C.O.W. #268. D&D Variants: Round 1: Celestial Beholder - WIPs Thread

[Si_Swe]

For more info and details about the rules go here:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=110879


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ROUND #267 - D&D Variants Round 1/3

Dungeons & Dragons is home to a myriad of monsters pulled from myth and folklore and a few of it’s own creation. Flipping through volume upon volume of monsters for players to confront there are always a few that stick out. Monsters we consider “classics” in the context of D&D. Last summer we did a series of rounds all focused on the central theme of familiars. This year we’re going to be taking classic monsters of the D&D universe, and giving them a little twist. Again, there will be three rounds, three D&D monsters and three twists given to them.


topic:

Celestial Beholder


The beholder is about as classic as it gets in D&D. A floating eye with an anti-magic field and twelve additional eyes to blast you every manner of beam or ray attack it can dream up. The beholder has always been one of those go-to creatures for pure unbridled evil in an easily recognized package. This week we’re going to turn around that whole “evil” thing; in the world of Dungeons & Dragons, celestial beings functions as purveyors of benevolence and angelic principles. You job this week is create a creature which is recognizable as both a beholder, and a celestial being.

Wiki info:
Beholder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beholder
Celestial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celesti...s_%26_Dragons)

Requirements this week:
- Your creature must have a main central eye and upwards of six secondary eyes.
- Your creature should show some tendency towards the angelic/celestial in its design.
- Your creature should be recognizable as the D&D monster: the beholder.


Deadline:

August 1st, 7:00pm PST (GMT -8 )

Finals go here: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthr...41#post3511741

[metal_militant]

Ummm,sorry,but deadline June 20th?

[Si_Swe]

My bad. Fixed.

[LurkingOrc]

Ohboyohboyohboy
/fatbot

[Emilche]

My first COW and entery here on CA. hope i dont screw up hhahaha ^^
yeah so im not nearly enough experienced as some of the guys here but hey i get the experience by drawing and what could be a better experience then draw here where the contest acts as the "customer" and points me for a direction. hahah yeah so here is the first thumbs made by hand so the scanner maybe didn't pick up all the lines

[I-Bomb]

good luck

[Charanty]

That's going to be very interesting!

[Charanty]

Here are some sketches.

[EduardoGaray]

i found this idea weird, but also brilliant!
I must participate!
Here is my wip

[Shahan]

Two words... Evangelion Sahaquiel

this is some badass inspiration IMO. you can mute both videos if you want

06:30 boom

its a giant eye based Angel so I would think this is perfect for anyone looking for inspiration.

[EduardoGaray]

most badass inspiration ever, haha.

[rawwad]

cool. I can join after long time again. But I am not sure if I understand the topic right. So this eyeball creature should be celestial in meaning as good as an angel or something? or it can just be bad but visually related to celestial style? thanks

[The Electric Ant]

quick idea sketch

[donJonSwan]

[lkjhgfdsa]

I kinda feel like I went with the too many eyes last week... meh

Random beholder kin fer inspiration?

[Si_Swe]

rawwad - It's nice to see so many of the older COW champs coming back. As long as the aesthetic remains within the realm of the celestial (in D&D terms, yes, this is sort of angelic) then go for it.

[The Electric Ant]

some changes:

[EduardoGaray]

Hey Ant its getting nice!

Here is an update for my creature.
This is a "celestial beholder" so i though about a good aligned beholder who fights with a sword and shield made of lightning. I also equipped him with shoulder plates even if he doesnt have shoulders, lol. xD
I also plan to add some more pieces of armor like he is a poor guy who wants to be a paladin instead a monster.
It doesnt make any sense but a good aligned beholder was pure nonsense to begin with, right?


PD: joking.

[Shahan]

Ohboyohboyohboy
/fatbot

Oh man dude, I had a good laugh, thank YOU! Wish I knew more people with that sense of humor haha


right, so.. been hovering around the new wave of Community activities a while, I'm settling on this one. Creatures rule and the topic is also up my alley. Also this one's deadline is later than the others

Question about the deadline time... how do I convert it to basically the new york time zone? eastern time? heh, my last submission here was a bit late..

anyway heres a really early WIP. I definitely want it disabling a wizard or mage or something... like a sonic boom radius of unmagic or staff dropping dramatic poses... something.... still thinking...

