This isn't the sprite for the actual in-game, it's more the pixel art of the beast in a cut scene moments prior to fighting him. He's intended to take up a large chunk of the screen and I'll stick him in the screen size, put the character in front of him, facing him, just for some dramatic size contrast. As for vector art: I wish, at least it wouldn't have taken me an hour and a half to get his shape good to me. [I'll be honest, I sorta cheated and used the fill tool, but I like to think it's fair game] Most of the actual time was spent tweaking individual parts of the lines so I didn't get overly noticeable and nasty jags.
I'll keep looking for things to study texture from, but man oh man have I got high hopes for this beasty.