C.O.W. #252. Winged Megamouth - VOTING!

[Si_Swe]

Round 252 - Voting!

Topic: Winged Megamouth

Deadline for Voting: March 28th

Round Requirements (Read BEFORE Voting):

- The creature must have functional wings

- The creature must have it’s mouth as a prominent feature of its design

- The creature’s mouth must be illustrated open

[Snarfevs]

Artist: snarfevs

Concept: Colossal Nightsail

Due to its habit of simply swallowing entire flocks whole, scientists now believe that the Colossal Nightsail is principally responsible for the endangered status of at least five migratory bird species.

[ToddBushman]

Artist: ToddBushman

Concept: Throaty Raptor

This raptor can soar through the air with it's mouth open wide catching birds in flight.

[AdamStolterman]

Artist: AdamStolterman

Concept: Sunset Fisher
The first time sailors saw this creature it was just a flash of red light over the water that kept glittering in the distance during sunsets. This led the sailors to first call this animal The Red Mirrors. The red color around the mouth flashes brightly in sunlight. Later it was officially named The Sunset Fisher, because it hunts during sunset by silently floating above the water and then diving for fish. It can hold its breath for a long time and can easily swim under the surface a great distance. Its also been seen hunting bigger birds and sometimes baby seals. Another nick-name for the Sunset Fisher is Blood-Mouth, both because of its red color but also because of the horror-stories about this animal having hunted humans on ships.

[Yajmon]

Artist: Yajmon

Concept: The Graceful Winged Uul
A mammoth of the wind. As gentle in spirit as it is graceful in the sky.

[diheb1]

Artist: DiHeB

Concept: Air Grabber
This creature keeps its mouth open to catch all kinds of air animals. Its gular pouch lets store a great deal of preys and make its hunting much longer. It also has multiple frog-like tongues which helps to trap rebel animals.

[VegasMike]

Artist: Vegasmike

Concept: Winged Megamouth

The Winged Megamouth roams the warm oceanic regions of his planet searching for schools of fish. From far above it targets a large school and begins it's decent. As it nears the ocean it flairs out it's wings and skims the surface enveloping entire schools at a time if successful. A strong thrust from it's tail and the beast is out of the water beginning it's ascent. A filter like baleen in the gill structure separates the fish and anything else captured in it's maw from the ocean water. The beast then climbs high in the air as the water filters through. The locals of this planet use the membrane from it wings as sails for their boats...It helps the beast identify the tiny boats from far above. However, when fishing they tend to stick close to the shore and tie off on land to get to safety when the Megamouth is seen approaching. Tales of entire ships and crews being swallowed have been reported. The beast is a magnificent sight to behold!

[Rishima]

Artist: Rishima

Concept: Giant Trawlermouth


The Trawlermouth spends most of it's life flying in higher altitudes, patrolling zones frequented by many flocking species and catching them as it flies by in its gaping mouth. The Trawlermouth rarely closes it's mouth, and only lands for brief periods to rest or mate before launching back up into the air with its grasshopper like hind-legs.

[bara]

Artist: bara

Concept: winged megamouth

Winged megamouth is a large aerial predator with some reptilian characteristics. It mainly hunts for birds and slow land animals like bovines. The head of the creature is massive compared to its body. The huge mouth allows it to swallow the prey quickly. The mouth is surrounded by a set of sharp teeth and talons that aid in hunting. Megamouths are known to plow through dense flocks of small birds, simply scooping the birds in their mouths.
During migration season the megamouths fly at very high altitudes on jetstreams.

[Harmageddon]

artist: Harmageddon
concept: Hivemother

The hivemother, or Winged Megamouth, is a colossal insectlike worm.

The creature is buoyant, due to huge airsacks in its body that are filled with large quantities of helium. The creature moves graciously, almost effortlessly through the air, moving forward in a snaking motion and steering itself with its fish like fins.

It sports thousands of tiny musquito wings in 2 lines along its entire backside, which help it move even more effortlessly and that create quite the buzz.

