Having hooked, serrated teeth is one thing, but these lizards have the teeth of dinosaurs. Theropods, like Tyrannosauridae also have what's called ziphodont teeth but theirs were just enamel and dentine. These serrated teeth were likely what made them and other 'super-carnivores' so successful, and the iron coating of Komodo dragon's teeth makes them exceptionally impressive! (Which is to say scary. These lizards can grow to be up to 10 feet long and 330 pounds with sharp claws and powerful forearms. Nightmare creatures. I love them.) 

While I was searching for reference photos for this design I found another study about Komodo Dragons and their armor-like osteoderms! I've combined both concepts in these two designs, highlighting both their teeth and the chain mail-like osteoderms under their scales. That's right, in addition to basically having saw teeth, they have armor scales! They develop in adult Komodo dragons when they are no longer of a size able to escape other dragons up trees, and instead must fight. The more I learn about them, the more I think these creatures have the most accurate name. That's a freakin' dragon.


Sketch design option A: Silver metal pin with recessed skull, screen-printed eye & osteoderms (headshot)



Sketch design option B: Antique silver metal pin of a 3D skull with printed osteoderms (skull only)

Thank you again for your support of this project!
Starr Vipi

PS: Please vote in the Ancient Cave Cheetahs Pin Style TIE-BREAKER! if you haven't yet, it's so close to tied again 😅

I've been working on this pin design as it's slowly lead the poll results over the weekend. The pin will be added to the campaign on 2/2! You can add this pin to your pledge as a standard enamel pin. Important! Pledging to the Ultimate Collector, Complete Enamel Pin Set (Standard & Deluxe), or Enamel Pin Set tiers WILL INCLUDE THIS PIN AT NO ADDITIONAL COST. In other words, as stretch goal pins are added to the campaign, inclusive tiers will not go up in price but will include more rewards. This is also true for the Complete Sticker Set tier. Each design will have a matching sticker made and the Complete Sticker Set tier will include ALL stickers from the campaign with no change to the pledge tier price. This pricing is EXCLUSIVELY available to Backerkit backers, as without your support these pins would not exist!

The Deluxe Headshot option technically won by 1 vote, but as there were fewer than 40 total it felt too close to call. There is now a second poll up to determine the direction of the pin(s). The variants for these pins will be the same across either option, so this poll is only to determine the composition (Headshot VS Full body Set). 

In 3rd place, our tool using cow, 2nd goes to noisy sharks, and in 1st place we have the iron-toothed Komodo dragon! I'm very excited to draw some lizards, especially these guys! Having hooked, serrated teeth is one thing, but these lizards have the teeth of dinosaurs. Theropods, like Tyrannosauridae also have what's called ziphodont teeth but theirs were just enamel and dentine. These serrated teeth were likely what made them and other 'super-carnivores' so successful, and the iron coating of Komodo dragon's teeth makes them exceptionally impressive! (Which is to say scary. These lizards can grow to be up to 10 feet long and 330 pounds with sharp claws and powerful forearms. Nightmare creatures. I love them.) 

Thank you for your support! 
Starr Vipi

I was really inspired by these pins to do something similar to what I've made in the past with my Schrodinger's Cat pins. These pins were originally made with raised metal and screen print, but for this i wanted to make some with recessed metal details. This effect would allow the radiographic image of the cheetahs skulls and bones to appear 'below' the print of their modern, living likeness for a very cool effect. Since this is your pin, I leave this choice in your hands! Choose from the following possible effect options and vote in the style poll. From there I will make the standard follow-up poll of which sketch you prefer:

1. Deluxe Pin (similar to Harmonic Future Wolf pins in the campaign, these pins have a great amount of fine details, multiple screen print colors, and special effects): Options for variants would have one primary design featuring the cheetahs discovered in the study. Variant options that would be available include: Modern (living) variant (cheetahs appear as they lived), Mummified variant (bones and skulls are represented in recessed metal as they appear in the radiographic images of the study), and the Combination variant (a mix of both, part of the bones are printed over with living decedents, part allows the bones and skull to show through the print)

2. Chained Pin Set (similar to Melanistic Odisha Black Tigers pin set, these pins will feature the full body of the cheetahs, both Asiatic and West-African): These pins will feature screen print in a Modern (living) variant.

3. A combination of BOTH: Deluxe Chained Pin Set. This would include the recessed metal effects and variants of #1 in the full body chained pin set style of #2. The compromise here is that the details in print and recessed metal for this option would not be as precise, due to the pin size staying the same but the animal representation being smaller. This option would have the same variants available as #1 (Modern, Mummified, Combination)

The reason for this separation is ultimately pricing. The Deluxe pin will be priced similarly to Harmonic Future Wolf pins due to the amount of effects. A chained pin set similar to the Odisha Tigers would be the same price as it would be the same level of effects; however, this option will only have one variant as recessed metal effects cost more to produce. The combination of the two would put pricing near the Bat Harmony pin, due to the combination of effects, but would also allow all 3 variants to be produced.






These pin examples are here to illustrate what I mean for the Deluxe version of these pins with the skull and skeleton details in 3D but recessed. This means the enamel fill would leave the pin with an even, flat finished surface (as in the 2nd photo), but show the 3D details below (as in the first). 

Thank you again for your support of this project!
Starr Vipi

Here are the sketched compositions to choose from! 

From my sketchbook to your screen, these pen drawings are for composition purposes, final designs will have additional details and will vary some. Each version of these designs include an Ethiopian Wolf with pollen on their nose to represent the core of the study. 

Thank you for all the voting you've done in these polls so far! The poll for Prehistoric Cave Cheetahs will be up next!