The kraken appeared to be a one-of-a-kind creature: the descriptions of the eyewitnesses were fairly consistent, telling of a vaguely mermaid-shaped monstrosity with many tentacles, arthropod-like limbs and a fish tail, but not a single creature even remotely matching that decription could be ever found in the sea surrounding Skull Island. Closer examination of the location identified as the battle site yielded strange results. What could be clearly identified were the remains of an absurdly large serpent gurnard, with the only other hint of a larger creature there being a pilot cuttlefish's beak at some distance. These two species are both formidable in size and endemic to the sea near Skull Island, but are usually not associated with each other. The serpent gurnard is an unusually elongated species of sea robin with well-developed walking rays, a bottom feeder often entering the island's submerged caves in search for food. The pilot cuttlefish is an odd cephalopod cooperating with other marine organisms, most often sea turtles or crustaceans, by attaching itself to their backs and aiding with hunting while sharing their food, but also providing mutual protection. Fish are fairly rare partners; it is assumed that the gurnard was blind and the cooperation between the two individuals was more intense than usual, allowing both of them to grow to unusually large size. It is possible that the pilot cuttlefish's size also led to increased intelligence, which could explain the almost actively malicious behaviour the kraken supposedly exhibited; on the other hand, people suffering from the activity of animals will often assign malice to their behaviour when it's nothing but the drive for survival without any moral colouring present. Unfortunately, no other pilot cuttlefish of matching size, let alone cuttlefish/gurnard pairs could be found so far, therefore the kraken's motives will remain in the realm of speculation.

Changelog:
-Reinterpreted the creature as two separate entities rather than one mashup of numerous marine lifeforms, while still keeping the tentacles, legs (in the form of walking rays) and fish tail intact
-less busy design overally

And this is the final one of the redesign series. In retrospect, I kind of regret doing a gurnard rather than a lobster or mantis shrimp, as that would also have pincers involved, but by the time I considered that the drawing was already done.


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