C.O.W. #255. Zelda Monster Redesign - VOTING!

[Si_Swe]

Round 255 - Voting!

Topic: Zelda Monster Redesign

Deadline for voting: April 25th, 2012

Requirements for the week (Read BEFORE voting!):
- choose only the listed monsters to redesign.

- you only need to redesign 1, but you may choose to do more if you like. just keep them in the same image.

- your design should be recognizable as to which monster you are redesigning.

[aburnier]

Artist: aburnier

Concept: Crimson Cave Tektite
I wanted to make the attack mechanism of the Tektite more deadly. In the old design, the creature jumps to ram its enemy, but since the shell was basically smooth and the creature wasn't very large to begin with, it was always more of an annoyance than a threat.

I increased its size, made its body segmented to create a more feasible creature design, and added some small thorns to its carapace to make its jump attack far more "impacting". Its mandibles are also much larger. It puts these to work after its victim is stunned and/or maimed from the initial body slam.

This specific variety of red Tektites dwells in mountain caves. They are nomadic and hence not territorial, however they are very aggressive and enjoy attacking travelers or each other for sport. Be sure to carry your sword and shield with you at all times!

P.S: I don't know what the magic glowy things are in the foreground, but I needed some secondary light source to make the creature less flat-looking.

[diheb1]

Artist: DiHeB

Concept: River Zora
This is an extemely hostile amphibious creature. It attacks humans on sight, mainly at night. Attack consists of popping out of the water and spewing a incandescent ball of energy generated from the center of their hands . When its prey falls dead on the land, this creature crawls searching the corpse and then bring it back into the water to devour it.

[Dahlia]

Artist: Dahlia

Concept: Octorok

Perhaps the most ubiquitous of Zelda monsters, the octorok has evolved yet again. As pesky and easy to kill as ever, these tentacled, rock spitting beings have adapted to every environment in Hyrule. From the oceans to the forests to Fire Mountain, the octorok are there to distract Link from complicated strategic problem solving, and pop out of the darkness to knock his one last remaining heart right before he completes a task.

The face shield provides modest protection against small rocks deflected by Link's shield. Varying colors act as camouflage in different environments. A remarkably high breeding rate accommodates numerous combative deficiencies.

[Whiskey Sour]

Artist: Whiskey Sour

Concept: Octorok


The octorok's have been evolving to survive against the increasingly powerful Zelda sequels.

[Sunseaker]

Artist: Sunseaker

Concept: River Zora

You dont want to be encountering one of these guys when you're stomping around in your Iron Boots.

[Spydr]

T_T i can't upload. even tiny pic won't let me. i have a ping and jpeg version, neither work
well DA took it http://spydrxiii.deviantart.com/art/...oice-297105035

[N A Johnson]

Artist: Ex Nihilo

Concept: Octorok

The pressure is building...

Depending upon the proximity of the victim, projectiles may be accompanied with a toxic gas that is highly irritating to skin and devastating to eyes and lungs. The Octorok might choose to expel gas without a projectile if there is none handy, and if the victim is in range.

[VegasMike]

Artist: Vegasmike
Concept: Giant Desert Tektite

I wanted to retain the simplicity of the first tektite while making a more formidable opponent. I imagine this would be a mid boss encounter in a desert valley...The Tektite uses its legs to stomp Link into the sand causing him to slow down. Link must roll out of the way so that the legs get stuck in the sand for a short time and then focus his attack on the eye.

[Moemoore]

Artist: Moemoore

Concept: Tektite
Medium sized insectoid creatures well known for their leaping abilities, tektites are a common sight on mountain trails and lake regions alike. Though easily dispatched by skilled adventurers, the highly territorial tektite can still pose a threat, especially when encountered in groups. Tektites possess a large cycloptic eyespot pattern on the front of their carapaces which serves to confuse enemies and deceive them into focusing their attacks on its durable armour instead of their vulnerable faces.

