C.O.W. - #024: Huge Deep Sea Creature - VOTING!!!

[Fozzybar]

ROUND #024 VOTING

Topic: Huge Deep Sea Creature

Deadline for the voting: Saturday, 15 October 2005

Posting thread (closed):
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=53057









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possessed:
concept: Book of Job 41:1-34: "Can you draw out a Leviathan with a hook or press down its tongue with a cord? Canst thou put a hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a bridal ring?..."

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nightfend:
concept: Monstrous Sea Terror - The water world of Cygnus III seemed like the perfect place. Lush beaches, warm waters and perfect weather. It was only after small boats and submarines started disappearing that the colonists to this new world realized something was very wrong with their paradise. Lurking deep beneath the oceans, the Monstrous Sea Terrors roam the oceans as undisputed kings. These cunning predators feed on anything that they find, including the colonists who mistakenly venture into their domain.

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hurricane:
concept: colosseus aequoreus
Scientist recently found a corpse of a gigantic octopussy floating near the shores of California, USA.
The spicies has never been seen before and the scientist are clueless of
where it origins from. read more>>

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Nefarious:
concept: Thalassiosaur
Forgotten through the aeons, this creature has remained undiscovered by man in the darkest depths of the sea. Being the largest species in the water, the thalassiosaur has nothing to fear from other predators, but its equally large feeding requirements have limited its numbers to only a few.

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Hanuka:
concept: DEEP THROAT
Deep Throat is a mammal and often classified as whale. It's intentions however are much more vicious than your average whale's. He means ill. By all means. He will kill you. And your mother. Just out of spite, because he can and because he has those cool yet sloppily rendered teeth. Look at his eyes. He will get you and he will rob all your worldly possessions. He is just planning the PERFECT CRIME! Back in the day, when Mr. T and G.I. Joe were still around, Deep Throat and his gang often went to the Korova Milk Bar and had a milk-plus; milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what they were drinking. This would sharpen you up and get you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

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Helzon:
concept: Trench Stalker shown as (Abyssal Maggot)
"Opportunism(n)-the art, policy, or practice of taking advantage of opportunities or circumstances often with little regard for principles or consequences." as defined by Merriam-Webster.
Such is the life of the Trench Stalker, from it's first fluttering breaths to it's last death rattle. All known evidence of this creature is through local legend, and inconclusive markings located along area Chilean beaches.
What has been deduced from lore is that periodically the shifting and grinding along the Marianas trench will from time to time release large pockets of carbon-dioxide and oxygen. Unfortunate ships that happen to be in the area are lost to these super-massive releases. Yet what is lost to one is but an irresistable opportunity for another. It is suspected that the Trench Lurker can feel the vibrations of a sudden release and poise itself along the rugged walls of the trench, and when the time comes will ride the swift moving torrent to the surface, it's massive bulk made weightless. It feeds voraciously sweeping all into it's maw on both the trip up and back. And when one elder Trench Stalker dies...the breeding season begins by the laying of Abyssal Maggots who consume the dead, bones and all...leaving no other evidence behind of their existence.
Model display at 1/5th scale

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WARHEAD:
concept: GIGANTICUS MARIUS - The extremely rare giant deep sea fish of the deeps.
Only glimpsed once by a deep sea research vessel this creature is huge - weighing in at 500 tonnes and is approximately 150m long with a tough exoskeleton to survive the massive pressures in some of the deepest regions of the sea. Its bioluminescent tentacles are used to capture it's prey with poison injected into the body and huge eyes help it see in the dark
.....considering the size of the creature it is yet unknown what the creature feeds on, rumours are that it's prey is even larger......

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Oregano:
concept: Giant Jelly Catches Cetacean!
An adult blue whale grasped liesurely in one of its many tenticals, a giant jelly descends into the depths on Tuesday afternoon as the research team of the USS Mysticeti topside, and scientists the world watched the massive creature fall majestically into the depths of the South Pacific. Without a doubt, the largest example of a deep sea jelly ever caught on film, the scientific community is astounded by this newly discovered species, and indeed, all of the unprecidented discoveries of the last week. Its discovery is too recent to have earned it a name, or know anything about its life cycle, preferred habitat, diet or reproductive cycle; however this gigantic jelly is believed to possibly feed upon colosseus aequori as well as blue whales, as a the research team was in fact trailing a school from Southern California when they stumbled upon this astounding specimen.

