C. M. Kosemen - Illustration

The Creature Responsible for the Flatwoods Incident: An exercise where I tried to completely redesign a popular “cryptid” creature - shifting almost every detail of its anatomy and features while trying to keep its essence intact.

The small picture below is the original 1950s collage that first depicted the so-called Flatwoods Monster. I re-cast it with an amalgam of arachnid, humanoid and dinosaurian features. Do you think I did a good job?

There has been strong recent debate on the extent of gum and mouth tissues on dinosaurs and relatives. Long story short; the professional consensus is towards -some sort of- covering that renders the teeth mostly invisible when viewed from the outside.

But this new interpretation may be mistaken. Crocodiles and birds, living relatives of dinosaurs, have mostly “bare” mouth tissues. I played a little game and illustrated some contemporary species; a toucan, a gharial, a flamingo and an eagle; with the same sort of liberal oral dressage applied to dinosaur reconstructions today.

They look equally ridiculous and feasible. The debate on facial tissues continues, and will likely never end.

Illustration of two species of Anatolian snails, Chondrus tournefortianus (left), and Albinaria anatolica (right).

Illustration of Eopiscator, a large descendant of the proto-theropod Herrerasaurus (shown as silhouette on the lower right), specialised for a mainly fish-eating diet. This animal is a concept of speculative evolution, but I would not be surprised if something like it was discovered in the fossil record.

In reality, Spinosaurs and the big, thin-headed “raptor” dinosaur Austroraptor had similar specialisations for such a semi-aquatic, mostly fish-eating lifestyle.

A cock Coelophysis shows off its colours.

I’ve been thinking about why the simplest weapon - the club, almost never evolved in terrestrial vertebrate predators in our timeline. So I came up with a lineage of “clobberers”; strange creatures descended from early tetrapods, with club-like forelimbs. Here are three species. From top to bottom, they are:

Oganodon heteromorphophyllum A gigantic form, feeds on plants as well as meat. Often knocks the trunks of giant fig trees and feeds on the rain of fruit. Aggressive and rarely seen. Associated with a certain “terrifying musky odour”.

Pusatrobrachis tartarus An ancestral form, its arms still preserve vestiges of its fingers as spike-like projections. A cursorial hunter, does not rely as often on sit-and-wait tactics.

Phermonophorodon lamiae The smallest form of clobberer, lives in forests and bush thickets. Lures its prey by scent, and an uncanny ability to imitate voices.

Conjectural portrait of Genyodectes, the poorly-understood meat-eating dinosaur, known only from the tip of its jaws (see inset image). It lived around 125 to 113 million years ago, in an ecosystem of sand dunes and swamps in what is now South America.

I greatly enjoyed the Kessel Run sequence in Solo: A Star Wars Story. The intense chase-scene; set in a smoky, interstellar “space swamp”, got me thinking about animals which may evolve in a zero-gravity environment. 

Over the past week, I designed and illustrated four such “zero gravity aliens”, which may have evolved in an imaginary habitat with an atmosphere, asteroids but no gravity. Prior to Star Wars, Larry Niven’s Integral Trees series also featured such biotopes. I feel that my critters may plausibly exist in either universe, and any others besides. Enjoy!

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Prow-nosed cuttleshark, Amphiselachus rotatus: Fish-like predators that can operate omni-directionally in the void; these animals usually inhabit dense clusters of asteroids, from which they push themselves out towards their prey. Multiple eyes enable them to watch out simultaneously for prey, danger and mates. Silicone-based lifeforms, evolved independently in gaseous ecosystem. Length: 4-6 metres.

Space-chuck, Bombardozoon paradoxus: Rocket-powered tribal omnivores, perhaps with a limited form of intelligence. Usually inhabit smoke-forests, from which they sally out in small bands to hunt and forage. Have a notorious habit hiding above gravitational wells and chucking stones at passing vessels  - the missiles can reach dangerous speeds in a short time. Carbon-based beings, may even be ultra-derived Earth tetrapods; evidently introduced to this region of space at an unknown date in the past. Length: 4-5 metres.

Greater hortenopter, Hortenopteryx major: The largest known species of a widespread group of airplane-like animals, also known as “speed demons”. Can achieve great speeds, powered by a mix of muscular wings and gland-derived rocket exhausts. Predators on smaller flyers. Carbon-based, but from a non-Terran line of evolution. Length: Up to 3 metres, usually smaller.