The sound of a swarm of musquitos can be heard from a mile away as it meanders throught the skies. Hence the name: hivemother.

[Ricardo Robles]

Artist: Ricardo Robles

Concept: Glutton Leviathan

The Leviathan has an incredibly voracious appetite and a very fast metabolism due to its 4 stomachs. He tries to eat as much as possible and then excretes the remaining bones, only retaining the fluids and trying to keep the weight balance necessary to continue flying. The Leviathan´s diet includes birds, mammals and humans if they come near their nests.

[Tchuk]

Artist: Tchuk

Concept: Kreshiik

"The Kreshiiks are legendary amongst the sky pirates and aerial navigators. They are born into the sky and remain there for the rest of their lives, held aloft by floatation sacs whilst guiding their way with the use of their 6 limbed wings the Kreshiik are violent predators, feeding off other avians and the lightning that dominates the planet. Their powerful jaws; whilst used for courtship of potential mates, are also used to scrape the tops off mountains as they regulate their bouyancy. This however, also makes flying ships a prime source of food."

[midknight523]

Artist: midknight523

Concept: Soaring Benaus

This massive beast soars through the skies of Demos using the tendrils in its gaping mouth to catch sky plankton. Though huge, it's not the biggest creature in the air. Over time it has evolved and developed a carapace to protect itself from airborne predators... or something.

[JaapOomen]

Artist: JaapOomen

Concept: SnoWolf X


With it's three mouths, this creature can fly through a flock of, for example, birds, and catch mulitple animals at once. The horns on top of the two "top" mouths are used to spear or wound animals that are flying to far away the be grabbed with the teeth.

On the ground it can kill prey that is several times bigger than itself, by grabbing it with the claws on it's paws and wings and biting it with all three mouths simultaneously.

Their coat is very warm so they prefer colder places to prevent overheating themselves.

[Pixeltuner]

Artist: Pixeltuner

Concept: Arbitrarus Nonsensicus


Furry fuckup of nature. Far nephew of the platypus.

[Edward B]

Artist: EdwardB

Concept: Howling bat



The howling bats cause havoc wherever they settle, their high pitched shrieking disturb traffic and communities wherever they go.

[hekatoncheir]

Artist: hekatoncheir

Concept: Cloudeater


"You know, there are these big creatures in the sky, even bigger then a whale-- with beaked heads and bat-like wings. They were the gods' pets. When one land had too much rain, and the other had none, they would gobble up thunder storms and rain and bring it to places that needed them. They sav--"

"Grandpa, you're crazy."

[jsn]

Artist: jsn

Concept: Charlie(winged megamouth)

At first they thought it was an act of terror,...people missing, and/or found dead in the streets, until they discovered the foul stench coming from the sewers,...forget the war on terror,...forget about Kony,...GET CHARLIE!!!

[Si_Swe]

Alright folks, the poll is up.

No cuts this week.
Close to Rejection:
jsn - reason: work looked rushed. Creature seems mostly obscured, or else has an overly-simple design.
Harmageddon - reason: functional wings were a requirement in the brief. The fins were a stretch. I had to read the description to figure out the insect wings, as they are not particularly prominent in the design.

For this round, it was a tough call for me between VegasMike and Rishima. I ended up going for Rishima's piece because I found the design really original and it made me think of Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind's insects. That said, VegasMike's piece is a tremendous illustration and it was super close, in my mind. I've 'Thanks'd other favorites of mine, this round.

[sozo]

Sorry I accidently posted my final in the WIP section. Hope the mods will allow this to make it to poll. Thanks!

Artist: SOZO

Concept: Winged Mega Mouth
The colorful Winged Mega Mouth flies through the jungle swallowing up swarms of insects in each gulp.

[Si_Swe]

You, were only 4 minutes late in the WIP thread, so I'll allow it. But please adhere to the deadlines in the future.