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br0kenspirit:
concept: Depth Titan
An enourmous deep-sea creature, the Depth Titans can be found on some of the most profound regions of the Pacific Ocean. They are slow swimming, and have relatively small mouths in relation to their huge bodies, which are spherically shaped and end in a long, thin tail. Near the mouth are dozens of bioluminiscent lights that are used to lure its prey for easy consumption. Many of the observed individuals present scars on their bodies in unusual markings that resemble jaw wounds, suggesting the posibility of even larger deep-sea predators, to which the Depth Titans would be basic food.

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Nutter:
concept: Thought to be the first fire breathing fish ever to be found, the Aqueous Inceneratious nomakesenseous is about 100m long and feeds on Deep Fried Calamari of the Giant Squid type. Scientists are still unsure of what the whole creature actually looks like as the artist was too lazy to draw the rest of it.

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Beatnik:
concept: The Fangtooth Vipersquid is generally harmless unless provoked. They live an average of six miles below the surface and come up to feed at night. Their large powerful claws easily crush any prey it can catch, but the fangs are not to be overlooked. The lights on their head will shine bright when threatened or when looking for a mate.

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Eshara:
concept: Octonailious:
Thanks to recent new advancements in technology humans are now able to explore much deeper into the depths of the ocean. Because of this there have been a number of new discoveries. Most memorable is the Octonailious. It was discovered by Henry L. Johnson. What is known about this creature so far is that it uses its innate camouflage on its back to blend in with its surroundings. To blend in better it digs a small trench for itself and sits in waiting. It doesn't move until the schools of gwandula fish are close by. Once they are close enough it feeds in a frenzied rage until it is full. They are solitary creatures and don’t see each other until it is mating season. They're like this because to many Octonailious's in one area would deplete the food source dramatically.
Below is a picture of the Octonailious after a big feast:

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panda:
concept: The narwhal worm gored open the plug at the bottom of atlantis with its horn, and atlantis sank.

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Schlo-mo:
concept: The Chinawhite Sea Dragon, a beast that was once thought to be just a Mythical creature of fables is a large serpintine-like underwater predator. As Pictured here with a small Pod of blue whales, the Chinawhite Sea Dragon has immense control over the Beard of anntenae -like-strands that hang from his under jaw, the strands act as a amplifier for movement detection within the surrounding, dark and distant waters. Picking up such movemnt of a gargantuan range allows the Dragon to find and easily consume a huge array of the worlds biggest sea beasties. Although they are and sparce and illusive creature, what they certainly make up for in lack of numbers is huge size and speed. With the ability of using its fins and eel-esque body structure, the Dragon can propel and navigate over great distances across the deepest depths of the ocean.

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Xpose:
concept: Shin-Mira, persumed to be leftovers from the dinosaur era's, lives in the darks depths of the ocean. Feeding on both plants and sea animals it can grow to extremely large proprtions. It's calls are oftenly mistaken for whale's but the Shin-Mira uses it almost like sonar. You'll never see one near the surface due to the pressure diffrences. Unfortunately if it rises to the surface it simply dies so the only real visuals are taken with state of the art computerized subs.

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Shadoman:
concept: Giant Poisonous Altravertea
The Giant Poisonous Altravertea are ancient creatures found deep off the coast of Iceland. Their sizes range from 42’ to a suspected length of 57’. They are very elusive creatures whom, for the most part, keep to themselves, but will severely sting and paralyze any predators or animals that swim too close. The unique mating rituals of the Altravertea is the only way that this creature draws attention to itself. The female’s short tentacles will glow and release pheromones to attract the males.

