C.O.W. - topic ideas - post 'em!

[Maslo]

A Whisperer - a tiny and weak creature capable of emanating signal that allows it to mind-control larger creatures, ride them, constantly whispering right into their ears, and use them to protect itself and find food. And, well, kill stuff for food. Almost parasitic.

[Jabberwock xeno]

Hello.

I'm new here, though I've been following COW for a long time. I haven't joined because I felt my skills were not nearly good enough, but I think i'm almost there.

Anyways, some ideas:

- Creatures that live in common substances, but in rare states of matter.
Like a creature that lives in gaseous metal, liquid air, or solid mercury.

- Large parasites. Remember those bug things in Cloverfield? parasites that are tiny to their host, but their host happens to be huge.

- Creatures living in alternate dimensions. The world we live in has width, height, depth, and time, but why? why not have a creature that lives in a universe of only width of height, or one with 5 or 7 dimensions! MC escher esque mindscrew is optional XD

- Sapient parasites/scavengers. What if the most vile, horrid creatures here on earth became the dominant life form on their planet, complete with a civilization?

- Creatures in unifiting environments. Here, worms and snails do best in wet, moist places, fish in water, reptiles in hot places etc.
How about a worm that lives in the desert? A reptile in tundra? etc

I know this one goes against the main rule, but I feel that humanoids have potential if done right.

- Alien humanoid: I don't mean alien as in ufo aliens, I mean aliens as in strange. Humanoids, but so odd and strange and so utterly wried, that they only fit the term if you look at their sillouete. Think cosmisc horror

[Cartogriffi]

This doesn’t fit the traditional COW theme, and I’ll admit to feeling a bit foolish throwing it out here, but what about the Creeper from minecraft? The game gives us a very low detail model but it would be interesting to see where people go from this basic design when making a fuller illustration.

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Creeper

[Cy-AN]

I do not know if this idea has never been before but: A creature that lives only a week and every day tramsforma in to a different creature (creature of a week)

[Rob Powell]

-The Queen and her Hive
-Swamp God
-Creature with an oversized body part
-Zombie Desert Nightcrawler

[Flame_Unquenchable]

Ideas! yay.

A creature that lives in vacuum.

A creature that defies physics.

A small creature that eats bigger creatures.

A creature that is deadly in numbers but harmless alone.

Man's new extraterrestrial best friend (the creature that replaces dogs).

Predators that hunt in multiple environments land/air, land/sea, air/sea.

Jungle planet pack animals.

Fantasy meets the old west, fantastical herd animals for Orc/Goblin/Elf/Dwarf cowboys.

Creatures with odd evolutionary anatomy. (Eyes inside the mouth, mouths on feet, breathe through their tail, etc.)

Creatures humans would make, to make their lives/jobs easier if they could.

Just a few ideas.

[Rob Powell]

some more ideas came to mind...

You shall not pass!-one that blocks an entrance or passageway

Living Tansportation Shell-think as if a car (or some other vehicle) was a creature

Weapon of Mass Destruction

Copycat

Smoking Kills

Rinterpretaion-redesign a creature from a movie or game unoriginal, I know)

Diamond Eater

Conjoined Twins

Black Hole Maker

[Rob Powell]

That last round got me thinking of something interesting...Has anyone heard of an unidentified sound called 'The Bloop'? It as recorded of the coast of South America in the Southern Pacific in 1997. Researchers recon it was 'possiby' created by some creature, something Massive, few times large than the Blue Whale. This could be an interesting topic for future Sound Rounds.

While I'm here...
-4 eyes, 6 Legs
-Rejects of Noah's Arc
-Those who built ____? (ie. The Pyramids, Stone Henge, Taj Mahal)
-Fire Starter

[millz]

- Apex predator of a food chain where energy is not harnessed from the sun. (like the deep deep sea where some organisms harness energy from geothermal vents).

- Planet eater (pretty straightforward... an organism which eats planets)

- Pitchblack predator (straight forward... an organism which hunts in total darkness)

- Handle with care (an organism with spines and/or poison that is deadly to touch)

- Screw carbon (an organism thats base structure is not made of carbon, you can go more specific and say that its made from crystal or some metal or something)

- Cute but deadly (an organism that looks completely harmless and even lovable but its just a facade?)

- Its a trap! (an organism that sets traps to catch its prey)

- Sharpshooter (an organism with a ranged physical weapon for hunting or defence, eg. shooting spines, shooting fire/water/lightning, throwing rocks, hitting something with sound)

- Borrower (an organism which uses objects/parts not born of its own flesh to make itself stronger, kinda like how hermit crabs use snail shells but with much more vareity)

[Pat Thompson]

How about some culturally-inspired categories?

Oriental-style insects (such as a "Chinese Dragon-fly")

Mayan war beast

Babylonian water carrier

Viking voyage companion

A Native American horror that made Roanoke disappear (it was an early American settlement)

Russian ice melter

Hindi creature that inspired the form of their religion's Gods

[Rob Powell]

because I can...

