2D - Bringing Pauldron back (I lied about being done)

Okay so in the end of one of these posts i said that i took away the pauldron because i couldnt make it work, well i put in the time TO make it work, because i really want it in.

And thus this is born; 

So originally i was going to can the pauldron, until i was staring at some league of legends poster work (some real good stuff there) and was looking at the face of a rocket launcher called 'fishbone' that Jinx uses, and i couldnt help thinking "wow, thats kinda what i want the pauldron to be" and so began my development journey.

Using the head as a template i started painting over it to get a feel for the way it worked, and then started going off in my own direction with it, less shark head and more demon mouth. doing so gave me quite a few good ideas, but its only when i dug up some of my older designs from earlier on that i got my final piece. 

Originally i created this alien looking thing, using segmented plates, i liked the idea of the demons looking very alien to the world, like they didnt belong. but i still needed this element of ferociousness, so i combined the two and split them between the top and bottom jaw. 

The idea being that this sits on the characters severed shoulder, and opens up when the demon arm forms, giving quite a dramatic display to the whole thing. Though i am rethinking the colours (the top is meant to be a golden or decadent sort of thing, while the bottom is rusting away but i much prefer a blackened steel and silver trimming sort of deal - like im doing for the final design). But anway, i really like the finished design because it provides a real interesting motif, with some duality thrown in there, and its something that you can understand how it would move and be attatched to the arm (the belt dummy). Just goes to show that you should never scrap something forever, it might some day be useful.