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Dusty:
concept: Giant Mimic Squid
The Giant Mimic Squid, the larger cousin of the recently found mimic octopus is particularly interesting for what it disguises itself as. While the mimic octopus has been known to impersonate flounder and seaweed, camera images of this squid found it impersonating something much more interesting. While we can only speculate what the squid has seen that would cause it to make this shape, we do know that the squid is incredibly intelligent and may actually be giving us a glimpse of another unknown species. Hundreds of tentacles wrap around each other to form what appears to be a neck, head and mouth, and tentacles on the side wrap around to form what appear to be flippers. Amazingly enough, the squid actually uses its makeshift flippers to swim through the water just as you would expect it to do were it a real "sea serpent". The squid does not have suction cups, but small pliable "teeth" that can bend against the skin as to not puncture itself. After the amazing live pictures of the Giant Squid....we never imagined we would be so lucky to find this new species in the same month. Furthermore, the suggestion that some species of sea serpent truly makes this one of those amazing discoveries of all time.

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duddlebug:
concept: Ye Monstrous Pirate Muncher
The Pirate Muncher is a carnivoruous sea monster with an appetite for pirates. He'd probably enjoy any human folk, but pirates are particularly easy prey. He spends most of his time searching through ship wrecks on the sea bed, but has a penchant for 'fresh' pirates too, and to enjoy 'fresh pirates' he has to head to the surface. The Pirate Muncher is very clever for a sea monster and has learnt to draw. He lures pirates to his razor sharp teeth by drawing treasure maps and sending them off, by their hundred, in bottles for pirates to find. Pirates can't resist a treasure map... or treasure for that matter... so they greedily succumb to the Pirate Muncher's clever trap. The Pirate Muncher piles some sand on his head and a palm tree or two. He tops his little fake island with a chest of treasure (easy to find on the sea bed in pirate infested waters) and patiently waits for the pirates. Soon he knows a ship will turn up full of juicy pirates to collect their treasure. Once the Pirate Muncher is sure they can't get away he tosses them in the air and swallows them whole. He keeps a firm hold on the anchor so he can have a chew on the ship too. And if necessary, he finds the masts and yardarms particularly useful for picking pirates from his teeth.

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JakkaS:
concept: BLINDFISH
The "Blindfish" is a huge creature living in the deepest areas of ocean. The whole life it spends on drifting and searching for drawning oragnic matter at the ocean bottom. Those really big fishes are absolutely helpless without small "glow-worms". The small ones, in return for protection, do the pilot's work in dark deep water - that's the way they coexist with each others.

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young paddy1:
concept: A creature that will usually wait for a pod of whales to herd a vast school of fish or squid for themselves before attacking and eating the lot, the Aquae Mortis Ingens is a lazy bugger, but that doesn't mean it won't snap up a hapless shoal or lone cetacean.

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[Fozzybar]

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0kelvin:
concept: Jumbo Shrimp Jelly Cocktail!
October 7, 2005: In what is being called the most important week in the history of marine biology, yet another new magnificent species has been discovered by scientists. It began as the research team aboard the USS Mysticeti sent a submersible to further study their newly discovered giant jelly. They followed the jellyfish deep into the highly volcanic Tonga trench and were astounded to watch it be promptly devoured by what the scientists have dubbed the Jumbo Shrimp. Measuring nearly a full league (4.8 km) from tail to head, it has surpassed the Japanese Spider Crab as the world's largest crustacean (by roughly 1200 times). After returning to the surface and putting on a fresh pair of pants, Professor W. T. Sherman of the research team said, "This is by far the largest organism the world has ever seen, and will ever see, because anything bigger than this would just be silly. Don't even try to come up with something larger, this is the absolute limit for believable size." The Jumbo Shrimp is believed to feed primarily on the schools of hundreds of giant squid swimming nearby.
Inset: School of giant squid.
Inset: Inset: A giant squid, which last week would've been hot shit to see, but now is just kinda neat.

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princeofhappiness:
concept: The Red Lantern Leviathan
This rare deep sea creature belongs to the squid and octopus family. What differentiates it from others, however, is that it has a lantern on its head, which is useful in navigation and feeding in the darkest of waters. The Red Lantern Leviathan is not a hostile creature. Despite its gigantic size (20 metres in length), it spends its time eating seaweed using little suckers found under its two tentacles. The two front tentacles are used to pull out plants form the earth.

