Creature Concept Design - African Folklore - The Nunda ‘Eater of People’

Here is my creature concept design personal project. The creature is inspired by the African folklore, The Nunda - ‘Eater of People’.

The folklore tells of a cat that ate so much that it become large and monstrous on a diet of flesh.
I started the designs in a very realistic style then as the concept developed, I decided to go down a more stylized direction with this design. All work made in Photoshop and Blender.

The Nunda - African Folklore
The cat of Sultan Majnún was unusually fierce. One day it killed a calf, but the Sultan dismissed the event, stating that “the cat is mine, and the calf is also mine”. Then the cat proceeded to kill and eat a goat, then a cow, a donkey, a horse, and a camel, with the good Sultan shrugging each time. “I will not kill it, let it even eat a man”. Sure enough, the cat killed a human child next, and followed up with a man.

By this time the creature had grown large and monstrous on its diet of flesh, and it left the town on its own. It hid in the undergrowth outside city, and feasted on anyone who passed by, human or animal.

Eventually, it would come to pass that Sultan Majnún went out to look at the countryside with six of his sons, whereupon the cat pounced on them and killed three of the sons. It was then that Sultan Majnún finally came to his senses. “That is no longer my cat”, he said firmly. “That is a Nunda, and it will eat even me if I give it the chance”. He sent his soldiers to kill the nunda, but it killed some of them and scattered the rest.