[Rob Powell]

Nice round guys!
Top three are as follows
VegasMike: Classic VegasMike piece right here! Nice colours and composition. Great sense of action.
Rishima: Very awesome design, and great perspective, however I would've liked it a little more colour on this beast but sick piece either way.
sozo: This one on the other hand has very nice vibrant colours, and a very nice design as well. Would like some indicater of scale because I can't really tell how large this guy is supposed to be.

Gonna take a bit to consider who to vote for, very tough decision between all three of ya. Great work to the rest of ya as well. Strong round!

Edit: Thought about it quite a bit, almost to the point where my head hurts, but my vote went to sozo in the end. Just loved the colours on this one and the overall design. This was a very difficult decision mind you, sozo got the vote, but by only a small margin.

[LurkingOrc]

I really wanted to vote for sozo as well... But since it's single vote, it had to be VegasMike.

[Snarfevs]

So many great entries this round, hard to choose!

The shortlist:

Yajmon: Excellent flow! The greyscale palette really lets your control of value shine. A gorgeous pic that would be right at home in an RPG sourcebook.
Vegasmike: Totally epic. I actually liked this better when it was greyscale, but it's still fantastic.
Rishima: Like Yajmon's pic, yours has excellent flow and great control of value. A fantastic colour palette and totally believable anatomy. I like that we can see structures inside its mouth. The blurriness of the tips of the mandibles is a little distracting.
bara: Great flow and economy of strokes, gnarly jaws, nice colours. There's a faint 1px construction line on the creature's body, by the look of it.
EdwardB: My comments are largely the same as on the WIP thread: great economy of strokes and subtle shading. I like how you've articulated the translucency of the wings where they overlap the body.
sozo: Yesssssss! Awesome seeing your WIP come to life in something so colourful and bold.

In the end I went with Rishima, with sozo a close second.

[aburnier]

A very difficult decision this round. I narrowed it down pretty quickly to VegasMike, Rishima, Edward B, and Sozo.

I think that Vegasmike had the strongest composition with background elements that really show his creature's scale. As I mentioned before, the musculature of the wings is spot on since this creature would need a ton of power to attain flight. My only problem was that the membrane should have extended farther down the wing and connected to the torso to maximize surface area. Just nitpicking though. Very good work.

A close second for overall composition was Edward B because of a killer atmosphere. However, I didn't really know how large this creature was, and I would have liked some traces of color somewhere to offset the grey color pallet.

Rishima had, in my opinion, the most original creature design with a body that very effectively combines elements of real animals and imaginary ones in a design that overall looks very practical except for one issue. Wings of those type (taken from the dragonfly it looks like), which vibrate rapidly, belong exclusively to small insects, and the size of those wings (which means more air resistance) would prevent them from being able to "buzz" that quickly and generate lift). Also, at high altitudes like you described, these types of wings wouldn't be practical because of low air pressure (high-flying creatures tend to have larger wings with powerful stroke-capability). I think your wing style was a very strong design choice, but the scale of the creature should have been reconsidered to allow for it to function realistically. Overall it was a close second-placer though.

My vote ended up going to Sozo for several reasons. For one, like in VegasMike's piece, I was convinced that the wings were of adequate proportion and structure to support this creature. The design was nearly as good as Rishima's as far as believability and functionality. I also felt that Sozo was the boldest with his color scheme (that bright orange on green is just awesome and really makes it seem like a jungle creature). I like the blurred background, but again, something should still give a sense of scale.

Great work this round, everyone!

[Harmageddon]

Nice round people and some excellent pieces of work.
Holy cow some of you guys/girls are so good at this I could cry in a corner and give up art. But then, f#ck it, I like doing this stuff and by god I will one day be a winner of cow if it's the last thing I do!
*must remember to stick to the brief though *
I actually thought Si_Swe might cut me since the wings are .. well, not prominent in my design. I added wings last night (threw it in the wip section if anyone's interested).