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sephone:
concept: In the deep seas 100 miles from Hawaii there has been what looks like a new type of deep sea whale that has been discovered. Little is known about this species only that it looks like it goes up into the oceans surface and fills these giant airsacs full of air before it submerses back into the deep. Staying maybe days at a time before it comes back up for air.

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BlkCelebration:
concept: Luzoro
The Luzoro, a giant deep sea dweller closely related to the common goldfish is two times the size of an adult whale. They are passive and spend their time slowly travelling accross the deepest parts of the sea. Some say their appearence is similar to that of an elderly man; perhaps explaining its slow pace swimming. They give shelter in their poisonous tentacles to smaller fish which are immune to the poison. They sometimes become its food, but the Luzoro bases its diet on plancton for the most part. They have no known enemies, hence their brightly colored bio-luminesent marks and tentacles are not a defense mechanism; they are purely for asthetic purposes.

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Yodaah:
concept: This is the Ichtyonarcoticus. He measures 17 meters long, but there are rumours that some bigger kinds of 24 meters length, have been witnessed. The arms beside his jaw are furnished with venomous stings. After grabbing his victim with his teeth he anaesthetizes it with his stings in order to paralyze it. This assures more comfort while eating. He really comes from the Deep Blue Sea, living in giant ditchs, 10 000 meters below the surface. Down there he is hunting giant squids, sharks and whales. He is not to particular in choosing nourishment, unless he comes up to get some humans for lunch once in a while...

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RES:
concept: The Big BOB
This titanic creature was recently discovered in the lowest recesses of the deepest known sea trench.
BOB (a nick name given to the creature by it discoverer because of it ungainly swimming motion) was first thought to be the last of a prehistoric species but on further investigation of the many ancient tethered spheres which Bob seems to care for it has been realized that these are in fact eggs containing Bob’s offspring.
The eggs appear to take millions of years to develop suggesting that BOB could be one of the first creatures ever to swim the sea and has retreated to the trench to procreate.

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Fozzybar:
concept: Architeuthis Rex Profunditatis
Amongst Crypto-Zoologist also known as "The Mighty Fright" this deep sea monster is the real merciless hunter of whales on our planet...no whaler ship is more efficient or acurate than this ancient giant of the abyss...
Once impaled its horn and digged its crawls into the whale, its victim has no chance to survive...In fact this monster also hunts for other Architeuthis and doesn't contemn any creature around as long as it's big enough...
Recently they found one specimen of this species stranded on the coast of Argentina - already dead of course...inside in its 3 stomachs they found a total of 2 common Architeuthis, 1 Physeter macrocephalus [sperm whale] and a dozen of big sharks...

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tuchten:
concept: Dark water avatar
This is not the story of a monster, this is simply the product of toxic waste humanity left buried in the dark waters.
For years we kept doing it. For decades it grew. Forever we cried.

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Form:
concept: Deep Heart
The discovery of the lost city off the coast of Chile was met with mixed reaction. While the scientific world was awash with excitement and speculation, the discovery of a huge plaque written in fragmented archaic arabic set the christian right into a blaze of outrage. Its rough translation was "The sun will disappear from the sky". Attempts to explore the ruins were hampered by religious extremists, convinced that the plaque hinted at the apocalypse.
After prolongued discussions with the UN, one expedition was approved to explore the deep city and bring back photographic record.
This photo was taken from the deepwater camera of a ROV sent to capture live feed of the exploration by the USSR Camriev. It soon became clear that the inscription referred to this mammoth beast, who blocked out any light that trickled down from the sun above.
Upon exiting the city, the creature ceased pursuit of the submersible, trailing its long body back into the labarynthine city. Upon surfacing, the crew of the Camriev were observed to be in extreme shock, and were shaking uncontrollably. Attempts to communicate verbally did not succeed - it appeared the crew had all been made deaf.
The crew's captain was handed a sheet of paper and a pen, on which he wrote:
"The sound of the beast eclipses all. The guardian of that city... the sound is like the beating of a gargantuan heart...deafening... the sound of the deep heart."

