Tim Morris' Art and Project Blog

 Here are the birds, Synapsids and mammals of this odd, seeded world. This is the final entry in this series, I am proud of these concepts, despite the failure of the overall project. - A beaver-like descendant of Kayentatherium, that clambers amongst kelp forests, feeding on the ever-present kelp. A giant, manatee-like descendant of Kayentatherium, which propels itself underwater with a laterally undulating tail. A seal-like descendant of Castorocauda. A sea-lion-like descendant of Castorocauda. A large platypus, that probes the sea-bed in search of worms and other small invertebrates. A streamlined, dugong-like descendant of Thalassocnus, which feeds on sea-grass in temperate waters.   A horse-sized, temperate dwelling Anoplothere, a terrestrial inhabitant of one particular island chain. A dog-sized marine Desman, which swims by sculling its laterally flattened tail. It feeds on various crustaceans and gastropods. A merbenig-like creature descended from Adapiform primates, a...

 Here are the Amphibians and Reptiles, to use antiquated words, of this seeded planet. - A fair-sized, dolphin-like Trematosaur. A Trematosaur that uses its mechanoreceptor-lined snout to forage for prey on the sea-bed. A child-sized saltwater frog that lacks lungs and lives entirely on the seabed in shallow water, a lethargic ambush-predator. A large, streamlined leatherback-turtle, that can swim very fast by turtle standards. An eel-shaped, large descendant of Lialis lizards, which feeds mainly on eels and other elongated fish, in coral reefs. A giant, short-bodied Madstoiid snake that drifts passively in the open ocean, casting a shadow to attract fish and other prey. A mid-sized mosasaur that feeds by dredging the sea-bed, like a gray whale. A large open-water Thalattosaur, with a swordfish-like nose. An enormous, filter-feeding Hupehsuchian that takes the niche of baleen whales. A pig-sized, tail-less Notosuchain herbivore, a terrestrial island-dweller. A penguin-like, flightl...

 In this next part, I will show you the fishes, for want of a better term, of this seeded ill-concieved world. - A small lamprey, that chews with its mouth-disc and tongue, to burrow into the hide of large marine vertebrates, in order to feed. It eventually forms and lives inside a gall-like growth that develops on and under the skin. A giant, streamlined pelagic lamprey, whose mouth is adapted to prey upon small fish and squid. A 3-inch-long pelagic Conodont, that shoals in large swarms, filtering plankton as food with its array of spiny teeth. A large, short-bodied horn-shark, with large cranial horns made of dentine. A large, deep-sea shark that looks vaguely like a plesiosaur, due to its extended gill region. A 10-meter-long deep sea shark, related to dogfish, that feeds entirely on marine invertebrates. A small wobbegong that mimics a frond of kelp in order to ambush prey. A fair-sized, pelagic requiem shark that has a boomerang-shaped head, converging on hammerheads and Diplo...

 Hello again, - I have decided to present the best bits of a huge project that I have worked on for the best part of a decade, and never finished to my satisfaction. The original idea was for an earth-like ocean-covered planet, dominated entirely by creatures of earthly descent that could be thought of as sea monsters. It went through over 3 iterations, one of which became my Demons of the Deep project. It eventually materialized as a large, earth-like water-world, covered by ocean, mostly shallow but also having trenches as deep as on Earth. The idea is that it was terraformed and seeded by time-travelling civilized, god-like aliens, using organisms from the history of Earth's evolution. I tried my best to make as many unique and familiar lineages as I could, filling many niches found on earth, included in this were a few island chains which contained various radiations of Gulliverized, island-rule fauna. Then I started changing the niches and what they contained over and over, an...