Brachiambulating Neo-Human

This one’s for Ryan Patrick, who came up with the concept and asked me to illustrate it. His original description reads as follows:

I am visualizing a 2.5 meter tall being, walking only (on) the thick stubby knuckles at the end of long muscular forelimbs, with the hind limbs and feet smaller and taking up the role of primary manipulators. A bony, tail-like skid for balance while the organism is not in motion seems probable. "Hands" are 3-fingered with an opposable thumb. The skull is large to hold a massive brain, and has a frill similar to that of a protoceratops. The mouth has become a beak due to the fusion of teeth though tiny grooves showing where the teeth fused together can still seen. Nostrils lie slightly above the "beak". The eye is large and black, and has a look that gives the viewer a sense of sadness. All these make a creature with a head that’s a cross between a finch and a parakeet, with a frill. Skin would most likely appear tough and slightly scaly.

My original take on the head ended up looking more psittacosaurian rather than protoceratopsian; hopefully this is closer to what Ryan had in mind. I could see the hind limbs either hooking over the top of the shoulders, ala Dixon’s Night Stalkers, or hanging underneath, like Sebulba’s. The latter seemed a more likely variant on primate morphology to me. I decided to go with tarsier-like “hands” (actually the feet). There’s something almost Rhinogradient about the body design overall. I’m not sure where that keel or skid would come from, but I tried to imply an engineered extension of the coccyx and/or spinal processes.

I’d like to know more about the evolutionary history of this being…My thinking is a heavily derived, planetbound variant of a form originally modified for space travel (i.e. legs and feet adapted into more dextrous manipulatory appendages). Some of the seemingly impractical or non-utilitarian morphological characteristics, such as the frill, could be secondarily derived from selection pressures acting on the original more functional design. But it’s Mr. Patrick’s idea, so hopefully he’ll elucidate for us!

Visit Ryan’s site at:

[link]