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scumgrinder:
concept: El viento - not yet classified
Discovered in 1875 it was named after the ship that sank trying to catch it. It is unknown how many of them exist and how long they live. like most large sea creatures it feeds on plancton and waste. Some scientists think it must be a relative of jellyfish with enlarged dermis to resist high pressure. The other one of its kind , a relatively smaller creature known as Dresden has an entirely different appearance yet the cell structure and number of tentacles and eyes remains the same. Scientist suggest the shape of these creatures is determined by the earth's magnetic fields.

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eliWolff
concept: Giant LobsterSquid Years of toxic waste have been slowly seeping into the giant squid's spawning area and eventually they start to mutate. Now the DNA from the giant squids has mixed with the DNA from a deep sea spiked lobster.

[Fozzybar]

OK - before voting/posting read this!!!

1. Please give c&c or a reason why you voted for the image!

2. Feel free to comment on any or all entries, the artists will appreciate it!






not accepted entries:

none

close to rejection:

none

[Fozzybar]

New round is on:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?p=613018

[scumgrinder]

ahaha "ye monstruous pirate muncher". My favorite.

[Dusty]

not accepted entries:

none

close to rejection:

none

Actually it looks like you either forgot to add Eliwolff's or you forgot to list that you rejected it for some reason....

-Dusty

[Fozzybar]

Well...actually i never saw his/her entry...i thought he/she just posted the concept text and was going to post the artwork later, but even now i didn't see the image...??? sorry if there was one, but i checked the thread about 20 times the last week and never saw an image...

[Dusty]

Hmmm....must just be in my cache then. He had it up, but maybe he took it down.

Edit: Ah, I see ya got it there now.

-Dusty

[Fozzybar]

ok....just went to the original thread and it didn't show again, but i went in the "edit post" mode and copy&pasted the link (yes, there was one)...after that i saw the image...i added his/her nick to the poll and also the entry to the list!

Thanx for the hint Dusty!

btw if you (Dusty) or scumgrinder want to change the given vote, just tell me i will do it for you...

[Carnifex]

aight,i'll never get how the timezones work,but it's soooo typical that the posting thread gets closed just when i've finished my pic.
out of protest i won't vote.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...owdeepseaC.jpg

if i had,my vote would have gone to 0kelvin

edit: helzon excellent work on the colours this time.

[scumgrinder]

it's a red x for me

[princeofhappiness]

Well done everybody, great work.

Voted for Fozzybar- i think his soft brushstrokes and use of light has made the creature realistic and tangible. I can picture it swimming in the waters as soon as i saw it. The way he created the deep sea effect, with its sort of dusty/planktoned area revealed by the light from the creature, and fading to black at the bottom adds to this as well.

[Fozzybar]

aight,i'll never get how the timezones work,but it's soooo typical that the posting thread gets closed just when i've finished my pic.

Ok, i will tell you how the timezone works:

1st: I live in Germany - it's in the same time zone as Austria!

2nd: The deadline was set for October 7th, which makes Friday...we have Saturday night right now (october 8th)...10 pm as i closed the posting thread...

I always close the posting threads at COW one day after the deadline - at least! That means the only ones who can miss the deadline are members living not on our planet.......................isn't Austria on one of Saturn moons?

[Carnifex]

well then the forum clock must be apeshit. it says you closed at 12:01 am. it manages to completely ignore my timesetting aswell by saying i have it to gmt plus 2 hours,whereas it should be gmt plus 1. or am i wrong on that?

and besides i only found this weeks cow today(no effin access to a pc), and am generally in a bad mood today.
so fuck you very much.
and i don't care if i'm rude right now,i'm not in the mood for jokes.

