I only mentioned this briefly but my original conception of Octive was going to be a markhor. From the beginning I knew I wanted some sort of massively underused animal and this came up first. Other than being ridiculously shaggy he would have been much more of a proud tall warrior sort instead of a sneaky mischevious little guy. I don't have any old art from when I moved but this was technically before I finalized the green vest. I wanted that detail on this concept though.

In the end I thought it was too obvious going the goat route with a panflute player and given the animal, he always looked a strong but proud sort no matter how I drew him. A few 16-bit games had me thinking of (o)possums and after searching for interesting species there, it took me microseconds to choose sugar glider and he got a lot more mischevious from then on.

Both species are certainly rarely used, I only know of markhors from one metal gear and possiblly only a game or two with sugar glider enemies... if they aren't flying squirrels.