April 4 - Coconut Crab

"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine - it is stranger than we can imagine."

~ J.B.S. Haldane

It came out of the surf at dawn, not fast - not slow, just moving. Click-click. Pause. Click-click. 

A big bastard, with a shell like rusted armor, and it moved like it had nothing to prove and yet all the time to prove it.

That was a bad sign.

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Coconut crab are those massive blue land crabs from tropical Indo-Pacific islands.  They can grow to monstrous sizes - and they look as prehistoric as anything still allowed to exist.  

I had in mind the lobstrosities attacking Roland while writing this (The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King), so this is tribute in part to that as well.  Ka is a wheel.  

This design itself comes from Isopresso's members channel.  It's "technically" missing 2 legs since crabs are decapods - but more limbs here would have been more chaos.  Most reference images make coconut crabs look less crab and more like a scrunchy ball of crab parts.

(view other crabs)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

• April 4 - Coconut Crab
• April 3 - Hermit Crab
• April 2 - Crab
• April 1 - Crab Speedrun
• March 23 - Toucan
• March 21 - T-Rex
• March 20 - Iso Shrimp
• March 18 - Pumpkinhead
• March 17 - Scarecrow
• March 16 - Iso Penguins #2
• March 15 - Iso Camel
• March 11 - Iso Ducky
• March 10 - Iso Cream
• March 8 - Iso Octopi
• March 7 - Iso Vulture
• March 2 - Sunflowers
• February 24 - Arachne
• February 22 - Iso Penguins
• February 21 - Flamangos
• February 20 - Iso Walrus
• February 19 - Hermit the Crab
• February 18 - Bee Proud
• February 16 - Iso Piranha
• February 11 - Iso Snail
• February 10 - Iso Gorilla