[Dusty]

possessed: Neat looking design. It kind of seems to me like it would be much smaller though. Something that would get mistaken as a "merman" or something. I think its the arms, mostly. I don't get much of a feeling of huge from it. The only crit I can give painting-wise is that the texture seems a hair overdone. Is it Hard Light? I think the scales would look a lot better and less tacked on if you used overlay (while dropping the contrast back) or soft light.

nightfend: Really awesome painting. Good storytelling in the piece itself, too. Don't have much to crit other than I think the mouth is maybe a *wee* bit over-the-top. It kind of reminds of of something from a 50s sci fi movie, which is great if you were intending that.

hurricane: This one was an early favorite for me. Painting is great, and I love it that its dead in the water...just floating there. The lighting underneath is fantastic.

Nefarious: I'm not really seeing this as anything more than a dinosaur to be honest. Good job on the scale, but I think it should be a lot bigger as per the contest rules. I swear I have seen something very similar in about a million dinosaur books. I realize that is what you were going for in your description, but I think a little more time on the design would have helped. The shadow of the fin seems a little bit too contrasty to the rest of the white parts on the body, too.

Hanuka: Not too fond of your description, because I think the design is kind of neat. I'd like to see a legitimate concept behind it. Painting style is nice and the mouth is unique.

Helzon: VERY cool design, but I think you went a little overboard on the shininess. Underwater you don't really get that glossy. Octopi, for example, look very smooth underwater, but when taken out of water they looks slimy and glossy. Also, the color of the creature should take on a lot of the hues of the water....it seems more like this creature is on land or maybe in a cave with an air pocket. I absolutely love the drawing itself, though.

WARHEAD: Definitely looks like a deap sea creature would look. Using the underbites, teeth, and angler type stuff looks great! I don't really care for the FOV blur on the sub, though. I think it makes it look a little photoshoppy. The sub is good for scale, but I think it would have helped the piece to just leave it painted with no blur.

Oregano: Awesome colors, and fantastic painting. That thing is just freakishly huge!

br0kenspirit: I love this concept, and the painting is really good too. The design is very unique from the "squid approach" that many (including myself) decided to go with. Awesome piece.

Nutter : I like the painting a lot, but you'll have to forgive me that the concept description disappoints me again. I really like reading the descriptions even if they are badly written (for example, I am not a writer...Im sure from a writing standpoint, my description sucks), but when people throw their arms up and just throw something down cuz they don't feel like typing it up, it just makes me sad and I think as a whole it weakens the piece. As a painting though, your creature is very good. I like the fire breathing concept and would love to see it explained as to how its used under water without getting put out. For example does it use some kind of oil producing glands that allow the fire to not burn out immediately or something? Would be neat to find out....

Beatnik: Nice to see some cartoony entries....I like his expression and the teeth are cute. Pushing the cartoony aspect more would make this even stronger, I think.

Eshara: Deap sea fish traditionally look pretty evil....so its nice to see something look a bit more benign. Considering that, though, it does feel like its not a deep deep sea creature, especially with the free diver used for scale. Love the camo concept!

panda: Description is fairly weak, but I love the painting! I don't see how something with a horn roughly the size of a submarine sank and entire city. That said...love the lighting and the design itself. It definitely feels like it accurate pitch black water and only the light from the sub is revealing the creature. Excellent job.

Schlo-mo: Ooo...very nice. Kind of looks a bit like a dogfish! A dogfish that is insanely large. hahaha. I like these ones that use blue whales for scale....definitely lets you know how big the thing is. I also like your description and how it adds almost a legendary status to the creature.

Xpose: The right (far) fin in the front seems a little inaccurate. Dropping it down would help that a bit, I think. The design is interesting and I like the almost "humpback whale" type bumps on his flippers. More details and wrinkles around the joints and just overall detail on the body would help immensely.

Shadoman: Nice looking squid concept! Very believable too. I like the colors a lot and the addition of the second one in the background is really nice to see.

duddlebug: This is obviously the funniest one of the bunch. Cute idea, though despite your description saying otherwise I definitely do not get a "deep sea" feel from this at all. Seems like you had this idea for a long time and kind of shoehorned it into the competition a bit, because the pirate idea is a little random for when you think of "deap sea creature". I absolutely adore the description though. I love it that he draws the maps to himself and sends them out into the ocean so pirates can find them. I would love to see a children's book with this entire concept as a story, to be honest. Very cute. I'd probably vote for it were it not for the reasons above.

