Jackpot!

Looking around for Monster Hunter artwork (the monsters in it are pretty cool looking and I'm a massive fan of it myself. Bring out 2G Capcom!) I found loads of scans of Frontier! Artwork is pretty hard to find for these games and I found quite the treasure trove.

There are even some alternative designs for the Kirin (as it's spelt in the game) in MH. The design for the Kirin here stems from it's eastern origins, the unicorn influence and the quote "its hooves rarely touch the earth, for it dwells amongst the clouds and behind the winds". Hence the Kirin here is of the Lightning/Wind element.

What Capcom have done is similar to what I'm trying to achieve - taking a mythological creature (the Ki-Rin), mixing it up with others (the unicorn) and creating a creature that has obvious references to it's development (the unicorn's horn, for example) and creating something original. The Kirin here is actually scaled and quite dragon-like - I shall try to get some PSP screenshots to better show what I mean.