Owlbears, part 2

Starting to work on designs for the beak/snout. The back half anatomy needs tweaking still but I wanted to get /something/ down today and start working towards a concept I liked. Oftentimes the face of a critter really determines the patterns the rest of the body follows, little nuances in texture and features around the eye often show up on prominent places of the rest of the body in creatures both fantasy and real.

So far...I'm leaning towards the crested/hornbill-y ones. The upper left was a stab at using teeth to mimic the beak shape, but in the end that's somewhat likley to go south I think. Maybe. Who knows it could probably use another shot.

On the subject of heads.. how a creature is equipped to eat tells us a lot about the creature. One of the things I kept finding about own skulls was that their beaks always seemed thin and fragile compared to their big talons, and I'm guessing that's because most of the damage they inflict comes from the feet and not the head. That leaves the mouth to become specialized for delicately picking things apart and eating the juicy bits, and can also make it a good place to display what a good mate that creature could be with flashy colors and patterns.

I had thought about making the beak more ...prehistoric. But then I felt that I might be skipping out on something that could make my design unique. After all, I'm going to be giving this thing claws like meathooks and formidable size. As long as I dont make the beak too fragile, I think this might help set my design apart. We'll see.

Hmm. You know, I think it needs a tail.