Low Poly 3D Modeling

Leviathan, by Tetsuya Nomura.

For the next half of the semester, I'll be working on this project for my 3D modeling class. A low polygon character model, a technique often used in games. This time the theme is "Fantasy, Sci Fi, and Medieval Characters" (Oh YEAH! Uh huh, uh huh ♪)

I went with the fantasy theme, and my model of choice is Final Fantasy VIII's serpentine Guardian Force, Leviathan. I was very tempted in choosing FF XIII's fire esper, Ifrit, for the convenient front-side view model sheet that was already available on google, but I was never a big fan of efreets so I went with Leviathan. Besides, I think modeling a serpent would be a nice change.

I've started working on the modeling but unfortunately it looks absolutely nothing like Tetsuya Nomura's design above. Have I put too much on my plate? Was it a bad choice? Should I have picked Ifrit instead? *stress level rising* @_@

Interestingly there were only a few who chose animal-like creatures. The FFXIII's Ifrit was later picked by another classmate. Then there was one who'll be doing an armored Chocobo from FFXI Online. One more was a 4 legged western dragon. The others generally picked stuff from Halo, Persona, World of Warcraft, Aion, or some other humanoid online game characters.

I really want to pull this one off, but I'm having trouble getting Leviathan's anatomy correct.
Owwww, wish me luck (>0<)/