K'ell Hunter - The Malazan Books of the Fallen, personal project WIP
The K'Chain Che'Malle are a race of adaptive reptiles that existed long before humans in the Malazan world. The first of their breed we meet are the K'ell Hunters, the Matrons first born.
Steven Erikson's creations, when described outside of the context of the books sound silly. They sound like dinosaurs with swords for arms. Unfortunately this has resulted in a lot of artist who have not read the series being given a very simplified idea of them by art directer, in tern leaving the fans confused as to the artistic decisions made.
I wanted to try my own hand at it, and get as close as I could to the descriptions in the books as I could.
Having not drawn on a computer much for a year, my first two attempts were.....shaky.
The first used an Allosaurus as the staring point. It needed to be lighter, but still with some strength in the arms. I used horse armour as a starting reference.
I had my D&D game coming up so I needed a token for Roll20 fast. Felt it needed more work, the legs needed to have more bulk at the thie.
The bottom design as rather rough, and I wanted to move away from the dinosaur visuals. I tried a more snake like head, but fans felt it lacked the intelligence needed for the K'ell.
For the top design I ended up using a Therapsid bone structure.
With the new Therapsid head I had a visual form that stood out from the dinosaur with sword designs of other artists. The legs based on raptors were fast but still strong and the blades feel in proportion to the body.
"across the shoulders, on the chest to either side of the jutting sternum, and high on the hips. Skull-cap helmets, low and long, protected head and nape, with sweeping cheek-guards meeting over the snout to join and bend sharply" Memories of Ice
Based on feedback from fans I had this rough armour shape which fit with the descriptions given in the books. I added the tail armour however as there was too much weight at the front the the K'ell.
The K'ell is described as having a pale belly like a snake, which I took as liberty to expand to the whole creature, moving further away from dinosaur references. My chicken Nelly was able to supply me with some nice close ups of her legs!
"Huge black-pocked iron swords slid into the light. The blades were fused to the creatures' wrists - no hands were visible - and Gruntle knew that a single blow from one of those swords could cut through a man's thigh effortlessly."
I'm still not happy with the armour. The K'Chain are not inventive in some regards (never invented shields or battlefield tactics), but are advanced, yet need to feel ancient. This creates a lot of challenges when designing their amour.
Fans went with the more High Tech influence armour, as it also combined the more fluid nature required of K'Chain armour (read the books). Some of the armour is described as intricate so I'd like to include some patterns of the plates.
This is an unfinished interpretation of the undead form of the K'Chain Hunters we see in Memories of Ice.