CHoW#308 :: The Infected Scientist

[Quinn Simoes]

Character of the Week #308
The Infected Scientist
Deadline - Sunday, December 2 10PM GMT


It is the year 2015, a meteor has smashed into the earth infecting most of the population with an alien bacteria.
As the alien bacteria continues to spread at an alarming rate, the head of Disease Control, Dr. Greenwood,
is working around the clock to formulate a cure. But having been infected by the alien bacteria and displaying
symptoms never seen before, Dr. Greenwood's time is running out!

Your task this week is to design the Infected Scientist, Dr. Greenwood. How much or how little the infection has
spread is up to you, but it must be obvious that our poor scientist has been infected by the alien bacteria.

The Guidelines:

• Can be any gender
• Must still be able to perform scientific tasks while infected

The Rules

• Finals must be posted in the finals thread before the deadline
• Final post must include the CHoW number and the artists username at the bottom of the image
• At least 3/4 of the character must be visible
• At least two wips posted in the finals thread
• Background is optional
• Have fun!

[Pixeltuner]

There we go. Just a fun little sketchy thing

[MasterTroglodyte]

My infected scientist... Peppy

[Dayle]

quick sketch during lunch, here's my concept.

[Sillirien]

Last one...reminds me of Morrowind's last dwemer if u remember that guy

[JakeB]

Started mine, Loose sketch atm... Cool theme though

[Havok Reed]

Just want to give you all a head's up. The new poll for last weeks ChoW is up. Please visit it and vote!

[Gaspard]

Hi!
Does the Rule #3: "3/4 of the character has to be visible" require three quarters of the character's recognizably human anatomy to be visible or does that mean that the character cannot be obscured by scenery, ie lab equipment or life-support equipment etc?

[Quinn Simoes]

Gaspard The 3/4 rule applies to CHoW in general. So if you decide to include lab equipment, etc, 3/4s of the character must be visible so we can see the design. Hope that helps.

[JudgementPanda]

Here's the start of my entry.

[Sillirien]

Working on one of the silhouettes. First I wanted to proceed with last one. (If this one will be total fail, I'll try my morrowind dwemer guy)

[PaulGanguly]

Maybe I'll finish this one.

My initial concept here was to go the bug-infection-ey route, which it seems some others are already doing. That becomes an issue of who's got the most well-rendered version of that particular concept.

My next thought was informed by the "Can be any gender" part of the guidelines. Not either gender, but any gender. When considering the nature of a truly alien virus, all bets are off insofar as how that would effect a host, eg. What systems would be affected.

Would the virus be entirely degenerative and mutative, or is it possible that the virus would be experiential, in that it would alter the hosts' body and mind that the 'victim' would have a singular opportunity to explore an entirely new state of awareness and being previously unheard of?

[PaulGanguly]

Kept working on it.

[MrFrenik]

Worked up some sketches last night while at work.

[NickyBeats]

very cool stuff so far guys! this is my start, i thought it would be cool if this scenario was similar to district 9, where this alien bacteria would act as some kind of catalyst and cause the infected's genome to start to rewrite itself as the alien's genome. basically turning us into them to make for a more peaceful takeover of the planet. but most of the humans on the planet were unable to cope with the bacteria and suffered agonizing deaths. then the dr. got infected, and finally found a way to stabalize the reaction, giving him certain alien characteristics, yet remaining partially human as well. he is testing the new strength he has received as part of the new DNA sequence...

[Noun]

My initial concept here was to go the bug-infection-ey route, which it seems some others are already doing. That becomes an issue of who's got the most well-rendered version of that particular concept.

Hopefully not. As long as the idea is strong the rendering won't always be the final deciding factor.

Besides which, it really doesn't matter who gets the most votes anyway. If you still like your bug-infection-ey idea, I'd say do it; just find a way to make it your own. Some overlap of ideas is probably inevitable with the number of people participating.

