Splatoon Marine Life Character Designs

[technobyte]

Hey guys! So I had an interesting question and I didn't really see a thread for it, but I'm sure everyone is aware of how almost every character in splatoon is based off of a real life aquatic animal species. It's even a core part of the lore! I love how creative, colorful, and unique some of the designs and animal choices are, especially when it comes to the band characters, deep sea metro NPCs, and more. With that I have a couple of questions. What character/animal(s) in the series is/are your favorite? Also, what animals, if any, would you like to appear in the series in some way (band member, shop owner, etc?)

Personally, I love the design of Cipher from Side Order, and apparently it is based off of a family of prawns called Luciferidae. Even the name is really creative with how it sort of pulls from the "cifer" part of the family name.

As for an animal I'd love to see in the series, I'd choose the Blue Glaucus.

I've only recently learned about this animal's existence, but it looks super sick and I'm certain it would have an incredible character design! It'd be great to have as a shop owner so I could get a badge of it if those remain a thing.

Anyway, how about you guys? I'm definitely NOT a marine biologist expert or enthusiast, so I probably won't know half the animals people list. Nonetheless feel free to infodump if there's anything you're passionate about in regards to this subject!

This was pretty long so uh
TL;DR
What is/would be your favorite aquatic animal design in the Splatoon series?

 

[sevenleaf]

i wouldn't call this my favorite because i think the less-humanoid designs are really cool, but i remember feeling validated when the h2whoa music & album art dropped because i have a sapient coral oc with pretty similar design philosophy to cory. i don't really know what my favorite design is though, beyond the blanket statement of "denizens of the deep my beloveds "

my one thing though is that one of the deep sea denizens is a blobfish, but the 'blobfish' we know of is, uh... a rapidly depressurized version of the actual fish. they're of a genus called the psychrolutes, and in their natural habitat they look like this:

i'd love to see a take on them that's more in line with what they look like when they haven't been taken out of their environment. yknow?

 

[Hokuto]

Off the top of my head, I like the faceless sea angels, Garret(?) the Damp Socks drummer, Karen von SashiMori, the Bottom Feeders algae guy. You know, the weird ones. I like when the designers embrace the inherent weirdness of the Splatoon universe. My heart belongs to the sea urchins at the end of the day, though. Gotta love Spyke and Murch, Murasaki, and Kitamura. (Oonie is fine too, I guess.)

I have already put the species I wanted to see in the Splatoon universe into my AU Splatband, so I guess the next thing I want to see is another character who isn't an animal, but is unambiguously alive in an organic body.

 

[OnePotWonder]

My personal favourite design actually goes to the Flipper Flopper; it jumps into the air sideways in order to make its fins and tail resemble a dolphin’s. It’s a very neat detail.

 

[electronvolt]

I watched octonauts as a kid and now that's this thread's problem

There's a siphonophore in splatoon already (in octo expansion iirc), but in terms of what isn't already in the games, snapping shrimp and mantis shrimp are both cool. There's also decorator crabs (decorator crab shopkeeper?), vampire squid, dumbo octopus, spookfish, and various eels (gulper, moray, etc.)

I think as a general rule, the deeper in the sea something lives, the more unique and interesting of a character design it makes, basically because the stuff that lives down there looks wierder.

 

[TRUE NUCKA]

I watched octonauts as a kid and now that's this thread's problem

There's a siphonophore in splatoon already (in octo expansion iirc), but in terms of what isn't already in the games, snapping shrimp and mantis shrimp are both cool. There's also decorator crabs (decorator crab shopkeeper?), vampire squid, dumbo octopus, spookfish, and various eels (gulper, moray, etc.)

I think as a general rule, the deeper in the sea something lives, the more unique and interesting of a character design it makes, basically because the stuff that lives down there looks wierder.

Yesssss as a little kid octonauts was peak entertainment - back when little kids didn't have dumb ****ing iPads. Every British kid would be watching octonauts back in the early 2010s.

 

[QuagSass]

I wanna see a rabbit fish/chimaera monstrosa or just any fish from the chimaeridae family, really. They're such funky looking fish. You could probably make one into a clothing shopkeeper and lean into the fish's patchwork-y markings.

 

[Hokuto]

I can't believe I forgot to mention the only squid I fear, the bigfin squid. A magnapinna Inkling would look like the in-universe equivalent of Slenderman.

 

[Azhdarcho]

I think it would be cool to see an adaptation of a ****-eyed squid like the Strawberry Squid. Maybe they’d wear some kind of techno-monocle. IRL, they have one normal eye adapted to look below them for bioluminescence, and one giant eye adapted to look up at the sun.

Edit: lmao at the auto censor.

 

[briank913]

I actually went to an aquarium in Japan called Marine World Uminonakanomachi where they did a collab with Splatoon. I'll post pictures!