Revisiting Core

I'm toying around with the idea of revamping my old war-fae, Core... As characters go, he's a pretty interesting one, but his design is in a definite rut. Currently, this is what he looks like:

I dreamt him up back in freshman year, and it kinda shows. While there are parts of the design that I do like--the multiple eyes, the lil' hands--he's just too... pretty. War's an ugly thing. It's chaotic and violent and messy. With that in mind, I started playing around with some new ideations for him:

You'll notice hints of centipede and AK-47 in there. I'm hoping to get over my revulsion of the centipedes enough that I can look at them for more than a few seconds in order to get a better reference.  Stay tuned as I try to wrestle Core's design into submission.