Narrowing down I end up with VegasMike, EdwardB and Sozo.

crits in order from last to first

sozo: beautiful colors, reminds me of a tropical butterfly and a chameleon somehow met up 1 drunk night in Paris and this is the result. The blueish hue towards the back of the animal doesn't work for me. I feel it's too strong for the scale of the animal. I think you'd be better off when you blurred the lines somewhat near the back of the body.
jsn: terrible maggot with wings! Hide your kids, hide your wife..!
The wings are too tiny to make the animal airborne. Also, no megamouth. Just mouth.
Also they look kind of like meatflaps which wouldn't give much lift, but more create a drag. I think the piece would have been stronger when you give more room to the left and right of the creature, so it could spread its wings and show a powerful stroke, lunging towards the viewer.
hekatoncheir: definately megamouth with wings. Seems rushed though.
I like sketchy, but to me the creature is a little too sketchy.
Great work on the clouds (how do you do that?) and colorscheme is nice.
Edward B: nice. Eery horror atmosphere. You placed the creature in our backyard, and because of the rain, and monochrome colours, and overall design, it has a powerful impact. Wings and a megamouth. Definately a favourite.
pixeltuner: you sure can tune pixels Great rendering skills, as always.
Solid work. However, not much of a megamouth. Just a mouth, really.
JaapOomen: nice rendering skills, but not much of a megamouth. Three mouths does not make one megamouth
One more thing: If the creature has to control all three jaws with one head, it hass less room for brain to be smart.
Especially when jawmuscles also compete for that head area. Something to think about, maybe.
midknight523: megamouth, check. Wings.. er.. I know they're there. They look rather meaty and short. I think there's another one in the distance, where I can't read too much wing either.

.. more will follow. In general:
Overall I'd say not many megamouths, just flying creatures with normal mouths.
Some of you used birds or other elements to portray scale, great idea.

And voted for VegasMike.
To me the sense of action, scale, wings and megamouth, rendering.. just awesome.

[DyingAtheist]

Quality entries all round, and it was tough to choose between VegasMike, hekatoncheir, Bara, Rishima and Edward B.

Eventually my vote went to hekatoncheir.
I love how well-rendered and defined the creature/background look despite the sketchy-esque style (which I also love). I could easily see it being concept art for a JRPG of some form, and quality concept art at that.

Edward B was a close second due to absolutely fantastic atmosphere!

[GEB]

For me hekatoncheir got my vote as it most accurately followed the brief and the pallette and design worked really well. Also there's a great sense of scale.

sozo: I really liked this, it was original and vibrant

Edward B: It's like he's posing for the camera! Very cool and original

Ricardo Robles: Mental creature! My only crits are the pallette is a bit lilac heavy in the sky and the composition is a bit flat. I think you could have made more of the creatures motions, having it snaking of into the distance

Considering the scope for scale and composition in the round, I didn't think enough people really embraced it. There was the opportunity for something truly epic here that was missed. Come on people, free yourselves up a bit and go nuts with your designs!

[Rishima]

I voted for hekatonchier - I absolutely love the picture, the lighting near the mouth really brings your attention to it, and the sheer size of it with those wings makes it feel possible to me, I love the story with it too.

It was a hard choice between hekatonchier, bara, vegasmike, edward b and sozo - all have beautiful colour palettes and lighting..

vegasmike- beautiful colours and lighting, the head/mouth is a good attention grabber, my only issue is the wings membrane, it appears too short even for the angle (and going by the background ones)

bara- love LOVE the lighting, the mouth really showed up great and the wings were a good size

edward b- I really love the atmosphere and mood in your picture, but I just did not feel the mouth was a big enough feature, my attention was grabbed more to the body shape and wings over the head. it is also hard to picture it flying, but this is an amazing work none the less.

sozo- awesome colours and very beautiful work, I love the head crest, my only gripe was that the mouth didn't appear to be much of a huge feature compared to the head crest. I love the background.

[bara]

Holy cow amazing entries, pretty much all of them way more original than mine.
Vegasmike, sozo, hekatoncheir and rishima are my favs.
I vote for sozo's, it has super design with super presentation.

Snarfevs good catch i just noticed that 1px line, crap.