Contest Entry: Bartos

I finally submitted something after how many months. Well, it's Christmas holiday, and I wanted to submit my contest entry for .

This is my first tablet artwork ever, and it was really fun trying to emulate my original style using a tablet. Well it certainly cuts time for scanning!

For my entry, I created Bartos. I was inspired after seeing early gundpowder weapons, but more specifically the Huge Ottoman Cannons and the Tsar Bomba. The Ottoman Giant Bombards were so damn powerful, I just had to convert the concept to kaiju form.

As much as I enjoyed it, there's plenty of studd I need to improve on, ground texture for one, as well as lighting direction and giving an appropriate sense of "power", I originally wanted a "rumble effect" but the deadline was approaching so, I had to abandon it.

I also wanted to design a kaiju with throat pleats! They look cool on whales, so I wanted to convert them for a land kaiju.

Hope you enjoy! WARNING: HUGE BIO AHEAD. Way, Way, bigger than the Tarrun kaiju files I had to read for reasearch.
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Bartos

Type: Unknown

Alignment: Neutral

Gender: Male

Size: 74 ft.

Weight: 334 tons

Natural Habitat: Most areas, but usually forests (temperate
and tropical), scrubland, desert and lower-altitude mountains.

Biography: Bartos is a slow, lumbering beast found mostly in the western regions of Tarrun. His personality is slothful and lazy, never travelling much from a single area unless an adequate supply of food is present. He plods wherever he pleases, be it mountains, deserts or forests, as long as there is large prey to be found or mana to be absorbed, he will always be there. An ambush hunter, he waits hours or even days to strike at prey, and not much escapes his wide and massive jaws. Reclusive, he tends to avoid engagements, be them human or kaiju alike, hence why he never usually approaches places like the great city of Allinos up North nor Kalmar down south, or even Delenthe and Tamurr in between.

More nuisance than anything else, he is neither Destructive nor Protective, whatever he does is mostly just for himself and his own self benefit. While he mostly avoids contact with people, the times where he does incur their wrath is usually by barging into facilities or mines rich in mana, depriving people of a power source, jobs and cutting into corporate profits.

Bartos is equipped with huge powerful jaws that reveal an enormous moth with surprisingly small teeth. Its huge head and jaws are supported by a strong neck and large, muscular arms that splayed out like the roots of a tree. Short yet powerful hind legs provides stability, accompanied with a short, but incredibly dense tail that acts like a counter balance to its enormous head. Bartos also has large pleats under its mouth and throat and a large, stretchy underbelly that’s also tough in order to withstand great stress.

The physical features of Bartos were adapted for one thing and one thing only. They were meant to cope with his ability to expel enormous energy bombs at enemies, hence his nickname “The Bombardier”. A master of mana manipulation, he generates large quantities of mana when engaged in battle, moreso than most kaijjus. Aside from grabbing and holding large prey, his huge head provides storage for the huge energy bombs that it shoots of its mouth. The pleats act as additional storage, to further help accumulate energy for even more massive and powerful bombs. Its huge forearms act as stability platforms to handle the drawback of releasing such large amounts of energy. Because its hind legs and dense tail are low to the ground, they provide even more stability to Bartos.

Bartos is a static creature, never spending too much time travelling from place to place unless mana is to be found. This, his reclusive nature along with his role as an ambush predator is all to conserve as much mana as possible for when he absolutely needs to use it. He collects mana mostly by eating prey, and prey could mean anything, even machines. He can further absorb mana further from the environment, but since all life requires it and deprives him of a hunting ground, it is always a last resort.

When fighting, Bartos immediate priority is to keep distance from his opponents. A tactical bruiser, he’d rather use the environment around him to provide leverage than waste energy. When attacked, he first resorts to blowing huge gusts of air that he uses his stretchy pleats and underbelly to push out after inhaling. These “Wind Blasts” are powerful enough to create small sandstorms or throw trees and leaves to the air to blind the opponent. If the opponent is persistent however, he would fire small bombs at several directions to create a sense of panic. He can also use these “mini-bombs” to destroy sections of the environment (target mountains to create rockslides, bodies of water to create waves. etc) to create obstacles and distractions to provide opportunities of escape. But when there is no possible alternative, he unleashes much more powerful attacks. His blue- colored “Energy Bombs” are fast and can cause devastating impact to kaiju and surroundings, and are the standard attacks that he uses in clashes. Smaller “Cluster Bombs” are used to hit enemies at all angles via their blast radius.

When the opponent is especially powerful however, he will use his two most powerful attacks as a last resort. The “Sun Smasher” (pictured above) is an orange-yellow version of the Energy Bomb that is essentially, a mana bomb that grows in size the further the distance. The potential of the “Sun Smasher” is unknown, but when reached a certain size is reached, it can have blast radius that extends for miles. The other attack is the “Thunder Lance” essentially a white mana energy ray that goes in one singular direction with its only intention being to destroy the target. In melee he will use his massive arms as a means to swat enemies away or throw them away to provide distance for his energy attacks. He will always try to protect his pleats and belly, as they are critical for his energy attacks, and thus uses his armored head, back and thick arms as shields. Being slow and ponderous, running is not an option, and he is at a grave disadvantage against those more adept up close and personal.
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All in all I hope this does well, 's kaijuverse is incredibly well thought out, unique and fresh take on the concept of kaijus! I'm surprised their not in the HUGE size levels that are typically associaited with kaijus, so to use smaller sizes, and yet make them significat in the overall universe is worthy of praise. I tried my best to make his abilities in character with the overall atmosphere of Tarrun. "Mana" plays a big part. There's already a "Mana Vampire", so I wanted to try on the concpet of a creature that excells in fighting at a distance while using mana attacks.