-Giant Striped Cone-Head of Doom! (I like the cone head idea though)
-tool replacement
-Living Landing Strip
-Gender Differences (same species, but male and female look completely different, ie. the Anglerfish)
-The Zodiac
-Chuck Norris's Pet 8D

[Lacelette]

I'm new and still very wary of posting yet, but I couldn't resist when I saw this thread... Let's give it a shot How about:

- Goya's Demon (Goya the painter)
- The Peacock Eater

They both seem open enough to be interpreted however...
>.< Must think of mooooore!

[Art-kritik]

My first crack at this. My apologies if I repeat ideas that others have had, I didn't go through all the previous entries:

* 1,000,000 BC (a creature from the days when man was still just another animal)
* nasty, brutish, and short (with apologies to Hobbes, a tiny creature with a BIG chip on its shoulder)
* the stars have eyes (creatures that live in/on stars ... or ARE stars)
* 1,000 on the head of a pin (microscopic creatures)
* we are legion (creatures that have no concept of individuality, always travel in hordes)
* past, present, and future (an animal with three very distinct phases of life)
* God-killers (the gods of the ancients were real... emphasis on WERE)

I'd also be glad for input on the suitability of my topics. Thanks!

EDIT: a few more ideas

* Wild World of Weasels (a whole ecosystem of weasel-based lifeforms... why not?)
* Invasion of Infernal Invertebrates (mankind is doomed as hell-spawned beasties attack)
* Villainous Vermillion Viper (that's one mean red snake right there!)

OK, enough alliteration

* Silicon-based life form (non-"meat" critter)
* Gold-eater (nothing tastier for this creature than a nice heaping sack of sovereigns)
* Yesterday's news (no one cares about this has-been anymore, regardless of how impressive it was "yesterday")
* Oops! I didn't see you there (a beast so gigantic that it doesn't even notice Earth until it's too late)
* Camouflage arms race (a predator/prey pair that keeps trying to one-up each other on staying hidden)
* Mad Madam Mim and Merlin (a still from an unreleased part of the Merlin/Mim transformation battle in Disney's The Sword in the Stone)
* Lovecraft was right (maybe more suitable for sometime at the end of October... Cthulhorrific!)
* Fooled you! (a creature that almost perfectly mimics a man-made object... so that it can catch it's favorite prey, us)
* Godzilla vs. ??? (a "classic" Japanese mega-monster that never existed, but should have)
* Tyger, Tyger (anything drawing its inspiration from Blake's masterpiece, preferably tiger-themed)

I should stop now...

[Charanty]

What about drawing Charybdis? I mean, everybody know how Scylla looked like but what about her comrade?

Some random ideas:
Jumping wheeler
Union frailness
Clever tooling
Living furniture
Floating herbivore
Tessellated elusive prancer
Broadband bronze burglar
Sexual selection
Electric blue grace

[Rob Powell]

As I went about my life certain ideas popped into my head and I wrote them down as they came, some would be really neat in COW and some are just for the inspirational purposes for random generation and whatnot...
-Hyperactive Compulsive Squirrel Chaser
-Insectoid Dragon
-Destructive Hell Dragon
-Guardian of Valhalla
-7 Deadly Sins
-Bite off more than you can chew
-Painter creature
-Armoured Insect War Beast
-Shiny Metal Collector
-Bioluminescent One-eyed Boss Monster
-Push me, Pull you
-COW re-visit

[Si_Swe]

I thought I'd post some guidelines for what we look for in a suggestion. It's very hard to give exact guidelines for what we'll end up picking, but there are some general things that I know I, personally, look for...

Open-ended - I see a lot of people post things like "a rabbit-like creature who does X, Y or Z". The problem with briefs like this is that they become too specific, limiting artist's design choices too much. We want something that can be interpreted in many ways so that the competition has focus on creativity of design in addition to rendering quality and execution.

Not too Open-Ended - I see suggestions on the lines of "pack animal" it becomes something too vague to really get a grasp on. It becomes a massive category of creature (almost a genre of creature), and lacks the imagery to immediately spark people's imaginations.

(Examples of the above two done right: Forest Harvester, Satyr Slayer, Catapult Creature)

Adjectives - Composite word rounds are something we'll be seeing more of in the coming weeks. I have a large list of adjectives that use to generate new composite word creature descriptions. Post adjectives you want to see in creature descriptions. I look at every post in this thread, so if I like them, I'll put them in my list.

(Examples of composite word creatures descriptions: Red-Hot, Speckled Rock Muncher; Translucent, Muscular and Levitating; Lean Mean and Green)

Sounds - We're trying to get into the occasional Sound-based round once again. Posting sound clips of diverse, potential creature sounds will give us a wider selection and a better chance of getting a really good sound for our Sound Rounds.

