The Lakeshore Monster

This is my entry for the Lakeshore Monster Contest.

My inspiration was a couple of "character building" (ie. Traumatic) childhood experiences. One was coming within a few inches of being bitten by a water moccasin while fishing. It apparently objected to me stealing it's fish. The other was having an alligator gar swim up and take a look at me while canoeing. For those who don't know what an alligator gar is, its a extremely large fish (topping out at about 17 ft, roughly 4 meters) native to Southern North American rivers and swamps that looks like the demonic love child of an alligator and a moray eel.

As usual for me, this one is a mix of pencil drawing with
digital color and and a little tweaking.

[edit]:
Just realized that I forgot to thank Paranoid Freak [link]
and Rowan Eagle [link] for the two reference photos I used to get a bead on the mechanics of crab legs and octopus eyes.
I didn't trace or directly use any portion of the two photos, but they were extremely useful for pinning down a plausible design. Thanks to both, and sorry about the delay!