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Description

Appearance
There is the Boarak, a large and muscled six-legged reptile with a horned head. They have crooked stripes covering their hardscaled purplish/blue bodies. The belly has a pale soft skin and is very vulnerable for piercing damage. They use their strong large tails to knock enemies down with. The Boarak can drop on all its legs to run fast on land. In the water these creatures are a lot slower. They reside in simple small huts with leaves and grass on the floor.
Characteristics
Boaraks are very vain creatures, always working out, training their strong body. Nothing is more important to the Boarak than looking good for others. This makes the Boarak work extra hard when there are others around to show off to, flexing his muscles. It also adorns itself with trinkets and furs, looking a bit extravagant.
Community
The Boarak benefits the community by building structures and defending it against other predators. They can carry heavy loads and like to boast to others how much work they have put out.
Combat
During combat the Boarak is in the spotlights on the frontline of the fight. It uses its muscular body to counter attacks and makes sure the enemy sees him and not his partymembers. Knowing his community-mates are right behind him, watching him fight, the Boarak attacks extra fast and does extra damage within a group.
It can sweep its tail, with sharp spikes wrapped around it, to knock enemies back and inflict them with bleeding wounds.
Iterations
The Boarak was the biggest struggle of all the character designs. At first, I never intended to create him as muscular as a human would be. It bugged me that most designs tend to go towards a humanized evolution, while my own creatures would be an evolution of a reptile. If an evolutionised reptile would exist, what would be enhanced of the creature?
Take for instance the crocodile, it has a keen surprise-attack, a huge snapping jaw, rows of teeth and then a body which is still very similar to dinosaur origins. If this creature would be even more evolved, it might be more muscular towards its head instead of its tiny arm, which arent even used. But since I design for human viewers, I just wondered how humans would empathise with an evolutionary reptile. Would they understand those principles, even though its unfamiliar to them? Broad bicepts and abs is for all humans a sign of a trained body, a muscular jaw not so…
When I got stuck on this design, I decided to go with along with the mainstream design. It was too much of a struggle. I filled my moodboard with bodybuilders and added some horses. The horses were used as a reference for its legs together with a few dinosaurs. I started to iterate more digitally now, I already got the style for the other two characters and I had a better focus for this design. I could change and add elements to my base design, it had to have six legs, it was suppose to be more of a centaur, it had dinosaur or horse legs and so on.
In the end I decided to give him a primitive armor, to protect him from his enemies. I checked the web for primitive tribes and the clothing they were using. Because my characters were living in a mangrove, I wanted them to use the materials which were easy accesible to them. That is when I came up with the furry capes.
Because of the vanity of the Boarak, they’re very into how they look Since they adorn themselves with armor and trinkets, I thought they would dress according to the right fashion. As a fashion-handicap I know what it is like, when people dress in the weirdest outfits, while the rest of the world doesn’t understand the fashionstatements. This is exactly what I wanted to bring with the Boaraks furs. They wear the furs and trinkets, looking extravagant and ridiculous for the others. But the Boaraks don’t realise that, they are too busy with the latest trends.

Description

Appearance
There is the Boarak, a large and muscled six-legged reptile with a horned head. They have crooked stripes covering their hardscaled purplish/blue bodies. The belly has a pale soft skin and is very vulnerable for piercing damage. They use their strong large tails to knock enemies down with. The Boarak can drop on all its legs to run fast on land. In the water these creatures are a lot slower. They reside in simple small huts with leaves and grass on the floor.
Characteristics
Boaraks are very vain creatures, always working out, training their strong body. Nothing is more important to the Boarak than looking good for others. This makes the Boarak work extra hard when there are others around to show off to, flexing his muscles. It also adorns itself with trinkets and furs, looking a bit extravagant.
Community
The Boarak benefits the community by building structures and defending it against other predators. They can carry heavy loads and like to boast to others how much work they have put out.
Combat
During combat the Boarak is in the spotlights on the frontline of the fight. It uses its muscular body to counter attacks and makes sure the enemy sees him and not his partymembers. Knowing his community-mates are right behind him, watching him fight, the Boarak attacks extra fast and does extra damage within a group.
It can sweep its tail, with sharp spikes wrapped around it, to knock enemies back and inflict them with bleeding wounds.
Iterations
The Boarak was the biggest struggle of all the character designs. At first, I never intended to create him as muscular as a human would be. It bugged me that most designs tend to go towards a humanized evolution, while my own creatures would be an evolution of a reptile. If an evolutionised reptile would exist, what would be enhanced of the creature?
Take for instance the crocodile, it has a keen surprise-attack, a huge snapping jaw, rows of teeth and then a body which is still very similar to dinosaur origins. If this creature would be even more evolved, it might be more muscular towards its head instead of its tiny arm, which arent even used. But since I design for human viewers, I just wondered how humans would empathise with an evolutionary reptile. Would they understand those principles, even though its unfamiliar to them? Broad bicepts and abs is for all humans a sign of a trained body, a muscular jaw not so…
When I got stuck on this design, I decided to go with along with the mainstream design. It was too much of a struggle. I filled my moodboard with bodybuilders and added some horses. The horses were used as a reference for its legs together with a few dinosaurs. I started to iterate more digitally now, I already got the style for the other two characters and I had a better focus for this design. I could change and add elements to my base design, it had to have six legs, it was suppose to be more of a centaur, it had dinosaur or horse legs and so on.
In the end I decided to give him a primitive armor, to protect him from his enemies. I checked the web for primitive tribes and the clothing they were using. Because my characters were living in a mangrove, I wanted them to use the materials which were easy accesible to them. That is when I came up with the furry capes.
Because of the vanity of the Boarak, they’re very into how they look Since they adorn themselves with armor and trinkets, I thought they would dress according to the right fashion. As a fashion-handicap I know what it is like, when people dress in the weirdest outfits, while the rest of the world doesn’t understand the fashionstatements. This is exactly what I wanted to bring with the Boaraks furs. They wear the furs and trinkets, looking extravagant and ridiculous for the others. But the Boaraks don’t realise that, they are too busy with the latest trends.