Re-Designs - Redesigns are always a fun chance to take a look at something we already like, and make it our own. The innate problem with re-designs is that it's very tough to avoid one that will result in a truly wide array of results. Posting a redesign of a specific creature is likely going limit artists too much for us to consider. A good suggestion will do one of two things: it will propose a redesign wherein a myriad of creatures can be selected for redesigning or it will propose a creature who does not have a set, single design to begin with.

(Examples of redesign rounds: The Real Cookie Monster, Bandersnatch, Beautiful Rebirth, Comedic Chimaera)

Number/Date-Related - Our rounds are occasionally themed around the number within the round. If you can think of a significance for an upcoming number, post the significance and we'll see if we can write something up. We also like to look at rounds relating to the specific date, so post significant days or topics themed around those days.

(Examples of number-related rounds: #187 Gnixxian Assassin, #50 50!, #100 Creature Festival, #111 The Creature that Changed History, #69 Unique Lovers)
(Examples of date-related rounds: Trick or Treat!, Elf Eater/Bauble-Maker, Great White Worm Carnivorous Worm and Young, Costume Creature, The Mating Ritual)

For the love of all that is beautiful, read the rules and go over the topics we've already done before suggesting a topic - Far too often do I see topic suggestions that are either: A) characters or B) something that we've already covered in a previous round. If you are suggesting a topic it would be a good idea to browse the Winner's Thread and take a look at some of the topics we've already done.

Note: I am not attempting to discourage suggestions that do not follow any of these guidelines, post ideas freely, but I figured this may help you understand what it is that I look at when viewing topic suggestions for inspiration.

Hope that helps some of you out.

[Rob Powell]

So...you want adjectives do you....
http://www.momswhothink.com/reading/...djectives.html
I think this should surfice ^^
Below are some interesting ones I've quickly picked out...
-Lazy
-Shy
-Magnificent
-Sparkling
-Ugly
-Clumsy
-Paranoid
-Jolly
-Zealous
-Chubby
-Colossal
-Scrawny
-Hissing
-Whispering
-Ancient
-Greasy
-Prickly
-Salty
-Sparse
-Fluffy
-Boiling

[artchina]

this is so cool,i love it!

[Rob Powell]

just a few more quick ideas...

Zoodragon
-loosely based off of the recent beastmaster Chow topic, pick an animal and create a dragon with elemonts of that animal.

Speedy Swamp-bird

King Alien
-I remeber I was browsing stuff about Ridley Scott's Alien franchise a while back, and came across an alien/predator wiki site, and it mentioned something about a King Alien, that wasn't shown in any of the movies, it would be neat to design what that alien might look like, though it is probably a bit too specific of a topic since mostly everyone's designs will be more or less the same

Breed for Sport

Flying arachnid

Some more multi creature topics, such as the game critter quadriped or small, medium, large topics

I think we're due for another 'freestyle' round at some point as well, don't you?

[Barefoot]

Elemental, carnivorous, solitary hunter with unique 'weapon'.
Or, taking inspiration from art_kritik, classic, strait up arms race.

[NickyBeats]

what if the teenage mutant ninja turtles werent turtles, but some other animal/creature? that would be a really fun topic!!

[aroundlife]

haha,it may be Angelina jolie's brother!!!!!

[kiwisoft]

How about human spit that turns to be a flesh eating jelly ?

[prsnsweeney]

ok heres what i thought of

• Animal with a nuclear reactor as its heart giving it the ability to consume anything and convert it to energy
• Ancient creature of the temple, old civilizations used to feed it human sacrifices
• Angel Slayer, When Lucifer gets really mad he sends his attack pet after an unfortunate angel
• Mans best friend is a dog. What is a Trolls best friend, animal that’s tough enough to stick with a troll. Think big, bad, mountain trolls from legends not the little ones in kid’s books. ( cow might have covered something similar I cant remember)
• The creature that lives at the center of the earth, or at least far below the earths surface

[AboutaDirk]

A creature made out of a feeling. "The creature love", or "the creature envy", for example.

[Rob Powell]

-Alien Food Chain
-No Eyes, No Ears (A vertebral Land Hunter that can't see and can't hear, does it have a keen sense of smell? does it feel for it's prey? does it use telepathic abilities?)
-Riddle Beast (ie. Sphinx re-design)
-Avian Life Cycle (Hatchling, Juvenile, Adult, egg optional)
-One Eye Big Teeth
-Lifegiver

[vendy satria]

hello peeps, i'm a new member here. Anyone wants to help me to use this forum effectively? really need help. thanks!

[Barefoot]

Your boggart.

[infinitemonkey]

Re-evolved Dinosaur – take a bird (chicken, parrot, raven, peacock, etc) and reactivate the dinosaur genes lingering in its DNA...

Common Camouflage – this creature mimics a common household appliance by day, and at night prowls your hallways feeding...

[lancer_idenoure]

haven't posted here in a while.


colossal crustacean monstrosity
extraterrestrial livestock
large, alien grazing creature
huge floating invertebrate
carnivorous primate/simian creature