Lakmi Beast Design

This semester, I've had the pleasure of working with a group of writers that have been developing a steampunk themed epic for the past year or so.  They've commissioned me to do some concept work for the vast world that they're building.  This first creature I designed is called a Lakmi.

The original basic directive for the creature was that it is a forrest dwelling primate similar to a Baboon with wolf-esque elements.  Oh, and of course, it has four eyes.  Here are a few progress sketches developing these elements.

I really wanted to design a four- eyed skull in which two different faces could be seen and recognized encompassing both sets of eyes.  I decided that giving the skull a front-facing and side-facing set of eyes would help make this work.

The Lakmi is nocturnal.  The second, bigger set of eyes is opened at night to let in more light or during the day to appear more threatening.  The claws were also really fun to design.  We wanted the Lakmi to have retracting claws, but also have slightly more humanoid hands with opposing thumbs.  Most animals with retracting claws, (mainly cats) have claws that fold in between the bones of their fingers (as seen in the lion claw sketch above on the right page of the left image).  To make this work on a humanoid hand that still would have any sort of dexterity, my solution was to somehow give the last joint of the finger a space for the claw to swing between and to store when retracted.  

The Lakmi walks and runs quadrupedally, but can also stand on two legs and walk short distances bipedally.

 Lakmis walk and run on the knuckles of their front arms.  If they need extra traction they can flex their claws slightly, acting as a sort of cleat.

Here is the final turnaround as well as a few details of various aspects of the Lakmi.

Shaved Lakmi.

Detail of the claws and relative scale. 

The baboon-like crest on the bridge of the nose is used to attract mates.  The vibrance of the crest also is a factor in determining a hierarchy in the herd as well as the alpha male.  This crest is also part of its eyelid, which closes from bottom to top.

Just for fun, I started thinking about the colors and markings Lakmi might have depending on what other types of environments it live in.

Forrest of Jungle

Savannah

Arctic

An "elder" Lakmi

 This type of fantasy concept art is something I don't do as much as I'd like, and it was a good exercise in inventing creature anatomy.  There will be more of this to come.  I can't wait till the story is finished!