More Designs...

Above: Reptilian Bird design.



Apologies for the silence guys, with the deadlines looming the pressures are beginning to mount and as a result i am trying my best to wap as much crazy, funky, weird and wonderful creatures out as i can!

Above is my take on a reptilian bird creature which dates as far back as the times of the Dinosaurs,its scaly body and beaked face eventually give way to feathers with a long plumage of tail feathers in bright colours which for the males are used to dance and display like those of our peacocks today. The males also have a distinct red throat sack which can be inflated resembling a balloon also used in the 'showing off/display' process.



Above: Rough colour variation.

I also tried a few colour ideas which lead me to consider sub species of this bird, some that have evolved feather colouration's to suit their surroundings such as ice blue, white and grey to assist camouflage in snow environments. I also like the bottom of these four colour options, the deep reds oranges and purple suit the extravagant nature of this creature.



Above: Bat/Snake inspired design

After watching various animal TV shows recently one interesting mechanic was how the skull of a snake operates. With its top and bottom jaws being split in two halves the enables the snake to open its mouth wider and literally walk down its prey using alternate parts of the jaws. i applied this mechanic to this creature design enabling it to snatch larger prey out of the sky and swallow it whole on the move. This creature primarily lives within the shelter of a dense tree cavity or crevices within caves or rock faces enabling the element of surprise when targeting prey. Its sharp clawed fingers and adapted single clawed rear limbs enable it to climb rough surfaces such as tree bark and rock faces with ease.



Above: Gorilla/Lion inspired design.

This design i believe needs a little more work as i am not 100% happy with it. This creature can run at high speeds and take down prey with a devastating bite and brute force. They hunt in packs making it hard for prey to escape unless they are much faster than this creature. They can be spotted within the tree canopy on the edge of the plains or on the plains themselves.

Bradford Animation Festival!

On Wednesday this week I was lucky enough to head out on a 'school' trip to the BAF (Bradford Animation Festival) which was one of the longest days I've ever experienced but also one of the most inspirational!

I attended a series of fascinating lectures from many big names in the industry including;

*David Bennett from Faceware Technologies. (Worked on Avatar, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Polar Express).

*Christine Phelan from Valve. (Dota 2, Team Fortress and Portal 2).

*Jaromir Plachy and Peter Stehlik from Amanita Design. (Botanicular and Machinarium).

*David Brown, Philip Gray and Bill Martin from TT Games. (Lego Franchise)

*Neil Thompson from BioWare. (Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2 and Command and Conquer).

All had uniquely inspiring points and opinions in particular Christine Phelan displayed some creature design sheets and concepts for Star Wars' Rancor which I found similarities between my own work including silhouettes, rough skeletal line work to final bone structures and final concept presentation; from this I can apply these further to my own presentation for my portfolio!

Also Faceware is an interesting piece of software I'd like to attempt to use for one of my creature designs if I get the chance before D-Day! It's is a software package enabling photorealistic facial motion capture, which was very impressive!

Furthermore Amanita Designs approach to games design was linked greatly with being able to interact with everything within the game world specifically discussing their new game Botanicula and even providing a comical value making their game addictive, interesting and so pleasing to the eye with its colourful 'crazily fun' environments. Amanita Designs and BioWare couldn't stress enough the importance of working outside the box, taking inspirations from everything around us not just games but nature and other art forms.

BioWare's Neil Thompson also stressed the importance of being able to draw in the games and entertainment industries, everyone can have ideas but these are useless without the ability to show, design and display those ideas to their full potential!!!

All in all it was a fantastic day and would recommend to everyone with an interest in games and animation to attend next year! I will be!

The Silent Hunter...

This eel creature is one to be feared amongst the corals by all it shares residence with. Lingering in the crevice's of the corals it has mastered the art of stealth becoming within striking distance of its prey before launching itself jaws gaping. Like a snake the left and right upper and lower jaws operate separately enabling them to open sideways as well as upward for a greater surface area furthermore they are lined with razor sharp backward tilting teeth gripping prey, making it harder to escape. Equipped with these impressive deadly jaws this creature is capable of devouring larger prey such as sharks. Its abdomen becomes enlarged after eating larger prey which can take weeks to fully digest but these larger meals suggest longer amounts of time between feeding.

Fully grown adults can reach lengths of up to 25 meters shadowing the vast majority of its locals. It prefers to hunt anytime after the sun sets as its eye sight is at is peak in the darkness, also to assist this its whole body is equipped with tiny sensory glands picking up the slightest electrical fields given off by every living thing, although these are only faint the eels glands have no problem identifying them. This helps it to manoeuvre between the smallest of gaps successfully and most importantly pin point the exact location of its prey, enabling it to become close enough to strike without raising the alarm.

A deadly silent predator.

Progression.

The 'Torpedo Fish'...

Completed design

This week i have created a 'battering ram' or Torpedo Fish, once again developed from silhouette this creature has a solid reinforced head, face and spine a streamlined muscular body and a powerful tail propelling itself forwards into its unsuspecting prey. The solid grains engraved into this solid head structure increases chances of breaking the skin of its prey causing fatal injuries. In the disturbed waters of the islands shoreline it blends, patrolling in wait for its victim, spotting it at a distance it prepares gaining speed and slams the prey unexpectedly causing confusion and sometimes paralysis. After this blow the Torpedo fish can return for a second hit or begin to feed tearing its prey with shark like teeth and bone crunching jaws.

