain from ingesting one of these creatures is up for debate, as there are too many colours and subspecies to accurately measure
• A Bhanmar's eyesight is not the greatest; it is believed they can only see basic shapes in strong light, and blurred movement

Reflection

• Interesting to look into more unusual animals for this creature; I learnt about caterpillar leg placements and nudibranch colourations.
• Definitely one of my more unique designs so far.
• It was fun to explore something more odd and atypical through a random decision to utilise nudibranches in a design; it seems strong colourations and unusual shapes were the guiding theme this time.