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So this is my final entry for #SpeculativeEvolution 's February 2010 contest Permian Ice Age.

As with anything with a deadline attached I "had" to procrastinate and ended up having to ditch the complex lineart I was doing in favour of a simpler, quicker approach.

Quoting from here with minor corrections for coherence's sake:
_____

The Snow Devil (Nivodaimon phoneokrios, meaning "snow devil, murdering ram") is a early Late Permian burnetiid synapsid therapsid. It reaches 2.5 meters of body length with a 1.5 meters of tail and 1.4 meters at the withers, weighing in at a maximum of 600 kg.

The Snow Devil by virtue of being the only large predator in what is now Australia's Western Plateau isn't easily classifiable as an ambush or a pursuit predator. Such an undefined state of affairs is also helped by its plodding prey. It can do both strategies albeit with little finesse which it compensates with sheer dogged brutality.
Regardless of how a hunt starts, either behind a conveniently placed boulder or out in the open tundra, it usually ends with the Snow Devil body-slamming the herbivore into the ground and applying a killing bite to the neck while the prone animal is trying to get up. That is provided the prey doesn't turn around to face off the predator. The outcome depends on the experience of the adversaries. Old hands will more often than not call their quarry's bluff and wrestle with it. Younger unexperienced predators normally feel they would rather live to hunt another day.
_____

This concept along with the Australian Blockhead will be put on the back burner for the time being while I occupy myself with other stuff.

Wacom tablet on Photoshop 7.0. Resized and *.jpeg compressed in Paintshop Pro 9

Description
So this is my final entry for #SpeculativeEvolution 's February 2010 contest Permian Ice Age.

As with anything with a deadline attached I "had" to procrastinate and ended up having to ditch the complex lineart I was doing in favour of a simpler, quicker approach.

Quoting from here with minor corrections for coherence's sake:
_____

The Snow Devil (Nivodaimon phoneokrios, meaning "snow devil, murdering ram") is a early Late Permian burnetiid synapsid therapsid. It reaches 2.5 meters of body length with a 1.5 meters of tail and 1.4 meters at the withers, weighing in at a maximum of 600 kg.

The Snow Devil by virtue of being the only large predator in what is now Australia's Western Plateau isn't easily classifiable as an ambush or a pursuit predator. Such an undefined state of affairs is also helped by its plodding prey. It can do both strategies albeit with little finesse which it compensates with sheer dogged brutality.
Regardless of how a hunt starts, either behind a conveniently placed boulder or out in the open tundra, it usually ends with the Snow Devil body-slamming the herbivore into the ground and applying a killing bite to the neck while the prone animal is trying to get up. That is provided the prey doesn't turn around to face off the predator. The outcome depends on the experience of the adversaries. Old hands will more often than not call their quarry's bluff and wrestle with it. Younger unexperienced predators normally feel they would rather live to hunt another day.
_____

This concept along with the Australian Blockhead will be put on the back burner for the time being while I occupy myself with other stuff.

Wacom tablet on Photoshop 7.0. Resized and *.jpeg compressed in Paintshop Pro 9