This is perhaps one of the most asthetically pleasing made up beasts I have ever seen. It was invented by sci-fi artist Wayne Barlowe in his book Expedition; a science fiction book describing an expediton to a planet bearing alien life in the future. A television adaptation of the book has also been made, but the actual artwork of Wayne is brilliant and origional.
The Daggerwrist is a human sized predator that sucks the juices from its prey. It is arboreal and uses a membrane that extends from its writs to its knee to glide from tree to tree. All in all a pretty awesome idea.
Above you can see a close up of the head. I am not sure where the eyes are supposed to be and there seems to be no flesh around its skull. Also the lower jaw is not connected to the cranium, but supported seperately by a muscular tube that projects from its neck.
At the moment I am attempteng to draw my own Daggerwrist, but it is a challenge.
Here are some CGI pictures from a television show based on Expedition, the colour sceme on the origional painting (top) is in my opinion much better than the CGI adaptations:
Interesting note: on the imagined planet upon which Expedition is set, *none* of the animals have eyes. They sense the world through entirely different means. Barlowe did this as sort of a self-imposed creature design challenge, and -of course- to make the aliens *really* alien.
ReplyDeleteGood to see another fan of this wonderful book!