[Rob Powell]

Artist: Rob Powell

Concept: River Zora and Peahat

Within the swampy water temple you will repeatedly encounter large River Zoras. Their hefty build makes them fairly difficult to engage. Armed with sharp claws and energy blasts from their mouths make them an enemy not to take lightly. You can attack with your sword, but it is best to prepare to throw a bomb in their mouths as they ready to fire a blast of energy. Also within this temple are peahats. They usually just float around without dealing to much damage, and relatively easy to kill, but they will ram Link when he gets too close. Try to avoid peahats when jumping between gaps.

[ENNEX]

Artist: ENNEX

Concept: Pol's Voice
Can leap great distances, latching onto enemies with the large maw in the center of it's torso. While difficult to keep up with, Pol's Voice is still sensitive to noise and can be stunned temporarily.

[Flame_Unquenchable]

Artist: Flame_Unquenchable

Concept: Garudo Peahat
When travelling through the Garudo desert, a common creature seen is the desert Peahat. Unlike it's Hylian cousin the desert Peahat is only sporadically agressive, being more inclined to allow the wind to lift it into the air and then drop back down to the earth when tired. Some say that certain adventurers have been known to hookshot the desert Peahat for faster travel across the blistering desert, however this is most certainly myth and should not be attempted.



I really wish I had, had more time to work on this one. I did a redesign of the redesign today in pencil and had to rush to finish. This was a really fun challenge.

[Si_Swe]

Poll is up!

Cuts this week: Sorry Spydr, it must be on this site for me to include it. Our upload system isn't super complicated, and sites like photobucket allow for you to bb code images in.

[Spydr]

Poll is up!

Cuts this week: Sorry Spydr, it must be on this site for me to include it. Our upload system isn't super complicated, and sites like photobucket allow for you to bb code images in.

yeah i've been trying all day but this site will just not let me upload. yet other sites will.

[Rob Powell]

some crits, favs this round were aburnier, VegasMike, Whiskey Sour, and Ex Nihilo. Gonna consider a few things before voting however. Nice round guys!

aburnier: Very cool, dude! Nicely rendered and believable rendition of the tektites. I can just picture these guys bounding through the cave. I feel the composition shifts a bit too much to the right, perhaps if it was facing towards the left a bit more so my eye doesn't feel trapped at the right side of the image.

diheb1: cool looking design here. Ok you better get comfy, this is quite lengthy....ok...The scales seem a little artificial like they are tiled on intead of the regular overlapping pattern that you'd see in fish and reptiles. Also the mood seems a little too bright to be at night. You need to dim down those colours, especially on the water, it is a highly reflective surface and is only blue when the sky is a bright blue during the day time. It really should be a lot closer to the dark sky you have here, which actually should not be pure black as you have it here. Another issue is thow the creature sits in the water, usually when things are floating in the water they still sink quite a bit in and are only partially above the surface, unless it is something filled with air like a ball. The moon and the light it gives off is actually quite distracting from your composition. And finally the lack of a horizon line in the water gives the impression that the water ends right next to where your creature is sitting. I'd recommend looking at lots of reference images and just take mental notes everywhere you go. Even if you have no sketchbook (which you should) on you at the moment just observe how things look in your surroundings and how light interacts with objects.

Dahlia: I like how you made variants of the octorok here, with some slight differences in their designs. Although they do look a bit too much like the Oot octorok. I'm entirely sure about the grey backdrop you have here, and you should add a shadow under the purple fella since you have shadows under the other two variants and the silhouettes at the corner. btw Link's pose looks a little awkward as well.

Whiskey Sour: Great stuff, man! I like the epicness of this piece. I'm not totally convinced by the shoreline however, and the chest does seem a little randomly placed. I think to add a little more drama there should be a little more activity in the water and maybe even a bit of a foggy look may improve the image a bit amaybe give the octo a little more scale.

Sunseaker: I thought there was some potential in the design you had, made the river zora look more like a real world animal. I think the problem here is the way you rendered the scales, I'd recommend looking at carp sclaes for reference as they are the closest to what you were going for here. Although I do like the stylistic aproach here, I can picture seeing this guy in a game like Wind waker or skyward sword the way style is.

Spydr: you may be having problems because you have so few posts. It something that recently happened in the site to prevent spamming. Usually you just go to the bottom of the page and press 'Go Advanced' under the reply box then press the paperclip icon to use the attachment manager. Also make sure your image isn't too big either because there is a limit to the size of the image that you can post so people don't post images that are like 40 GB or something absurd like that.

