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

[Ruins72]

Has Behemoth ever been done before? Or things like mothman, chupacabra, or maybe a harbinger beast of some sort.

[Si_Swe]

Ruins72 - You can browse the winner's thread. It will tell you every topic we've ever done. I cannot help if you only find out the current topic 2 days before the deadline, that's on you. We post the new topic every week at the same time, it's not hard to follow. I also will not give any of my potential topics in advance.

[lxblack]

Killer Songbird vs Songbird Killer

Looks like but isn't

Racing Crab

Heffalump and Woozle

Swap technology for Evolution

Also Cute and Fluffy

[Rob Powell]

Came up with some more ideas, and some interesting terms that can be used as well...

-Albino
-Aposematic
-Jawless (meaning without mandibles, not necessarily mouthless, ie. Lamprey)
-Unipod
-Budding (reproduces asexually through a process known as budding, more commonly seen in microbial yeast)
-Sprinter
-Plastic Maker
-Orbiting
-Coloured Feeders (changes colour based on their food source, ie. Flamingo)
-Skydiving
-Totem creature
-Ballistics
-Pharaoh's Curse (an apparition that guards the tomb of the Pharoah)
-Inflating
-Everting

[SpiralHorn]

I would love to do a sound based round. In fact, I've been learning my way around Ableton, I'll see if I can come up with anything interesting and send it to you Si_Swe?

Also, what if we did something different in how the prompt itself was presented. I think it would be neat if instead of a written prompt, we could pick from a selection of silhouettes provided by the host, and then just vote on the best interpretation.

I did look through all of the past challenges, and I don't remember seeing anything like that before (I could be mistaken though).

[corykanakis]

So its CH-ow as in CHaracter of the week and C-haracter of the week for the second piece yes?

[GuesssWho]

Three eyes and tentacles
Hides in your blood
Eyeball gouger
Venomous plant-eater (maybe it eats mobile plants?)
Planet-sized bug
World Serpent

[denidimochka]

-Mind demons-monsters that live in our subconscious creating all psychological ailments

-Nightmare monsters from a dimension created by all the nightmares of the world

-Marrow eaters

-Breath stealers - monsters that live off of infant breaths

-Cute killers - the most deadly horrifying creatures imaginable but still unbearably cute

[GuesssWho]

Breath stealers - monsters that live off of infant breaths

They used to think cats did that, because they sometimes suffocated babies and old folks by accident when kneading on them.

Maybe all those monsters could look catlike . . .


And here are some random phrases that may give people ideas:
Proton puffers
Noodlefish
Interplanetary miniature poodles
Sock-dwelling octopi

[Rob Powell]

more ideas and brain fartage...

-Stalk-eyed Fisher
-Deceptive Hunter
-Alien Ankle Biters (design a set of small video game hostile creatures)
-Sniper
-Plated Alpha Male/Matriarch
-Mystery Solved: The real extinction of the Dinosaurs
-Digital creature (species lives within computer networks, and internet or something like that)
-Levitating, Psychic, Dinosaur
-100 eyed Biped
-Metroid re-design

[LurkingOrc]

DON'T KILL THE BROWN ONES:
- The creature must be clearly fragile, even trying to constrain it peacefully may lead to its death.
- The creature must be the brown (and rare) variety of many common creatures of the same kind, which - in turn - should be killed (because they're a plague, or maybe a very good food source...).
- The creature, when killed, reanimates into an undead, dangerous, almost indestructible version of itself which is definitely invulnerable to most things known by man.

[Lidiev]

A shark lion, or hybrid of two animals. Possibly a herbivore and a carnivore merger together.

[GuesssWho]

Tauric creatures--two arms, four legs

[aburnier]

digital/mechanical interface creature - It could be either fused with technology or have evolved some sort of interface capability naturally. There are endless possibilities for this. How about a creature that plugs into your computer? What would it be used for? What would a biological user interface even look like? How does the creature benefit from being used by people? Can the iphone of the future also be your pet? etc...

[Si_Swe]

I posted this a while back, I'm posting it again because people don't tend to look backwards in these threads. It is likely I will be posting this every other page in the future...

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.

[Cloudbreaker]

I've been watching the c.o.w. competitions for a while and hope to participate in one soon, but here are some ideas I came up with in the meantime.

• Assembly Line Minion
• Dream Swimmer
• Lightning Eater
• Exploding Predator
• Acidic Wool Creature
• Wireframe Armor
• Limbless Tree-swinger
• Gastropod Apex Predator
• Scales, Fur, Feathers, and Exoskeleton

Edit: spotted one of my ideas elsewhere, and another that was similar to others, so I removed them.

[Huntero]

Drawing is amazing!
Blast color!

