EOW 162 :: EOW/COW Crossover - Bridge the Gap

[Si_Swe]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/images/EOW.jpg


COW/EOW CROSSOVER :: Bridge the Gap


BRIEF:


COW/EOW CROSSOVER!

Bridging the Gap


The hive mind. Cooperation. Existence as a singular unit. Seamless collaborative measures for the survival of the colony. Whoever designed our universe was a curiously efficient architect when it came to strange science and the natural instincts of creatures - forming bridges, for one, is a sight to see and an extraordinary “concept" if you will.


COW REQUIREMENTS & GUIDELINES:

Your challenge this week is to design a bridge forming creature that’s able to work together with it’s many relatives to overcome obstacles, a task no single creature of this select species could accomplish by itself. Think about reasons why the creature would need to build these gestalt bridges. Focus on the anatomy of the creature. Your creature should clearly portray a member of this species, rather than illustrate its bridge-building technique, which is what the Environment section of this challenge is for. However, the environment you have in mind will drastically affect the design of your creature, and how it has evolved to become a competent bridge builder.


EOW REQUIREMENTS & GUIDELINES:

Your challenge this week to design an environment depicting how this collective effort of bridge construction goes down. There’s a slight dilemma with the crossover aspect of the theme because technically your environment should show the creatures building the bridge. No creatures, no bridge, right? There’s also an additional option in this case: You may collaborate with an artist from the COW contest and use their creatures in your environment.


NOTE:
You’re NOT required to participate in both activities but you’re encouraged to if you’d like to design your creature and the environment it lives in as well.

The Creature of the Week thread for this round can be found here:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3089096#post3089096

NOTE:
You’re NOT required to participate in both activities but you’re encouraged to if you’d like to design your creature and the environment it lives in as well.

Due: April 20th, 2011 9:00pm PST (GMT -8 )

Special Thanks to Vulgar' and dragon4lunch.

[skoenig]

Exciting!!! I already have a fun idea, can't wait to start :)

[Choob]

Awesome theme, internet high-five to the disturbed minds behind this one. ;)

[DmnSpawn]

I have my thumb of my 1st Enviro Done in PS cs5, very happy with it. I have an idea of my critter but nothing on paper or otherwise yet.
But I must get my butt to work so It will have to wait for now.
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/097/4/a/cow_209_enviro_side_by_dmnspawn-d3dfpoy.jpg

[DmnSpawn]

Update! Base colors added, I also have a WIP of my creature up in the other forum.

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/097/e/9/cow_209_enviro_side__color_bas_by_dmnspawn-d3dgibl.jpg

[Rob Powell]

Is it alright if we include a little mini step by step process with our illustration? I feel as if a single illustration won't show enough of the creature's building process alone.
Thanks!

[Si_Swe]

Awesome theme, internet high-five to the disturbed minds behind this one. ;)
You owe that high five to Vulgar', inspired by a piece by dragon4lunch.

[maxrlx]

Environment rough sketch for 'Brick creature' (creature detailed in COW WIPS). Creature lives on rock formations protruding from waterfall and cliff faces.

[DmnSpawn]

Here is a small explanation and thumb to show how my creatures build there bridge.

The Lava Bluff Beast is a peaceful herbivore that lives deep under the bedrock layer of the earths crust and lives in a mostly inhabitable surrounding, however the Lava Bluff beast thrives here scouring for the mushrooms that grow in the caverns.

When the Lava Bluff beast can sense that the end of it's lifespan is near an end, It will go out and find a gap between current territory and either new spawning grounds or new pastures of mushrooms.
It then does one of the most spectacular metamorphosis of any creature. It finds a place to anchor itself either starting a new point or climbing out amongst fellow remains and anchors itself as an addition.
It does this using it's tail and nose with bone "rings" protruding from them, there strong stubby feet grasp these rings or other limbs and and limb not grasping something is extended so that future dieing beasts can add on.

It then lowers it's heart rate, breathing, all life support systems shut down and the beast slowly slips into the un-living it hibernates itself till dead, this slow process allows the tendons and muscle tissue to dry slowly instead of rot and fester. VERY low humidity of the lava caverns help to dry preserve the remains so that a skeletal structure and many muscle fibers have become 100X stronger then when the animal was alive. The skeleton of the beast has special photo-reactive cells that cause the light from the lava to charge and make the remains "glow".

Small or new populations of the beasts have simple rope bridges. Much more dense populations have glowing spectacular bridges spanning MANY MANY miles, that look as If designed by an architect of great ability.
These communal graveyards/bridges are awe inspiring as well as a testament to the future generations of the beast.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/099/f/2/lava_bluff_best_explanation__by_dmnspawn-d3dlh7p.jpg

[Rob Powell]

Here's what I got so far. A pencil sketch (the little circles represent the creatures, btw) and some rough linework done in Ps. Not much to look at but it's a start.

Still have a lot to think about (such as the setting, and building process) and the actual design of my creature is still in the works.

[DmnSpawn]

@ Rob Powell : I love your quote at the bottom. This is how I feel, and why I have so much fun on these, if I cared about winning I would vote for myself :) (not that it would do any good ha ha)

[Eclectix]

I figured I'd start with the environment; here is my first WIP.