Ex Nihilo: I like this one, overall design isn't so adventurous but the idea is just like something I'd expect in a zelda game. I can picture these guys spitting rocks at you from the tops of those rocks while your walking along or when flying or something.

VegasMike: Classic zelda piece here! Only real problem is that it does scream Gohma initially because in just about any game thta has a large cycloptic arthropod boss, it is gohma. What may have helped portray this as a tektite is if you added some smaller ones bouncing around, that could be it's young or underlings or whatever. I think there is a bit of an issue with it's leg in the back as well, I feel as if we should see more of it at the joint

Moemoore: Interesting idea. The pose is a little stiff, look at some refernces of spiders (or other concept art of the tektites) to see how the legs should be positioned. Also try to use a littl more confidence in adding light and shadow to the forms (without the use of a soft brush). And try to avoid the use of black and white to shade, but rather use some warm and cool colours to indicate light and shadow. Doing some lighting studies can help tons to help you understand how light works on different materials.

ENNEX: Neat portrayal of Pols Voice. I thinkyou could've experimented a bit more with this idea and with the original design to come up with something a bit more unique. There is a little bittoo much green and yellow in the image, so a bit more variation in the colours. The values are not as strong as they should be, if you squint your eyes, the creature seems too dissappear into the background if you notice. So adding a little more contrast to make your subject pop forward a bit more.

Flame_Unquenchable: Nicely done, man. Your getting better! The forms and lighting are a bit stronger than your previous stuff, but still needs some work. I'm a little confused about the form of its wings. The grid lines are little bit distracting I find actually.

[aburnier]

Man are you guys ever brilliant! Genius topic and some class-act entries. Critique time!!!!

diheb1 I like your adventurousness on this one. I think that there are some key problems with your anatomy however. Try and keep a realistic 'flow' and mass to your designs. For instance, the chest should be thicker to support the body better, and the arms and legs should taper more towards the ends. The girth of the tail also fluctuates too much. I also think you could tone down the size of the fins to make them more practical. Right now, they are not hydrodynamic at all, although I see what you were going for with the paddle-like tail. Lastly, make sure your environment reads a bit better. This looks more like an ocean than a river to me, and the water is a lot brighter and bluer than it should be at night. Add a horizon line too. Keep practicing and good work!

dahlia Very nice job keeping it game-themed. I can really picture this little guy appearing in a virtual setting. I would have liked to see a little bit more experimentation with the mouth area since it looks like it's perpetually whistling, but it all depends on how realistic a style you are aiming for, and I think you did well for what you wanted to accomplish.

Whisky Sour First off, this is epic. I didn't quite expect anyone to mess with proportions like you did, so for that I tip my hat to you. Only one thing bothers me really and that is the continuity of the creature below and above water. the creature is clearly in less than two feet of water, and yet the entire bottom part of its body is submerged. This doesn't read properly and I would have liked to see the rest of the creature. Nice work overall though, and good rendering

Sunseaker I actually like this approach to the river zora a lot! The green suits the design as well as blue does, and it matches the murky water well. I also love how you borrowed certain recognizable features from other creatures (namely the newt/salamander I think) to make it more clearly amphibious and fresh-water dwelling. That being said, I think the scales conflict with the amphibious features. the spikes on its back are also unnecessary and could be removed to simplify the design. There are some minor anatomy issues in the legs, but overall it is quite compelling.

Spydr Sorry the site wasn't cooperating with you. I took a look at your link, however, and I like it. I think their tongues could be shorter, and you could show more of the chain since, as I pointed out before, it kind of looks like they are standing on poles instead of hanging with their tongues dangling down.

Ex Nihilo I ended up voting for you for a few reasons: I think you transformed the game creature into a realistic creature the best. The beak, in particular, is an excellent design addition and makes the rock-launching attack more believable. your rendering is subtle, but really reads well and I can tell you used an equal share of references and experimentation for anatomy purposes. Great work dude!

VegasMike Way to go cartoony with it! This was a close second for me simply because the monster looks so gosh darn adorable. The increased size works well, and I like that you placed the creature in a very distinct location and altered its design to match. Great submission as always!

