Mechanoid Armadillos

A mother Mechanoid Armadillo led her waddling brood across the intensely hot desert floor, pausing to check their progress every so often. The young were more spherical in shape than their mother- the typical Mechanoid Armadillo only "bottomed out" (as it had been termed by scientists) once they reached middle age.
One of the juveniles stopped to graze, and its mother frowned until it moved on. The young were feeding on solids, and would not be fully weaned onto their adult liquid diet of ethanol for several months. Ethanol pumps were few and far between, and staffed at often irregular and unpredictable hours. Mechanoid Armadillos told campfire horror stories of a desperately empty armadillo, that with sheer relief chanced upon an ethanol station in the desert, only to find it closed because of a public holiday. The armadillo expired on the spot; whether from frustration or starvation, it was uncertain.
With this in mind, now and then the mother armadillo would cast her eye towards her fuel gauge, reassuring herself that she had plenty in reserve before shuffling off again.

Acrylic and a smudge of pastel on illustration board; 15.5 x 35 cm.

This was just supposed to be a small, quick painting done on a scrap of board left over from larger works. But the plates of the mother armadillo gave me so much strife that this work ended up being far more touble than it was worth.