Illustrations of two types of “sirrushim”, strange vertebrate-analogue animals descended from sharks. One is an insect-eater, while the other feeds on fruit and small animals. They resemble ancient dragon designs of the Babylonians - also known as mushussu. These are not real animals, but exercises in speculative evolution.

Many fossils of the long-tailed pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus have been found in marine deposits - so much that it has been theorised to be primarily aquatic - like a grebe or a cormorant.

I took the “aquatic rhamphorhynchoid” idea to its logical conclusion and illustrated Ichthyopteryx sp. (below), a fully-aquatic descendant of this lineage. Above that is Occidodon, a further-derived, shark-like descendant of Ichthyopteryx, about to get tangled with a beefy specimen of the giant belemnite, Suspectogladium. 

Just to clarify, these are not real animals, but the products of an exercise in speculative-evolution.

Illustration of Titananolis; a hypothetical, gigantic anole lizard, from a world where evolution took a different path in the last 20-million years.

I painted three watercolours of Mediterranean gecko species. From top to bottom, they are:

Hemidactylus turcicus - Turkish gecko Mediodactylus kotschyi - Kotschy’s bent-toed gecko Tarentola mauritanica - Moorish gecko

It is a little-known fact that my world-design project, Snaiad, had an even earlier version, way back in 2005. It featured some animals that are not visible in the more recent version of the project. I dug up those old pictures for your enjoyment. Mind that these versions are not "canon", but still fun to read through. I see now that I was way ahead of myself in terms of page layout and design, but some parts of the text make me cringe. At least one animal (the Titan Airsifter) looks horrible. Oh well... Here are the 27 original “creature plates” from the 2005 incarnation of Snaiad. Enjoy! :)

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Do you like snakes? Do you like guns? Then get some SnakeGuns™!

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I wondered how it would be if someone could bio-engineer gun-like living weapons from living ophidians. Here are three models to choose from!

Spitatrix™ - Spitter

- Derived heavyweight elapid that spits out contact zootoxin, human-lethal in 3 to 5 seconds. Effective range up to 10 metres. 

- Fired by gentle squeeze of abdomen, venom glands last 40-50 shots before recharge.

- Toggle hemipenes in or out for Face-Recognition Autostrike™ or idiot-savant fire-on-command reflex.

- Only males are weaponised, females used as breeders only.

- Primary sidearm and security weapon, usage restricted to suppressor-caste humans and Masters only.

Retroctaspis™ - Stabber

- Atractaspid-derived stabbing weapon, bites immediately upon contact with foreign flesh. Reflexes conditioned not to bite the holding hand.

- Fangs can bite even while mouth is closed.

- Originally used as medical hypodermics; weaponised variants with paralysis or military-grade venom have been retro-engineered by feral syndicates and other bioterrorists.

- Described by captured bioterrorists as a “useful snake to get another snake with.”

Dendrolock™ - Tagger

- Mamba-derived personal-defence weapon; comes in paralysing and lethal variants.

- Fired by triggering specialised back-scutes. The thin front part of the body then lashes out to bite whoever that’s within reach.

As a child I was supremely inspired by science fiction films and made up hundreds of “space aliens” to populate an imaginary galaxy. My brother and I then play-acted adventures set in this fictitious realm.

My parents kept all my drawings; there are dozens upon dozens of pages, each populated with multitudes of aliens, complete with descriptions of every species and character.

Earlier this year I started putting together a portfolio of zany “trope” aliens, with the hopes of getting a gig designing aliens for a popular animated show. (Guess which?)

Instead of designing things from scratch, I decided re-draw ten characters from my childhood. Here they are, complete with original drawings and vitally-important attributes and descriptions.

Tri-Bots (1992) - Actually a lego-like colony of semi-organic robots. - Head robot gets to be the brain. - If decapitated, they play a form of robotic “rock paper scissors” to elect the new leader.

Meta-Snake (1992-3?) - Not a real snake, but a trans-dimensional entity that can slip between parallel universes. - Glowing jaws help Meta-Snake open up portals between worlds. - Its face is a fake face; Meta-Snake’s actual eyes are the pore-like things between its body segments. - A sardonic character; refers to itself in the third person and speaks in riddles. - Occasionally speaks backwards because it has a different concept of time. - Can grant wishes, alter the universe and save you from the most dangerous situations… but can you really trust it?