[JanJager]

Already some nice stuff in here

[FlakoFigZ]

Here's my guy. I want a mad scientist looking guy.

Haven't figured out a pose yet but having fun so far.

[Mbyle]

Great starts by everybody! This should be a good one, fantastic topic. Found some free time to whip up a quick start.

[PaulGanguly]

Hopefully not. As long as the idea is strong the rendering won't always be the final deciding factor.

Besides which, it really doesn't matter who gets the most votes anyway. If you still like your bug-infection-ey idea, I'd say do it; just find a way to make it your own. Some overlap of ideas is probably inevitable with the number of people participating.

You're right, however I've developed a habit of disregarding my first idea with most of my recent creative projects. It's not always the case that your first idea is wrong, but the simplest idea (when you're talking about an illustration) is not always necessarily the most striking one.

I think we've all seen a movie or game where the characters all look like knockoffs of some other project. How many times have we all seen lizard or insect-ey aliens with clunky, battle-worn armor, with just a hint of steampunk and/or cyberpunk?

In the just the last few years we've seen:

• The Avengers
• Battle: Los Angeles
• Battleship: The Movie
• Cowboys Vs. Aliens
• etc. etc.

Granted, those aliens don't all look identical, but they all seem to derive from the same genus the way they move, fight, the way their weapons look/behave, and so on.

There have been some that are a little bit outside the box, but they're all just mostly human analogues with bigger guns. It seems more jarring to me to visually describe something that's non-human in silhouette and anatomy and doesn't appear to harbor a desirable mutation (eg. no big alien muscles, claws or fangs.)

[MasterTroglodyte]

Meh.

[giby]

I gues i wil start with a story too ;P.... in the year 2015 an alien bacteria arrived on earth through a meteor ...after a few days people near the vincity of ground zero were infected by a hybrid organism tht resembled both bacteria and a fungus ..once inside the host the bacterial part would go around mutating the body cells lik cancer the result is a fungus lik moulds coming out of the body after the host dies the mould produces spores which spreads through air further infecting other people who come in contact with it ... it can also be transmitted through blood contact ... Although Dr.Greenwood was infected with the pathogen he was a able to find a temporary antibiotic which can slow to pathogens spreading .. he has to intake the antibiotic through a IV at all times .....Can the gud Dr . find a cure before his time runs out ...The fate of humanity resets on him

[gerezon]

Heres my take. He's mixing some intoxicating liquid to get high from the fumes so he can forget for just a moment that he looks like a freak.

[Noun]

You're right, however I've developed a habit of disregarding my first idea with most of my recent creative projects. It's not always the case that your first idea is wrong, but the simplest idea (when you're talking about an illustration) is not always necessarily the most striking one.

True enough. You're right that the first idea isn't always the strongest, so I see where you're coming from in that sense. And I know what you mean about some of the more recent alien designs in movies/TV lol. A few of them do seem to fall into the same 'box' of characteristics.

Messing around with different stuff tonight, not sure which is deserving of color yet. All advice is appreciated.

[vatteh]

Here's my wip. Hopefully the point gets across; that the infected scientist is trying to take a sample growing from his own hand to put in petri dishes for further study. Now looking at it, I can see that I need a bit more of a mutation than just scales growing from his hand. Just looks a little bland right now in terms of character design. Maybe more strain in his face or the infection showing in his eyes. I don't know, I'll think of something.

[Havok Reed]

A lot of great stuff going on here guys! Noun, I really like your double headed guy.

[giby]

Here is update from me .....Great works all

[Whiskey Sour]

Here's what I sketched yesterday. It's kind of an awkward pose.... and he may need more clothes.

[Artka]

Very rough sketch of the scientist, I thought he could have some kind of machine implanted in order to fight the infection.

[JakeB]

Great work everyone.

Artka - Nice idea, love that he's fighting back .

Noun - Really like the 2 headed one. Looks awesome, great lines.

So, second WIP on mine. . Basically, swelling up like crazy and bursting out of his scientist uniform thing.