Kaiju King the Flesh God

Complying with Melalo’s wishes for a wife to be created for Tculo so that he’d stop flirting with Lilyi, and in a determined effort to produce a “proper” god child, the Locolichi king made preparations for the creation of a new child once again. The king once again asked Melalo for advice on what to do with queen Ana’s egg that had been artificially fertilized with his own gametes, although the directions given have been lost to time much like the king’s name.

The advice of course didn’t work and the resulting guardian was another disease creator.

The latest monstrosity was named Tcaridyi, and was a disgusting yet elegant purple caterpillar worm with a retractable fanged maw and many brittle hairs.

Brachydios skull made using neoceratosaurs as reference. The reason for the texture is because his entire face is a keratin sheath. It might look like he’s got a big brain but really he’s just built to withstand slamming his face into the ground, but that isn’t to say brachy isn’t smarter than your average brute.

It also looks like he’s got big fenestra, but there actually isn’t that much room for muscles in there. The angle is deceiving. Brachy really doesn’t have that strong a bite in comparison to other brutes, not that he really needs it when he can beat the shit out of prey. Although his lack of a good bite are probably compensated by his finger claws and pounders, which can hypothetically cut pieces of meat and crush bone in place of jaws.

Brachy also has black teeth, but the reason for it isn’t known. It could be anything from symbiotic bacteria living there or a result of the compound his tongue secretes to excite his symbiotic slime mold (which isn’t a fungus believe it or not).

Brachy also has a blue shell, which is likely from biomineralization.

I made that original skull nearly 2 years ago, so it was time for an update.

This one I made using reference pics of the new world species @dala-siaka gave me. Interestingly, the new world species has blue teeth, so the different colored teeth might not be from bacteria like I initially thought but instead from biomineralization. And brachy probably does have a strong bite.

Brachy’s skull is so warped that I’m not even sure I even got every ceratosaur bone, but here’s a sketch showing off some of the individual bones.

@iamthekaijuking

I've had a similar idea for Bulborbs being gastropods, my take on them is that they are descended from a form of secondarily-terrestrial sea slug that internalized its shell and evolved a pair of swimming fins during an aquatic intermediate. Over time, the internal shell became segmented and became similar to a pseudo-vertebrate skeleton, with one segment becoming part of the head as an "upper jaw" to hinge with a modified radula as the "lower jaw", while other segments migrated to the fins, forming jointed "legs" when it returned to a terrestrial lifestyle. In the eusocial Empress Bulblax, these legs are more or less atrophied, as well as being undeveloped in the early-stage Bulborb Larva.

Blowhogs as macro-tardigrades fits too well (they are after all just a few inches long but massive for a normally microscopic tardigrade) though they would probably keep the eight legs.

Dweevils most resemble harvestmen, but with only six limbs they don't look like arachnids. They're probably insects, and the four eyes are two compound eyes and two enlarged ocelli.

Snagrets are most certainly birds: likely a descendant of cormorants and other diving birds that developed fused legs much like a seal's fluke as they became increasingly aquatic and flightless. However, at some point, they returned to land, and adopted a burrowing ambush predator role, losing their vestigal wings and developing scale-like scutes from modified feathers as protection against the abrasion of soil and sand, though more typical feathers are retained on the head as display.

Pikmin themselves are as anon suggested quite sensible as an insect parasitized by a Cordyceps-like plant. But instead, it's a mutualistic partnership as opposed to a parasitic one (which may have been the case for the initial ancestral forms), so much so that the two have long co-evolved like with eukaryotes arising from ingesting smaller microbes that since became chloroplasts and mitochondria.

The insect in question is likely a eusocial hymemopteran, as the Winged Pikmin display transparent bee-like wings and are probably a basal form that other types which are more derived have since lost. The symbiont plant has taken over the insect's body, with a stem emerging from the head that produces food via photosynthesis and rootlets growing through the limbs that allow for the absorption of moisture and sugary nectar for nourishment. The insect itself has thus become very simplified, losing its mouthparts like mayflies and moths, but being sustained by the plant instead of dying after a few days, and the resulting appendages becoming specialized in different species: the Red Pikmin develop a sharp proboscis used for attacking enemies, the Yellow Pikmin modify their antennae into "ears" that act as gliding surfaces, and the Blue Pikmin repurpose their oral cavity and digestive tract into a makeshift gill for underwater respiration. Rock Pikmin deposit minerals into their hardened outer exoskeleton, making them very sturdy.

The Onion is a motile triradially-symmetrical plant that may be related to the Quaggled Mireclops. Similar to a fig, it bears fruit and flowers that bloom inside the outer bulb, with the Pikmin taking a role akin to fig wasps in aiding its pollination. Somewhere in its evolution, the plant's seeds began parasitizing its resident pollinators as a means to spread, but over time it became a mutualistic relation now with neither plant nor insect able to survive without the other. The life cycle thus takes place with the all-female insects laying eggs within the bulb, which hatch into larvae. The larvae are fed with food the adult Pikmin carry back to the Onion, but at the same time, they are implanted by the Onion's seeds. Once the seed begins to grow in the larva, it then pupates, is ejected from the Onion, and plants into the ground, and the pupa is the sprouts that the captains pull out of the soil to emerge as an adult Pikmin. Most of them spend their entire life as a motile insect-plant composite, but from time to time, given proper pheromone and hormonal signals, specialized Pikmin eventually have their plant component absorb the insect component which dies in the process, allowing it to metamorphose into a new Onion and start a new colony elsewhere.

The Hocotatians are likely bona fide aliens, given their inability to breathe oxygen. I picture them more as fuzzy tiny koala-esque creatures because that's the vibe I get from their character design. The "rescue pups" are likely aliens as well, though probably from a different planet than Hocotatians as they can breathe oxygen just fine, and here they have a more jerboa-eque build that better fits them being bipeds. Their good sense of smell, but lack of a visible nose, could suggest that what appear to be "ears" are in fact olfactory antennae capable of picking up scents in the air or on surfaces.

Sorry I don’t know how to censor the pikmin 4 spoilers in a reblog

Anyways I love these!

Dweevils definitely seem like weird insects and in hindsight Blowhogs being tardigrades fits way better. Tusked is probably just a pig convergently evolving to be like them.

Your explanation for Snagrets makes sense, although I wonder if a seal like body plan might not be possible since birds don’t have flexible torsos and swimming birds always use their wings for propulsion.

I don’t know if snail shells could become spines for Bulborbs since they’re a spiraled protection for internal organs, and in order for them to straighten out a snail would need to evolve to not have its insides twisted 360 degrees and upside down, and even then it would probably be more of a cone and not a slab like a cuttlebone. I know nudibranchs evolved out of torsion, but they don’t have shells. I think that might be something to consult with a gastropod expert.

Your pikmin though are excellent and I always love insectoid redesigns for them! I think ants could be a good ancestor given how vicious both are. And ants already don’t like sharing the ant niche with anybody (except maybe termites, but even then they try not to get in each other’s way) and I doubt they’d ever go extinct.

Me suggesting the various aliens are actually descended from humans was more me spitballing a theory. Even if they could genetically engineer themselves to breathe a different atmosphere, them not breathing oxygen is a pretty big snag in that theory. I just like it since it’s more poetic. Them actually being aliens is a lot more likely.

Oatchi not having a nose I’m not sure if that’s intentional or not since pikmin is so stylized and cartoony.

Anyways I love these!