JakkaS : Very cool concept and a FANTASTIC painting. I love the color usage a lot, especially nice contrast of the red on the gill area. The design itself is very unique....one of my top 5.

young paddy1: I like how it looks almost like a combination of an octopus and a whale in many ways. That correlation helps show its scale even if there where no whale in front to show it. The painting is accurately dark, I think, but I think you could have shown a lot more details to make the piece more interesting. Its too dark.

0kelvin: As a description? Excellent job. As a painting? Well done...I love the lighting below. As a concept? Its a shrimp. Something a little more creative to break it up so it doesn't just look like you are making a textbook shrimp would have been a lot better. Not saying you have to add so much gobbledeegook that you can't even tell its a shrimp anymore, but there are a lot of different species of shrimp/lobsters etc. to draw influence from. I could order this at a restaraunt, you know? No offense, of course because the painting is great...but more effort into designing the CREATURE itself, would have been much better. I'd love to see the concept of a giant shrimp taken further...

princeofhappiness: Very VERY strange. In a good way, of course, but I have to point out that that "nose" or whatever looks like some kind of penis or something from the inside of a vagina. But I use lots of phallic imagery in my stuff too, so that's not a point against you. Just saying...when I saw it I giggled a bit. The design itself is awesome though and the colors are insanely vibrant and stylized nicely. Great job!

sephone: I love the concept of storing the air so that it can go deep into the ocean for long periods without have to go to the surface all the time. Also interesting seeing that it is not a plankton style whale....but something like an orca because of the teeth. It still feels like a whale, but just a nasty one at that. I really like this one!

BlkCelebration: Absolutely gorgeous colors....very vibrant! The design is really interesting and cute in a way too.

Yodaah: Design is neat and even though its monochromatic, it still looks great. The background is sevely lacking though. At least its not white,but flat gray isn't much better.

RES: Very unique design, and I like the story a lot.

Fozzybar: You got my vote. The painting is badass and the concept and design are great. The lighting, especially, is just goreous. I love the sort of "bloomy" effect you got going on with it. The subtle fade-offs are really well done.

tuchten: Awesome drawing...not seeing much point to the left inverted one, though. Nor do I see a point to all of the extra scale things like the cow and the extra fish. The piece is strong, it only needs one scale reference, I think. Some color would have been nice, but I know that isnt a requirment.

Form: Awesome composition. Nice to see a full on city in the background there. The design is interesting and the description is fantastic!

scumgrinder: Awesome design, though it seems a little alien. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The color choice is a little strange as deep sea waters don't really have a warm glow like that...unless its the creature that is emenating it, I guess. But that isn't in your description so I don't know. Overall really nice!

eliWolff: I like the style and fusing two creatures together is always fun. The main crit that I have is that the right legs seem like they are angled too far up. Drop then down a little bit and you'll be good to go.


*whew*

Good job everyone! This was an awesome subject this week....really fun to see everyone's pieces.

-Dusty

[Nefarious]

There was a lot of really nice work but I have to go with Nightfend. His work looks like it would be a perfect cover for a 1960's sci-fi novel. I think what strikes me most is the menacing look he captured in the eye. His creature has a very threatening look to it and makes the rest of ours look rather benign in comparison. I also like how the focus shifting was handled in a subtle manner.

[Fellah.]

So much killer stuff in this round! Some are beautiful, some are amazing and some are really cool
My vote goes to Form this time - great story and i just love that little head with the red eyes!
Nice work dude!

[S.C. Watson]

Dusty, thanks for the comments

I voted for Hurricane's because I fell in love with it the moment I saw it and haven't been able to find another to takes it's place. Or something. Anyway, Hurricane got my vote

BY THE WAY, in case no one noticed, I parodied Hurricane's entry in my description, and then 0kelvin parodied mine. I don't think anyone caught this, as no one has commented on it






*I* thought it was funny....

[Form]

hey this round i voted for fellah cos he voted fo.....oh i mean ah.... shit shit shit.... i voted for JakkaS, i really liked the colour and overal 'oomph' the design had.

thanks for the comments dusty, i wish i had the time to return the favour

thanks for the vote fellah!