[Cloudbreaker]

Here are a few more ideas I thought up:

• Plush Monstrosity - It appears to be a stuffed animal or other toy, but it's not quite what it appears...
• Reverse Ager - Creature is born looking like a big scary adult and becomes smaller and cuter as it ages.
• Living Furniture _ Why buy your furniture when you can tame it?
• Pure Purity - A creature that appears to lack even a shred of malice.
• Ornamental Pet - A pet from high society desired for its high-status appearance.
• Silent and Fragile - A creature that desires silence because a loud enough sound could destroy it.
• Simply Complex - A simple-structured creature with a complex appearance (like a jellyfish).
• Dehydrated Husk - This creature is seriously lacking moisture, and it shows.
• Dunes and Drifts - A creature that spend part of its life living in sand dunes, and part of its life living in snow drifts.
• Sun Eater - This species literally devours stars.
• Water Skimmer Mount - A creature that walks on water and can carry at least one passenger.
• Emotional Eater - Literally feeds on emotions.
• Scapegoat - A creature that is sacrificed to allow others to survive. Possibly goat-like.
• Spring-loaded Sneak - A sneaky creature that utilizes a spring of some sort.
• Oblivious and Psychedelic - A colorful critter unfazed by threats that surround it.

That's all for now, I guess.

[Charanty]

Soulcatcher from Purgatory
Painted sailback
Floating herbivore
4 creatures from different layers of the giant (rain)forest:
- creature that lives in the Emergent layer above general canopy.
- creature from the Canopy layer.
- creature from understory layer.
- creature from forest floor.
Alien coral reef dwellers
Redesign of some little known fantasy creature (i think we already had dragons, right?)
Creature with radial symmetry
Trilateral creature
Descendants of Cambrian explosion
What if Permian–Triassic extinction event never happened?
One head is good but two are better
Flying creature whose wings evolved from it's hind legs.
Descendants of Placodermi
Pilgrim's beast of burden
Snake-like crystal maker
Flower horned ungulate
Russian predatory underwater bird
Whale-looking bird
Creature that lives in the symbiosis with airborn plants
Living orrery
Heather runner
Nimble jumper
Flower beast
Permafrost pale green trapper
Odd-jawed ungulate
Eyeless Red Beast
Predator with a wheel-like jaws
Hand running leg grabber
Forest steppe Leviathan
Butterfly face
curtains of white

[Charanty]

More ideas:

Paper, Rock and Scissors
Spirit of the frozen forest
Jack-in-the-green
255
Grease lightning
Numskull
Taiga giant
Run to the hills
Chimera
Asinine mushroom swimmer
Mother of the thousand young
Rat Queen
Matsya - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsya
Cath Palug - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cath_Palug
The real trunko - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunko
Makara - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makara_(Hindu_mythology)
Mongolian death worm
Pollution eater
It walks on ceiling
Builder's helper
Serpentine Emperor/Empress
1000
My little darling is a firecracker
Greater hunchback
Waterfall feeder
25 years
Daemonic affairs
7 legged tentacle swimmer
3 winged flyer
Blind green sea monster
Partly metal partly flesh
Cross between an animal and a vehicle
Mimsy (like in "mimsy were the borogoves")
Woggles ugged diggles
Unusual griffin pair
1 out of 5
Shapeshifting flyer
Call from the deep.

• Who said "Bloop"? (one of unidentified sounds, recorded by NOAA. Can be heard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bloop_real.ogg). The article said that what ever it is, it must be several times bigger than blue whale.
• Upsweep (one of unidentified sounds, recorded by NOAA. Can be heard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Upsweep_20×.ogg). This one is more interesting and sound more like a group of creatures.
• Whistle (one of unidentified sounds, recorded by NOAA. Can be heard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Whistle_16×.ogg).
• Train (one of unidentified sounds, recorded by NOAA. Can be heard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tr...ied_sound).ogg). This one is rather creepy.
• Mistpouffer maker(s) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistpouffers
• Slow Down (one of unidentified sounds, recorded by NOAA. Can be heard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filelowdown.ogg). This one is also quite chilling.

All these sounds - Bloop, Upsweep, Whistle, Train, Slowdown and Mistpouffers - have one thing in common: the source of the sound remains unknown.

[Charanty]

Not very often seen legendary creatures anyone?

