Seahorse

Final project for the Brainstorm Creature Design Flash course taught by Jonathan Kuo. I wanted to work on something in the vein of speculative evolution, so started with the idea of an aquatic horse, and worked backwards to figure out how I could make it plausible.

"Millions of years in the future, Coastal Mustangs are some of the last surviving North American megafauna. They have endured several minor extinction events through their omnivorous diet. Their powerful jaws are perfect for grinding up the tough shells of tidepool mollusks. In the coming eons, they slowly start to take advantage of the abundance of mussels, oysters and scallops found in deeper waters. Their noses develop seals for diving underwater, and their hooves begin to flatten out into paddles. These new Seahorses spend most of their time diving through red kelp forests. While they are agile swimmers, they don't have much in the way of speed, so they rely on camouflage and staying close to the shore, to avoid becoming prey to one of their top predators - the Pacific Lionsquid.