Lucids / Monsters: Demonox

So far, when it comes to Lucids, I have mainly talked about the Lucids themselves: people from the material world who have synchronized with the Dream Dimension, a reality born of fantasy.  These people can use their awareness of the Dream Dimension to create their own personal mental realm and (extremely likely case) gain superpowers.  In addition to creating Dream Worlds, people can also subconsciously create other beings to live in those worlds.  These creatures start off as Thoughts, imaginary creatures.  However, when a Thought is either neglected for too long or exposed to a lot of negative emotion, they can easily transform into the many monsters that exist in the Dream Dimension: Nightmares.

I ought to draw more concept art of potential Nightmares, so this week, I drew a breed known as "Demonox".

Demonox is a Nightmare with the body style of a wolf and the size of a bull.  They are very fierce-looking but usually keep to themselves in most cases.  Once they become angry, though, they will charge at whatever foe has maddened them.  Their back bull legs provide the thrust of their charge, while their clawed forearms allow them to easily turn during a charge.

Remember the Nocturne from last week?  I wanted to create the kind of monster whose skull forms his helmet.  I was inspired to make a skull helmet for the Nocturne based off old images of skulls found in the desert.  As a kid, I did not consider that the long-nosed horned skull may have once been a cow; I just thought that was a cool design.  Bugs Bunny even wore a skull like that as a mask once to hide from Elmer Fudd.  By the time I had figured that much out, I had already designed the Nocturne's helmet like a cow skull except with sharp teeth, something cows do not normally possess.  The creature that Nocturne's helmet came from could not really be a straight ox.

Therefore, I had to come up with a creature that would have held that kind of skull.  Even though I was inspired by cow skulls, Nocturne originally was inspired by demon dogs or "hellhounds".  Therefore, I figured the monster should be part dog or wolf.  I walked a similar route I did with Kangolf and just incorporated parts of an ox onto a wolf.  Oxen are usually not known to have thick fur (as far as I can tell), but I added a long beard to Nocturne's face.  That is why I ultimately kept this Nightmare furry.

Really, the Demonox owes its very existence to Nocturne.  In fact, in the world of Lucids, Nocturne is the Lucid that spawned them.

For the record, although the name Demonox may be a meddling of the words "demon" and "ox", I have been pronouncing this as "DEM-oh-noks" (with a short "e" sound), so that it sounds like "demo" and "nox" in one quick breath.