cmkosemen
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Ox-sized giant flightless bats
🕑 Added 2025-11-21 10:59:07 +0000 UTCPerhaps inspired by the Pegasoferae hypothesis, which groups odd-toed ungulates, carnivorans, and bats in a single clade, generous patron M. D. commissioned me to draw giant flightless bats used as beasts of burden in his speculative universe.
We began our efforts with a series of sketches for goat, donkey, or packhorse-sized flightless bats.
I think each creature in this series could have been rendered as a great concept in its own right, but we went ahead one more turn, trying to create a larger beast of burden that was more akin to a water buffalo.
We picked bits and pieces from different iterations, and I built up my final composite.
I drew my fully-rendered line art over this composite illustration.
I also couldn't resist rendering one of the earlier pack-horse bats - that one with the uncanny forward-facing eyes. I imagined that these evolutionary offshoots could have also been domesticated, and used for guard duty in farms.
The scanning, compositing, screen-toning, and colouring of both drawings went forward as usual.
Finally, a composite brought both giant flightless bats together.
Building these concepts bit by bit, is so much fun!
Thank you all for your love, and support on Patreon!
Comments
C. M. Kosemen
Thank you so much once again!
Eleanor
It's so cool to see the whole process of how you made these! The final coloured drawing is brilliant :D
C. M. Kosemen
Thank you so much once again! :)
Michael Drzyzga
M.D. here, the patron who commissioned this one. I in fact had never heard of the Pegasoferae hypothesis, so thanks for that extra detail! It's a fortunate coincidence that it adds an extra layer of plausibility to the designs. My inspiration was some island-dwelling bats that crawl on the ground more than your average bat, and are are they on their way to evolving towards flightlessness? I asked that, and had two thoughts: First, flightless bats sound like they'd likely experience evolutionary pressure to lose their wings. But second, what if at least one lineage instead maintained their wings as a mating display and handicap to advertise its other fitness attributes allow it to compensate for this ornate and disadvantageous display. So peacock tails, but as vestigial bat wings.