Ogrenas (1995) - A scary-looking insect-reptile with a heart of gold. - Misunderstood and shunned, actually very kind and harmless. - Its species lives in big hives; glowing eyes can project holograms. - Scary teeth evolved to gnaw on the bark of giant trees. - Ogrenas is an asexual drone; has no passions and as a result is very naive. - No one has seen the queen of Ogrenas’ species. - Glands on its chest secrete a clear goo that Ogrenas must rub all over its body to avoid sunburn. Other species covet this goo as a valuable drug.

Sirian [Ikmash] (1995) - Very intelligent fellow, but devoid of feelings. - Gets a sadistic streak sometimes. - The classic grey alien but also a bit like a cat. - Lonely last member of a once-proud master race; vain and pompous personality.  - Makes inappropriate advances to women of all and any species he meets, particular to brunettes. - Listed as a sex offender in twelve star systems. - Operates machines light-years beyond human technology. Can turn light into matter. Once travelled to Earth and met Nikola Tesla.

The Sultis Megadon Monster (1995) - From the same planet as Ogrenas (see above). - A predatory animal with a hollow head, people can get in via a door-like flap behind its jaws and drive it around like a car. - Controls inside look like tentacles, pustules and glands, you must tug at them. - If you crash into someone the Sultis Megadon Monster eats them. - If two Sultis Megadon crash head on, the larger eats the smaller. - If they are the same size, they start mating.

Veridian (1996) - Cryptic and shy intelligent species, comes in many varieties with different head-frills. - Their planet is full of snakes! - Scared of open places and doesn’t like being touched. - Will sting you to death with its extremely pointed jaw, but does not want confrontation. - Has no vocal cords, talks by shaking its elaborate, winged tail rattle.

Voidian (1996) - Friendly but annoying frog character. - Makes bad jokes and talks too much, but ultimately harmless. - Has the annoying habit of jumping on people to startle them. - His attention-hungry behaviour is a result of soul-gnawing lack of self-confidence. - Its race once lived on trees, but have now been banished to a network of caves.

Pudd (1997) [Was ‘inspired’ heavily by Dougal Dixon’s “Greenworld”] - Cryptic member of a mollusk-spider race where everyone calls themselves “Pudd”. - In fact that’s the only word they can speak. - They actually communicate with a very sophisticated sign language performed by their top four limbs. - Shy characters; only want to play with strange devices they build in trees. - Scary claws help them climb enormous redwoods. Not predators. - Skip on the ground from tree to tree on well-developed monopod. - Hermaphrodites: Both lovers get pregnant when they make out. - Pale spigot on body squirts a kind of defensive ink. - Salt works like a dangerous drug on them; Pudd will crave it even as it kills them.

VIXON (1997) - A gregarious and boisterous space merchant of an unknown race. - Travels in a flashy spaceship that has many bright lights and chrome polish. - Enjoys giving people an awkward time. - Fun to hang out with but he WILL swindle you if you give him the chance. - Has glowing tonsils as a result of space herpes infection. - Every arm has a testicle and an ejaculatory pipe that Vixon uses in place of a thumb and forefinger… -… except the third pair, which has ovaries and other female genitals. But Vixon can’t get pregnant from himself. - The ratio of male / female genitals on this species’ hands varies from individual to individual and determines their personality. All-dick-hands are alpha males, all-vagina-hands are flaming femmes, and so on.

Snirfle (1997) - Very smart dude, can hack any device. - From a backwoods planet; got where she is by sheer hard work. - Her hands are only used for grooming; Snirfle uses her triple proboscii to type on computers. - Can digest almost any type of food; prone to binge-eating, keep food away from her! - Secretly fed up and frustrated by others taking her for granted. - Sings when no one is looking.

An illustration of two “quasi-birds”, dinosaur-like things that might have evolved if the age of reptiles was rewound and re-played. Foreground: A climbing flagger creature that uses its legs, long beak and prehensile tail to climb trees. Its forelegs are completely useless in movement, and work as a set of semaphoric signals to members of its flock on nearby branches. Background: A sort of eared grouse, a cat-sized digger and generalist browser. Members of this lineage have evolved fleshy, mobile face muscles and external ears that independently recall those of mammals. But there are no mammals on this world, not as we know them.