It is not uncommon to see these creatures hunting in groups of up to 8, in which case they almost appear to play with their food before feeding, passing and charging down the prey as part of a team.

These creatures can also bee seen launching themselves from the water in an attempt to remove pilot fish clinging to their bodies or show off to others hence their name, Torpedo Fish.

Progression phase

This design took a little longer that others as i changed my intentions during the development process which i do not believe is a bad thing as a result i believe the design is stronger for it. At the beginning i pictured a small coral fish with a solid beak for breaking off and feeding upon corals. However it was decided that the head looked much more solid and appeared to belong more to that of a predator. From that point the design transformed into a streamlined solid predator.

Progression walk through and creature design...

Werewolf (Halloween special) progression.

As it was Halloween weekend i produced a Werewolf portrait (which i will be creating a body for :p) so i thought I'd show you guys basically how i did it and how my work tends to be unfolding at the moment. A few weeks ago i was introduced to silhouetting out creature shapes, grey scaling in light rendering and finally working in colour using either a 'color' or 'overlay' layer. This so far is working great for me as i am able to figure out light and dark values easier than working out which is the correct colour tone, it is opening my eyes to shapes i 'accidently' stumble upon generating randomised creature silhouette's and most importantly i have discovered this method is a lot quicker!

Good news all round! I strongly recommend using dark silhouettes when trying to discover a new creature design to develop. I also advise flipping the canvas horizontally to view the imagery from both angles helping your eye not to get lazy and spot potential rendering mistakes.

After several kills during the moon lit hours this creature finds itself feeding upon decaying flesh of its victims for days afterwards (if other scavengers haven't beaten him to it) leading to the harbouring of bacteria within the saliva which acts as a poison or venom when delivering a deadly bite to prey. Some can die from what wouldn't usually be considered as a lethal bite due to the harmful levels of bacteria... This creature relies on this to feed its hunger during the day time, replenishing its energy ready for the following nights rampage.

Wolf by day, crazed Werewolf by night... All creatures fear the Werewolf. 

Crowned Ray creature design.

Continuing with the silhouette method i; Selected, Developed and Finalised another creature design. Based around a Manta Ray and a Cat Fish with a head piece twist i named this guy the Crowned Ray... 

However this 'crown' is not just to look good and flash around at potential female mates, it is used to blend within its environment; a dense coral bed filled with a wide range of corals and sea plants, the Crowned Ray buries itself under a layer of sand between these corals and plants assisting this predators camouflage. The 'crown' fully erects and sways in the sea current and also has the ability to change colours to attract prey. The dorsal fin also sways in the currents but this has a primary purpose; to pick up on movements in the waters nearby. Filled with sensory pours the Crowned Ray can identify predator and prey movements nearby and also changes in water current. Its long tail houses a fin for extra speed and agility but also comes to a stinging point; its only defence against predators. Its 4 barbs mounted on its head and those mounted on its anal fins assist locating creatures below the surface of the sand and also help detect movements nearby. The colouration of both the males and females are similar, variations in colour patterns can be seen but these are entirely random, the blue, green and yellow hues and the black pin striping help in blend with the natural colours and shadows which occur in shallow sea waters. During the mating seasons males flush their crowns with colours of the reef to attract females.

Selected shape of interest from rough silhouettes (Bottom image).

Detailing from rough silhouette selection.

Selection, development, Finalise.

Above shows the entire process i am working to at them moment.

Rough silhouettes - 5-20minutes each max.

Silhouette detailing - 1 hour max.

Rendering, detailing and colouring - 2-4 hours max.

Working roughly to a time frame will help me speed up and produce more in less time.

MUST CONTINUE!

Have a Spooktacular Halloween!

Heres a Halloween treat for you all. A blood thirsty Werewolf with a deadly bite!

More Silhouettes!

Above: Further development from the previous silhouette blog post

After selecting one of the five previous insect silhouettes i chose one to develop a little further; adding rendering using grey scale, detailing specifically the head as i wanted that to be my focal point and finally using a separate 'color layer' to apply colour similar to an overlay however 'color' only applies colour to visibly drawn areas hiding messy bits! This was completed in a few hours at most, but further detailing could be applied if it was chosen as a final concept.

Above 2 images: More creature idea generation using the silhouette technique.

I am enjoying using the silhouette technique as it produces shapes and ideas i hadn't necessarily considered before. Some my not make it further than this but the creation of such diverse ideas is great when i need to churn out designs quickly; at the moment in preparation for my Book but in future to show ideas to potential clients. This saves time but produces more, i spent roughly an hour on each page.

In terms of these assisting my book and 'the undiscovered creatures of a forgotten island' concept, these silhouettes are great as a 'get the basic shape down' and detail later, as if i am churning these out as i see the creature, quickly documenting silhouettes before observing detailing and its habitat.