Moemoore This is fine, but I think you adhered too strictly to the original design. Besides the eye pattern (which is an awesome idea that makes perfect sense), I don't see too much experimentation or development. Also, the legs need to be just a tad thicker to support and launch the creature I think. Keep up the good work!

Rob Powell I know you didn't have as much time to devote to this as you wanted, but overall I like it a lot! My only criticism (as you already know) is the torches and the color/luminance of the cast light not being warm enough. Good work all around. I think the peahats were extraneous, but they needed more representation anyway so more power to them!

ENNEX Wow... interesting choice of adaptation to say the least. I have to admire anyone who can transform a ghostly blob into a cat with a zipper mouth/stomach. This was definitely one of the hardest choices. It doesn't quite strike me as a practical design and there is almost no contrast in the piece to give the creature dimensionality, but at least you went in a new direction. Good job!

Flame Unquenchable The Peahat is a difficult one because its more plant-like than a typical creature. Your design kind of reminds me of a jellyfish (because they ride the current freely and with barely any thrust of their own). That being said, I don't really know how this thing would attack or be aggressive. In this design, all it looks capable of doing is floating. If it contracted its top to push in a direction, it would drop to the ground. Also, can it walk? Are those legs it has or just features of its "torso"? Basically, we need more information and less ambiguity. Nice attempt at what is (in my opinion) the hardest option though. Keep it up!

Nice work everyone.

[Spydr]

Spydr: you may be having problems because you have so few posts. It something that recently happened in the site to prevent spamming. Usually you just go to the bottom of the page and press 'Go Advanced' under the reply box then press the paperclip icon to use the attachment manager. Also make sure your image isn't too big either because there is a limit to the size of the image that you can post so people don't post images that are like 40 GB or something absurd like that.

i checked the size. both the png and jpeg were the right size. it sounds more like a post number issue. what it would do it time out every time. oh well, it's more practice for me and more work in my portfolio. i'd never dream of winning with you guys anyways.

[Flame_Unquenchable]

To Aburnier and Rob, much appreciated on the crits. I posted up in the wips thread a series of images that show it floating up then falling down, but couldn't finish all of them.

Really in the original Zelda Peahats were just kind of spinning around and chaotically moving not really 'attacking' you so much as wildly zipping from one place to the next.

Rob I took a slightly different direction they were supposed to be more like umbrellas letting it float up on air then drop down. Gridlines were supposed to come out, the only paper I have to doodle on at work is grid paper, sadly I didn't drop the opacity of the sketch enough and they came through when I merged the background to the foreground. I get what you are saying with the petals though, the perspective was tricky for me, was trying to push it.

[ENNEX]

Lots of nice entries!! VegasMike, I love the whole style of your creature. It looks like it came right out of Skyward Sword.

Thankyou for the crits guys! I will definitely work on pushing my values more and adding in a wider variety of colors.

[emerging]

voted for vegasmike. refreshing image!

[diheb1]

Here is my creature with some suggested corrections (Of course out of competition). Thanks a lot to aburnier and Rob Powell !

[aburnier]

DiHeB wow! What a noticeable difference! Obviously the anatomy is unchanged, but the environment works much better now! The plane where the creature meets the water still very unclear however. Water, like Rob said, is very VERY reflective. So much so that we wouldn't see what was below water at all in this case, only a reflection of the sky or perhaps the top part of the creature if it was illuminated enough to cast a reflection. Basically, the water should - more or less - match the color of the sky almost exactly and we should only really see the parts of the creature that extend above the surface. A lot of COW artists get around this by showing a half-above water, and a half-below water view to still show off the creature while maintaining realism.

Lastly, and I don't want to overwhelm you with changes, make sure to accentuate your shadows. In this scene, with the light set up as it is, most of the creature would be in shadow since the primary light source is behind the creature. The atmospheric glow you have present would cast some dim light, but overall it would be much darker.

Nice work and tons of improvement over your last piece! Keep it up, man!

[scorge]

Man you guys really tore it up on this! Some very dramatic renditions of some very simple beasts, but for some reason, Dahlia's just sang to me for its simplicity and options. Well done all of course.