The environment is a belt of gasses, water vapor, and minerals which never coalesced to form a moon. These gasses and solids form a ring around a brown dwarf star. The star is the heat and light source for the inhabitants of this ring. The creatures living within this belt build bridges to connect the floating debris, creating an incredibly intricate matrix which allows them to move about in their world in search of food. When the creatures exhaust the food and other resources in one area of the belt, they will need to move on to another area, requiring the building of new bridges. Eventually their old abandoned bridges will fall into ruin as they are overtaken by the growth of new life forms.

1209867

[SunRoamer]

I feel like I need to push myself more so I painted something for this EOW... result so far is quite bland though.

Idea is that the hivemind creatures are more insect-like, all of them coming together to form a great organic bridge so most of them can reach new preying grounds.

[android411]

here is my sketch for this week, my creatures build brigdes for the alien workers because they are much faster and effective in this forbidding area

great ideas so far!

[Rob Powell]

Getting further along with this concept, added a little colour...

These crab-like creatures live on a group of tropical islands in the Southern Pacific. They build these bridges to expand their colony from island to island conneting a vast network of underground tunnels together.

Any sort of critiques or suggestions are welcome :)

[Velocity Kendall]

my sketch was inspired by maxrlx's idea of lots of little guys that fit together and hold tight, like those ants that float down the river as a raft made by the many individuals holding onto eachother.

i really like sunroamer's pics massive scale; with more light it would look cool, although its hard to see the individuals, maybe something to think about
i also really like exclectix' concept about the rubble belt, nice

[Mila]

Really like the rendering of your piece, Velocity.

[Rob Powell]

Just thought I'd post my progress on this piece. The ocean could be better, but it's the first time I've tried to paint the ocean digitally so I don't think it's too bad. I really like how the clouds turned out though. Still needs a lot of work, but it's getting closer. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it on time.

Once again critiques and/or suggestions are welcome!:)

[Jonas_J]

My creatures are small bugs that build bridges across rivers and creeks in order to transport their queen to new feeding grounds.

To build the bridge they gather all sorts of stuff from the forest: bark, branches, other insects, small logs, and they use sticky slime from glands on their backs to piece these things together. This slim glows bright orange when it hardens.

Going to design the bug now! :rocker:

[Loakers]

Hello All, This has been a tough one to get my head around ! But I've spent the last 2 days working on an idea, I hope it fits the brief.

http://loakers.co.uk/images/EOW_162_devSheet.JPG

Final Submission :

http://loakers.co.uk/images/eow_162_final_1.JPG

[Rob Powell]

Ok, I could work on this forever, but it looks decent enough. And cool work everyone. BTW Loakers, your piece is really good, but you need to have creatures build the bridge, and not robots, once again it's a really cool piece, but I dont think it will make it to the poll, but I'm not a mod so it's up to them.

First, some detail shots, just so you can see a bit more clearly what's going on.
1215302

And my final piece, cropped out most of the right since there wasn't much going on over there anyways...Feel free to rip me apart with your criticism. :P
1215304

[Loakers]

Good round, albeit a very quiet one!

I get what your saying Rob Powell, and thanks for taking the time to comment. Yes I took some liberties with this idea, but I wont be posting on the C.O.W section, these are sentient creatures however, just a very different kind :D I just loved the idea too much and found it hard to escape it. This image really took it out of me, found this a very difficult EoW submission.

Eclectix

Really interesting forms and a great sense of how these are woven together, would love to see this taken further as part of something much bigger

SunRomaer

Very dark image, but I could see what your aiming for. However, a little more experimentation with your idea could greatly benefit the final piece. Try researching termite/ant colony structres for ideas and how your bridge could fit into that world. I may be off the mark, but I think it will be good for your process.

Android411

Strong piece with lots to consider, the red/blue values work well I think and really like the shapes the structures are forming, and over-all the framing works well (perhaps a little too dark) My biggest gripe is that I really want to see more! I see the bridges and I want to know more about thier construction, maybe one closer to the foreground thats only part-complete? Also these creatures, Im not sure how far finished developing them you are, but I would love to see a detailed one, Ive got a good idea in my head what they might look like. Cant wait to see the finished peice.

Velocity

I really love this idea. This one image gives a sense of how these little guys move and form structures. I'd love to see this animated. Really nice futuristic vision and the render looks sweet for a WIP.


Braintree

Lovely idea and the image sums up your idea well. I think it would be cool to see a birdge only half complete and perhaps a patient queen bug waiting near by to be transported, but thats up to you. Cool idea, good execution and nicely painted, but I crave mroe detail on how these wee guys knit this together


Rob Powell

Good to see how this came from sketch to finished piece. The idea is very good and I love how you have the creatures interacting with the seagulls. I think the drama of the scene is lost on your perspective, the image appears quite flat. Would be good see closer-up versions of those bugs/bridges too, perhaps one sweeping through the frame. I like the structures and maybe ti would be best to have a similar background to that rather than the ocean, just to tie everything together nicely. Play arround more with your colours and values to give a stronger sense of distances and your on your way to awesome-ville

[Si_Swe]

Hey guys. This ended up super rushed, and I'm not too happy with it, but I'm really busy today with family stuff (birthdays and all), so this is what I ended up with...