• Hippocampus - half horse half fish/dolphin
• Hippalectryon - half rooster half horse (also known as Reverse hippogriff)
• Peryton - predatory winged deer
• Centicore aka Yale - a deer/antelope - like creature who could move their horns in various derections and had boar tusks in the bottom jaw.
• Ypotryll (don't even ask me how to pronounce this) - a type of chimera with the tusked head of a boar, humped body of a camel, legs and hooves of an ox or goat and tail of a serpent.
• Catoblepas - It is said to have the body of a buffalo and the head of a wild boar. Its back has scales that protect the beast, and its head is always pointing downwards. Its stare or breath could either turn people into stone, or kill them. And it has a long mane that hangs over its eyes.
• Sea-lion - half fish half lion
• Martlet - small bright-coloured bird with no legs.
• Alicanto - bird from Chilean mythology. It's "wings shine during the night with beautiful, metallic colors, and their eyes emit strange lights; making a luminous flight some would not project shade on the desert...Alicantos live in small caves between hills containing minerals, and feed on gold and silver. If the lucky miner follows an alicanto without being caught, they can find silver or gold". Description taken from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicanto
• Avalerion - It looks like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...b4/Alérion.svg and said to be a bird with no beak, no legs and razor sharp wings. Oh and it has a colour of fire whatever it means.
• Shen - odd creature from Chinese mythology whose name can be translated as "large shellfish" and it likes to create mirages. I think under "large shellfish" they meant a large mollusk.
• Llamhigyn Y Dwr (Water leaper) from Welsh folklore - It is described as a giant frog with a bat's wings instead of forelegs, no hind legs, and a long, lizard-like tail with a stinger at the end. It jumps across the water using its wings.

• Nuckelavee (does anyone know, did i spell this thing correctly?)- centaur or a horse and rider fused together, looked as if it had been flayed alive, was enraged by the scent of drying kelp (among other things). Oh, and it spreads plague. Nightmare fuel of the best sort from Orkney Islands.
• Will-o'-the-wisp - is a ghostly light seen at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. It resembles a flickering lamp and has a hobby of drawing people from the save paths.
• Polkan from Russian folklore - said to be something like a dog/centaur mix.
• Leucrocotta - it is said to be a mix of a lioness and hyena with cloven hooves and wide mouth opening right back to the ears, and ridges of bone in place of rows of teeth. It can imitate human speech and also is a fast runner.
• Ant-lion - The offspring of an ant and a lion.
• Hercinia - a bird with brightly glowing feathers.
• Hydrus - The enemy of the crocodile, which it kills from the inside. http://bestiary.ca/beastimage/img4438.jpg
• Leontophone - A small beast that is deadly to lions.
• Muscaliet - A beast with the body of a hare, tail of a squirrel, teeth of a boar. It climbs trees and jumps from branch to branch by the strength of its tail. When it climbs a tree it devastates the leaves and fruit. It makes its nest in a hollow underground below the tree; its nature is so hot that it causes the tree to dry up and die.
• Scitalis - A serpent with such a marvelous appearance that it stuns the viewer.
• Harpy - half bird half woman

[Charanty]

Blue twelve ringed protector
Deer of five colours
Faithful threshold guardian
Glum weaver
Violet Hierophant
Elegant rescuer
Adorable smokejumper
66
Jeweled Matriarch
3/4
Limpid Light Liquid
Ubiquitous dim sly
Dust bunny
Long-legged salt marsh steed
Wasteland walker
Green cliff hanger
Brine pool dweller
Cenote monster
Side-striped rolling twotail
Zany Lascivious Stalker
Marbled Vivacious Big-eyed
Alluring Copper Pattern Weaver
Dusky coloured messenger

[Ez-Boy]

How about for any of the holidays, Holiday horrors?

[Charanty]

Ez-Boy If i remember correctly, there were Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Another other Holiday ideas?

[Brandon.Liebenberg]

Ok I'm a little confused now. I know this sounds stupid, but how do we know what is the latest creature of the week topic that has been chosen for us to do Fozzybar? ,cause there isn't really a " This is the Creature of the week choice for this week" comment anywhere

[Si_Swe]

Brandon.Liebenberg - Okay, allow me to clear things up for you:

- Fozzyvar us gone. Asking him questions will not yield answers. (lark and myself are to current moderators.
- This is the topic suggestion thread. There is another thread specifically for asking questions.
- The topic for the week will almost always be the topic at the top of the thread stack. It will have the highest round number.

I don't understand, really, what you're confused about. This is a relatively simple competition/activity.

[StCrimson667]

Silicon-based life form? Or some other type of alternative biochemistry?

An ammonia swimmer, an inhabitant of a planet with ammonia oceans

A chlorine breather, a creature who breathes chlorine instead of oxygen

Or, the artists could come up with their own.

[GuesssWho]

Helpful hospital creature
8-legged steed, a la Slepnir
Scaly whale
Small creature rebuilt to be large, taking square-cube law into account
Mouths everywhere
Eye see you

[Hunter12396]

i know theres alot of suggestions here but please consider mine

like something that eats stars in space or anything marine we dont have enogh

[mattharward]

dirt eating mammalian/ central america
fungus consuming worm/reptile/ arctic
aquatic rhino carnivore/ swamp
flying humanoid/ 50% oxygen and extreme gravity
nocturnal, cactus-eating, blind, marsupial/ california desert
scientifically mutated albino hawk/ netherlands 3012