Design process-

Upon request here's a follow-up detailing the separate sources I drew from for the different components! I'll say, big credits to the DM, Awkwardos, who was supplying me with prompts and various ideas for the direction of this design, and giving me feedback on what to add, etc - so one big word of advice for designing of any nature is; get a second pair of eyes! Even just someone to bounce ideas back and forth with can go a long way to help in the designing process.
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Step 1: The base idea started with the desire to design a "lizard mount", and I knew I've always been charmed with the body-shape of monitor-lizard types - so I wanted to base the general vibes off of that (but felt the need to refit it to make it a bit more capable of easy mobility = less squat, sadly) And we're working in a game where magic is present and weird biology is not uncommon, so to add a bit of weirdness, I kept a rendition of the Rainworld "lizards" on the side, I wanted to work with spines to add a bit of detail to the silhouette after all!

Step 2: Could be considered part of the general coloring stage, but i started with this because the character, whose mount this is, also has a funky blue detailing to their body (lore related), so I knew I wanted the blue insides to be a core feature to the design, and the rest needed to work nicely alongside that feature.

Step 3: General coloring; couldve gone so many different ways - might've even gone for muted beige tones to really contrast with the blue detailing, but making the blue match more nicely with the main color scheme ended up being the definite pick - The creature was found in a dense forest / jungle type environment, and while the origins of the creature was technically flexible, it still felt like a nice fit to keep the colors vibrant, to make it fit to the environment it was found in.

Step 4: Patterning! Looking at dino designs was def smth I wouldn't have thought of without the help of Awk, and it helped me get a sense for how to balance the patterns to the 2 thoughts I wanted to adhere to: it should look natural & fun // And // needs to be somewhat easy to replicate. (With it being a design for a dnd game, chances are I'll be drawing this creature repeatedly, and while i don't often color my dnd sketches, i don't want to add extra hurdles that make me avoid the coloring stage even more, lmao )
So I made sure to draw out a pattern I feel I can vaguely replicate without too much effort; Keeping the pattern shapes large, and some use of gradients to add the feeling of complexity without needing too much work to execute it.

Step 5: I wasn't fully satisfied with the general look of the creature yet! The kind of face shape and toothy mouth is a combo I've drawn //a lot// when it comes to random creature sketches, so I knew it's decidely in my comfort zone. But it's also a bit "too simple" to me at this point and is lacking a bit of personality. I needed smth extra - tried fancy horns, tried nose horn, but with the body and spines being drawn to look a bit soft and fleshy-like, I realized simply leaning into the tendril-feel further is the way to go.
So to add a bit more character to the design, the funky nose tendrils have been added!