EDIT: Second image in attachments: going with a different idea.
So if Beholders were Celestial they'd definitely be close to AD&D Spelljammer creatures since Spelljammer is just D&D but in space. (sorry... in spaaaaace)

but so my main differences now are going to be size/scale and showing its abilites.

-Its going to be the size of a planet or a small moon, since "celestial" screams powerful and cosmic!!! there wouldn't be many of this species, maybe only one.

-I'm losing the jaw and teeth, and this is where I feel I may be straying too far, but beholders in space have looked weirder...

-Its going to be charging a beam attack and using an anti-magic field to half blow up a DARK wizard's ship or something...


So basically a Celestial Cosmic Space Beholder, hope this stays true to the topic/brief. If my ideas not accepted or legit, then I'll change it.

[Whiskey Sour]

Love the topic! Here's my idea so far:

[Si_Swe]

Sporus - EST is GMT -5. It will be due at 10pm your time.

[Sunparasite]

Here are my sketches, I think I'll use the last one as a base and see if I'll remove or attach things later on. I don't know about having tentacles on it, but I feel it's an important feature for the beholder...

This one is an Astral Deva angel. If it's in trouble it'll likely make a scary expression to try to scare away the fiend, than try to fight. The rocky-shapes are either to be gems or silvery-stones which are functioning as a levitation/antigravity devices.


Thoughts?

[Shahan]

2nd Post WIPs

thanks a bunch Si_Swe

Sorry for posting twice i usually just edit the same post over and over but I dislike attachment manager's ordering of stuff...

I did this just to get the bottom line idea out, now you get the idea of scale and whatnot.

The purple streak will be the anti mag field destroying dark wizard ships...

My WING ANATOMY needs serious work... idk what I'm doing there... tried googling "hawk wings flapping" and "wings wrapped around giant" ...something like that... if anyone has any wing tuts or advice it'd be much appreciated

Not sure if i'll have the central eye balls beam attack... maybe just the Beholder in space and the littler eyes doing some beam damage...
anyway going to sleep now o_o

EDIT: Second image posted like... 30mins after initial post... could NOT sleep... loving this way too much

[Rob Powell]

just a lil something to get you guys in the mood, plus this topic made me think of this song for obvious reasons....
Eye of the Beholder

uploaded a link, cuz the youtube widget isn't working out for me....i feel like a clutz....

[gavinmacdesign]

This is ganna be fun!

Any direction or thoughts would be appreciated

[The Electric Ant]

I think that I'll call it done..

[Shahan]

Wasn't concentrating on my creature itself as much as I should have.
Here is the back and hopefully this shows more of what I'm trying to get at... Lost too much of the day today just wasting time/procrastinating...

Aw sweet, just realized there's a 31st day in this month!!

HAH meant to say Optice Nerve .. andd spelled Retinal wrong, man i'm tired

EDIT later that night: images after the first are a new train of thought, concentrating more on the creature itself. The whole blank Eyeball thing wasn't looking good to me.
NOTES:
-Membranous skin... very mucusy shiny, thin fragile corneal skin (point of the powerful force-field is to protect it) (Thanks si swe)

-Openings in the conreal layer showing pink interior skin (optic nerve material)
Lots of pink nervous material forming eyes and wings.
The openings in the white material won't be a mouth... but more like it's constant transforming and changing...

-The pupils ... ho boy... idk... i love going nuts with the color... perhaps 5 elemental colors or something.. definitely a cross-shaped pupil for evangelical tones

-Celestial-nes: am i getting the right idea or am I heading towards something else like religion.. this is complicated

-Halos ... I want to make the halos really crazy and multicolored in the end.. not liking the golden color... maybe halos with segmented lights or something...

[EduardoGaray]

I really like your design, looks more like a creature from a J-RPG but still, the concept is great.

[PlasmaErnst]

I am not sure where this is going.
Maybe I should have done more sketches before starting with photoshop.

[Oskar!]

Sporus love those concepts man!

Celestial beholder, healer of worlds.

This is what've got so far: a giant floating space-eye, with eyes on it's head and eyes on his tentacles. He uses his magic eyes to restore life on dead planets.

No clue if there is enough angelic or celestial though :/