[AndrewLey]

Really nice work from everyone

I voted for br0kenspirit because it looks HUGE and it make me think "damn - why didn't I think of that!" - which is always the sign of a great design.

[Eshara]

Well it was hard to pick, but I went with Scumgrinder. I liked his composition and creature design the most, even though the colors dont quite look deep seaish.

Dusty - First, thank you for your comments they help a lot. I meant for it to be that the body suite used for diving was improved for deep sea diving, but I didnt say that in my description (And for some reason I didn't think to make it clearer heh).

[nightfend]

Wow, there were SO many good entries this time. This definitely was the hardest round for me to decide on. I was really torn between br0kenspirit's and duddlebug's entries. Duddlebug's illustration was amazing, and I think the only reason I ended up not voting for it was that it didn't incorporate enough "deep sea" into the illustration. I was really torn on this one, but after viewing the images multiple times, I kept coming back to Br0kenspirit's illustration. The illustration really fits the subject matter perfectly as it feels very large and like it definitely dwells in the deepest parts of the ocean. Really nice work Br0kenspirit!

There were a couple of illustrations that were so good I had to also comment on them:

Fozzybar - I really like the lighting effect you did for this creature. It's a really well rendered illustration. I'm not sure I fully get the idea that it's a large sized creature, but otherwise it's really well done.

tuchten - Your concept was well done. Something about how the anatomy was drawn that makes it very believable. It's a great concept piece, and I'd love to have seen a final painting of the creature.

Dusty - I like the multi-tentacled, elegant feel that your creature has to it. And the mimicing concept is pretty cool. The the image is a little dark and could have stood to have a little more lighting effects put on it to make it feel more three dimensional.

Wish I had time to critique everyone elses as there were just so many great illustrations this time around. COW just keeps getting better and better Foz!

[Xpose]

It was sooo hard to choose between them all. There were so many entries and all of them were really good but in the end I choose Nighfiend. Loved the concept and the colors really gave it a deep sea type feel. Thanks for the critique dusty! I do appreciate it a bunch! See you guys next round =]

[scumgrinder]

Well it was hard to pick, but I went with Scumgrinder. I liked his composition and creature design the most, even though the colors dont quite look deep seaish.

Dusty - First, thank you for your comments they help a lot. I meant for it to be that the body suite used for diving was improved for deep sea diving, but I didnt say that in my description (And for some reason I didn't think to make it clearer heh).

well, in defense of my concept, everybody was using minisubs so i had to think of another way to get enough light to show the creature, so in my case it was surfacing to lay eggs or something monsterlike. the glow at the top left corner is the surface, while the monster is coming from the depth, that's why you can't see the tentacles...
i ended up correcting the original sketch after the thread was closed, i thought the character needed more limbs
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...viento_wip.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...ento_color.jpg

[Fozzybar]

and besides i only found this weeks cow today(no effin access to a pc), and am generally in a bad mood today.
so fuck you very much.
and i don't care if i'm rude right now,i'm not in the mood for jokes.

Baby, if you can't hold a deadline just shut up, especially if you saw the thread the last day...i am always in the mood for jokes, so i like it when aliens like you getting upset and making a fool of themselves...

Don't you know when it's Friday or Saturday? Forget the time stamps of any forum...

[Dusty]

Glad someone made light of that shit. That was just pure bitchery right there.
"Fuck you very much"? Come on dude....its a tiny art competition. Don't get so bent out of shape. Your fault you didnt see it till now, not Fozzy's.

-Dusty

[Form]

i tend to disagree. Its my general opinion that EVERYTHING is ALWAYS fozzys fault, in some way.

[Fozzybar]

i tend to disagree. Its my general opinion that EVERYTHING is ALWAYS fozzys fault, in some way.

Form, will you be in Prague? I am still not sure if i will come, but if you will be there, that would be the go sign for me, just to kick your lil' pert ass

[Fozzybar]

thanx Dusty...seems there are some rational and mature people still on the net...

[Form]

Nup Hehe im safe till i go backpacking next july