Mindslug

I was able to steal a few hours here and there this week to work on another illustration for Kerkerkruip, the mindslug. This giant slug wins not only for its bulk, but also for its psychic/psionic/telepathic abilities. Most notably, it can exert its titanic will over other sentient creatures, turning them into pliant mind-slaves. When we meet it in the game, the mindslug is defended by two such zombis, in the persons of a pair of famous heroes of the sword & sorcery genre.

That’s fun, but I did struggle for a while to figure out how best to portray a psychedelic slug. My initial idea was to borrow the iconic trait of the mind flayer and show the slug rearing up to reveal a ring of squid-like tentacles around its mouth. Cute, I guess, but physiologically nonsensical–the connection between the tentacles and psychic powers is nil, and anyway a slug’s mouth is on the underside of its head where the tentacles would be utterly superfluous.

Later, I thought of the baroque defensive plumes and wild color found on many of the nudibranches (often referred to as sea-slugs). I was especially drawn to the flaming neons of this specimen: