#planimal

Couple old sketches of some speculative lifeforms.

Truly alien life, or creatures that evolved in a distant alternate timeline of Earth? Could go either way.

[ID: A drawing of a creature resembling a gecko with the back and tail being made of open Venus Flytrap traps. The creature is posed facing left in 3/4ths view with its front half being held close to the ground and its tail being held high in the air with the back arched and the hind legs standing straight up. The creature has its tongue sticking out of its closed mouth. 

The drawing is black line art with a red sketch faintly visible. /End ID]

Venus Geck A Venus flytrap gecko

Concept sketch (with a quick messy internal organ ref) for what unicorns are like in Sinirin. I monotone’d the picture up top because I realized I didn’t really like how I’d coloured it.

The unicorns of Sinirin are not animals - they are planimals, a separate (though at times very similar-looking) kingdom of life. As the name suggests, all planimals have a mix of plantlike and animal-like features: like plants, they photosynthesize, breathe CO2 and exhale oxygen, and make use of plastids, and like animals, they are mobile, have phospholipid cell membranes instead of cellulose walls (though some groups do make use of cellulose, it’s never the majority component in their body structure), and have animal-like tissues and organ systems. They rely heavily on the uptake of ambient magic to enhance their naturally inefficient biological processes, which has lead into many planimal species developing some form of active control over magic.

Unicorns belong to the phylum Xylochordata, chordate-analogues that have cellulose only as part of their skeletal structure and make use of a number of different photosynthetic compounds, occasionally multiple within the same species. The compounds are found in the “fur” and “petals” that grow on the backs / tops of their bodies, aka the areas most exposed to the sun, with the rest of the body being pigmented with mammal-like forms of melanin. Haven’t decided whether unicorns should use chlorophyll or carotenoids.

The horn of a unicorn is actually a highly elongated, hardened petal. They are naturally inclined towards light magic, and a rare few can perform healing magic as well.

Unicorns do not eat, so their mouths are only needed to drink water. As a result, the mouth cavity is quite small and lacks teeth, though they do have a long tongue that naturally forms a “cup” in the middle when extended.

[ID: A grey page with four drawings of a dragon based loosely on a cactus cat and guardian lion. The dragon has a brown wooden cat-shaped body with a dark green mane and tail shaped like barrel cactuses. It has pink spikes on its mane and tail and at the tip of its tail is a yellow flower. Its head is black and box-shaped with six small yellow eyes. The inside of its mouth is yellow. 

 The drawing in the top left is a full body colored picture of the dragon. The top right has a drawing detailing the dragon’s face and open mouth. In the bottom left is a drawing of the dragon doing a handstand and shooting a beam out of its tail. In the bottom right is a chibi drawing of the dragon. Above that are circles of the colors used. /End ID]

Tictak

Type: Earth

Components: Barrel cactus, African lion, domestic dog

Coordinator: eventually  Koki Fung

Attacks:

-Sun Signal- absorbs and releases a concentrated beam of light/heat from the flower on its tail to do damage

-Barbell- spins and flips to smash opponents with its barbed tail and mane

-Thorn Shot- shoots spikes from its mane and tail at opponents