365 Days of Art: Slime

80. Slime

This is number 80, Slime, in the 365 Days of Art challenge and it's a couple of months old, but I'd been putting off finishing it for a while. Yesterday morning I completed though, thankfully! 

Slime is the name of the being in the middle; they are a parasite/symbiote. They take in the nutrients through a parasitic relationship with humanoid beings. There is a lure/decoy is on their back and this can be completely hidden beneath the skin and disguised as clothing. There is a "slime monster" (sometimes known as Slime spawn) to the right, which functions as their external digestive system, is actually a collection of symbiotic organisms. These organisms are provided with nutrients from Slime's parasitic activities and in exchange, they process these biological food and liquid sources. The resulting waste products become from these processes are edible to Slime, which they can then consume. 

With regards to life cycle, Slime lives for an average of twenty to forty years, dependant on the amount of  Slime available and the atmospheric conditions. Slime prefers to reside in temperatures between 0 to 12 degrees centigrade, but can exist comfortably between -5 to 15 degrees centigrade. Slime has no sex and, although they have the capability to reproduce through asexual reproduction, they will only do so if they are nearing the end of their life cycle. This means that only one Slime exists at any one time. 

If Slime's life cycle's ends without having produced a clone offspring, some of the cells of the deceased Slime will remain alive, encased within slime spawn in a dormant state, until optimal environmental conditions return around them. Once this happens, they will then begin to feed on the nutrients from the slime spawn and grow at an accelerated rate.

I may draw a better picture of Slime at some point, because this is a really bad one. I'd just had enough of it already and needed to let go of this for now!