I'm really excited for this art competition, I’ve been looking for something like this to do for a while and this seems perfect.
So the element I picked was water. Not entirely sure what the thought process behind that was but it just seemed like a really fun one to do with all the really cool creatures in the real world to draw inspiration from 
To try and narrow down my scope a bit and give me a bit of direction I did some research on mythical creatures associated with water and I found this really interesting one, the ‘Bunyip’ it’s got a complete variety of descriptions and some are just weird. For example there was a sighting in which the description for it was an ‘enormous starfish’ so I have to pick which sources to draw from but there’s also a nice variety to work with.
Regardless, I’m just using this myth as a starting point for my design and I’m happy if it develops beyond it.
So my slightly refined description of a Bunyip to work from ;
They are amphibious nocturnal animals that live near creeks, swamps and billabongs.
They have a rounded head like a bulldog, or at least a face like a bulldog and a head of a croc / emu. It also has whiskers and tusks like a walrus / seal.
They have a long thick neck with folds a colourful chest and a grey back covered in feathers and a body of a crocodile. When on land it stands on its two short back legs which have feet that are like flippers. And it has two longer front legs with long claws.
They lay pale blue eggs and eat crawfish and small children 
The term ‘Bunyip’ was also used to mean ‘Imposter / Pretender’ which is why I though a spy would be a good fit to its character.
I’m really looking forward to developing this character. First things first I’ve got to go and collect some references! Will hopefully post some thumbnails soon!
