The Menagerie: Update, Titan Discovery Creature

[Nexus]

Ok, I just finished up my most recent Creature of the Week after a long art hiatus. Gotta tell you it felt damn good to get back into art. I missed it more than I thought but I needed the break I think. Recharged my batteries.

Anywho. In this thread, I'm going to post mainly creature designs. It is the menagerie after all. This will include random designs and most importantly Creature of the Week entries. In addition, I'm going to go back through all the old C.O.W.'s and do designs for the ones I missed and even some that I did that I want to rework. My overall goal is to do at least one design for all 108 creatures featured in C.O.W. thus far. I'll probably go back to creature number 1 and start from there but here is C.O.W. #108 for your viewing pleasure

[ZebraHDH]

Thats a real nice one. My only crit is that the amazingly realistic detail of the rock/comet, almost makes the creature seem underdetailed. But I am guessing you used a rock texture brush so it really was unavoidable.
Good luck when it goes to poll.

I hear you as far as recharging the batteries goes. If you have a really good run of creativity and creation, its almost inevitable to run out of gas.

[Nexus]

Thx, ZebraHDH. You're right they do clash and I did tone down the rock textures alot but I guess it still wasn't quite enough now that I look at it again. Had I known that I probably had 3 extra days to post because Fozz was sick I would have gone back and added the texture to the creature like I had wanted to. In fact, I went back and noodled with it a bit more today and added some texture to the creature and maybe I'll post that sometime. For now I have a couple designs for two other creatures I'm trying to do. Post those soon.

[Nexus]

Ok, here's a couple sketches for C.O.W #2. I'm skipping over C.O.W. #1 for the time being. The brief for the second C.O.W. was Don't Touch That. Of the two designs I came up with I chose the mole inspired creature. It burrows underground and uses the lush vegetation that grows on its end to lure prey. Funnily enough, I also came up with C.O.W. #24 while I was doing these sketches. The aquatic creature was originally another design for Dont' Touch That but I ended up taking it in a different direction and it became Huge Deepsea Creature instead. The idea is that it has a fish shaped lure attached it its head and lures sharks with it. It's so big that it eats great whites.

I'll come up with more designs as the come to me and I'll post progress on both of these once I get some values/color on them.

[Nexus]

Here's the linework for the Don't Touch That creature. I'll add in the dense foliage and plant life on his back a little later on. Seemed to be a waste of time to draw anything but the most important plant structures. I'm going to try and post a color comp or at least some lighting roughs later.

[Nexus]

This is various stuff from a couple C.O.W.'s. Designs for Ambush Body Snatcher and also Hyperactive. Mostly it's just thumbnails and linework for now. I'm hoping to have some completed designs soon. Still working on a few at a time.

[Shydrow]

Dude your amazing!!!! how do you think of these ideas?

[Nexus]

Wow, thx Shydrow. It's the silhouette thumbnails mostly. I just get the regular Hard Round brush in Photoshop with some straight black and start squiggling the stylus around until I see a creature. Then I blow the thumbnail up that I like and flesh it out with some linework.

[Shydrow]

i like it all the same i would like to see more finished product of your creatures though some of them seem like they would look interesting with color.

[aka_sova]

Yes, i agree with ShyDdrow, your ideas are amazing. Where have u got all this fantasy? ))

Will you make them in 3d graphics?

[Nexus]

Hmm, no I don't know any 3d modeling programs. At least I havent taken the time to learn them yet. Mostly working on upping my painting and drawing skills for now.

[Nexus]

Here's my latest C.O.W. entry. The topic was "Hyperactive". Looking back I probably could have made it look more hyperactive and I think in the end it became more of just an exercise to help me improve my skills. Probably explains why I'm not getting any votes in the polls so far (blow to the ego). Despite not adhering to the brief as closely as possible I'm pleased with the color scheme and most of the rendering. I think it's a far cry from my first creature of the week....feels good to improve.

More to come. Still working on and off doing finalized versions of some of the lineworks above. It's still my goal to do a design for every single creature of the week from the very beginning but I put so much effort into the new ones that I barely have time to go back and work on ones that have past.

[Nexus]

Here's a few thumbs for the newest COW topic.

[Nexus]

Scrapped the work I had so far and started a new Coconut Cruncher. Hoping to work on him on and off but the new CoW round is on so well just have to see.

[Nexus]

Not creatures. Just roughs for a tat design. Just posting so the image can be viewed by the person who wants it.

[Nexus]

Creature of the Week: Titan Discovery

Nothing too special. Didnt make it in time for the weekly challenge but havent finished a creature of the week in awhile. Also its good practice. I found that I was entirely too rusty and so Im going to force myself to finish these things just for the sake of keeping sharp....perhaps make myself sharper. This was more of a speed exercise. I still spent a good many hours on it but I tried to finish it out quickly.