Marine Biology: concepts (Patreon)

As promised, the concepts for the new underwater story.

Starting with the critter: The monster is a 6 legged (armed?) squid type monster, inspired by the Alien version of a trilobite, but actually it turned out a bit different. I'm thinking it's called a hexapod/hexapus, for obvious reasons. The main body of a typical adult is ~50cm in length, with tentacles of ~2.5/3 meters. The critter is a slightly translucent blue, and blends in very well in its environment. 

They are among the more intelligent creatures on this planet, definitely smarter than spiders. As predators, they have been observed to toy with their food and hunt for sport (catching and torturing their prey and then not consuming it), and are considered evil by some. Better stay away from them.

The hexapod lays eggs in clusters by means of an ovipositor located just above the mouth (A-C). The ends of the tentacles secrete a sticky substance it uses to encapsulate egg clusters. The slime can be spun into string, normally used to anchor the egg clusters to the sea bed (D).

Main character: Elizabeth, a scientist (you can tell by the glasses) in the field of drug discovery. She has dark hair and blue eyes and clearly works out, somewhere in her twenties. She is employed by the same (still nameless) company as the others, just a different department. She specializes in these hexapods and their eggs. The eggs are filled with a fluid that has remarkable healing properties and Elizabeth (Liz?) is looking into ways of synthesizing a new type of medicine based on it. She needs a new batch of eggs for her experiments, and this is where the story starts.  

She's not a fighter, the knife she carries she uses for cutting free eggs, not for stabbing things. She has the legs of a swimmer and is pretty fit so I'm sure she can defend herself if necessary. 

The helmet is a rebreather, so she can stay underwater indefinitely without running out of air (combination of future tech and water with a high oxygen content). Integrated sensors identify which eggs are optimal for her experiments. So she steals only the ones she really needs, she's considerate like that.  

She uses a little scuba scooter (is that what they are called?) to travel around underwater. She has an actual boat on the surface close by.

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I've never done an underwater story before, I hope it will turn out ok. I'm planning to tell this story over ~15-20 images in the next few months. I have the sequence planned out mostly, but since it's all sketches now, things can always change.