#fantasyscience

Future post... tease? I've worked on the natural, and unnatural, origin of the unicorn for a personal project of mine that I should really work more on (other than frantically writing notes at 3 in the morning) so I can share more creature designs and beastiary entries. Here's a small collage of some headshots, in no particular order, of the majeatic beasties coming up. Fellow world builders..what to do if the only name you have for a world is specific to ONE (1) of the many stories set in said world? #art #artist #artistofinstagram #artistoninstagram #paleoartist #fantasyart #conceptual #conceptart #unicorn #speculativeevolution #specevo #fantasyscience #fantasycreature #fantasticbeasts #fantasyartist https://www.instagram.com/p/B33_vYiFXGu/?igshid=d9vk0gh7r46o

Unicorns! I'm on my way to Berlin for a short week so i nabbed some pictures of my page of unicorns. This feels very relevant atm because I've been looking up horse evolution and trying to find a good point for unicorns to branch off from horses, and through my reseearch I've seen some nice mounts/life reconstructions that seems to be in the NHM of Berlin, so I'm actually a little stoked over that specifically! Anyway, here are two of the first possible members of the unicorn family representing their respective theories on when the split happened. First theory is that of protoceratherium, a small animal that shot off from the likes of eohippus. The second theory is that they split off from the likes of mycohippus, a part of the genus equus, with unoceratherium. Their longer legs allowed them to partake in the grassland ecosystems aswell as their prefered forest bioms, with a better survival chance than their predecessors, and their basal three hoofed legs gave them advantages of stealth and grip on the slippery forest floor. Might do more indepth post on both of these critters later on. Still research and naming to do too🤔 #art #artist #artistofinstagram #artistoninstagram #paleoartist #fantasyart #unicorn #fantasyscience #fantasy #fantasticbeasts #conceptart #creaturedesign #creaturedesigner #creatureart #horse #horseart #conceptartist https://www.instagram.com/p/B3_O-3ZFtWP/?igshid=11u96epssshji

Next up on the unicorn tree, we have an, as of now, unnamed species, descended from the unoceratherium (2 image). This species was more adapted to open grasslands than it's predecessors and the two last lines of unicorns, both its descendants, or very close relatives. The previously three hoofed feet are now mainly monodactylous, it's other digits being lifted off the ground, like the artiodactyle posterially positioned toes. It's horned is larger, slightly curved, and is now "twisted" in a corkscrew manner. This species likely went extinct from preassure by climate, hunting, and being out competed by bovids and cervids, and also the other equids like the larger wild horse. . This design is based more off on the split from the equid family while they still had 3-toed hooves and had moved into open grasslands, than the very early split from the forest dwelling ancestors mentioned in my previous post. #art #artist #artistofinstagram #artistoninstagram #paleoartist #fantasyart #unicorn #fantasyscience #fantasy #fantasticbeasts #conceptart #creaturedesign #creaturedesigner #creatureart #wip #workinprogress #sketchbook #sketch #drawing #magicalbeast #magicalcreature https://www.instagram.com/p/B4Kn3hsHaC2/?igshid=ooqk5x5q2by5