Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Shovel Man

Concepts for a stereotypical fictitious murderer, Shovel Man. This is a character me and my brother barely made up in order to scare our cousins... I posted a really rough sketch a couple posts back from when we first made him up, but I felt compelled to flush him out a bit more...





Sunday, August 15, 2010

Enchodus aka "Sabor-Toothed Herring"

Here are the renders of the fish I created for my Thesis. It's the genus Enchodus and it's from the same location and strata as the Thoracosaurus. This was a lot of fun. You can see the texture map at the bottom. Software: Modeled, Rigged, UV Layout: Autodesk Maya. Texture Painting and Sculpting: Pixologic ZBrush and Adobe Photoshop. Rendered with Renderman for Maya.

Friday, August 13, 2010

What happens while I wait for sims to complete...

I've been working on water simulation for my Thesis, and as we all know....simming takes a lot of time....so sometimes I decide to sketch while I wait for stuff to calculate.

First some Amphibians:




Here's a devious Cane Toad (Bufo marinus). He looks so evil, because of the nature of the animal, being introduced as an invasive species and killing everything it can.





When I first read about this my mind was blown. This is the Ribbed Newt (Pleurodeles waltl). These guys are like the Wolverine of the amphibian world (Wolverine as in the X-Men Character, not Gulo gulo). When threatened, these guys actually push the pointed tips of their ribs through poison glands and then THROUGH THEIR SKIN, to stab/poison whatever it is that is attacking it. I'm not even kidding about this. you can look it up for yourself!






Now we have a Commando Manatee....or a Comanatee, whichever you prefer. I know he should probably be in the Navy, and not a paratrooper, but I have a special connection to paratroopers. I drew another version of this guy on a whiteboard with parachute and an 82nd Airborne Patch, but this one is simplified a bit for visual clarity.






And here's a generic Rock Monster sketch I did as a quick concept for a friend of mine, who may be trying to build an army of them for a project.






And finally, we have another experiment of mine, continuing to test myself in creating completely original creatures that don't look like anything that currently exists. The idea behind this guy is that in its evolutionary history, it lost its limbs, and instead strengthened and lengthened millions of hairlike flagelli, that sweep under and around its body. There are a large number underneath the animal to support it, while there are also these tentacle-like things all over the body that constantly touch/sense/grab onto surrounding objects to inspect, as well as to propel forward. This thing is a little creepy, and I'm curious to see how it would look in motion.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Sketches from Maine

So I'm back from my week long family reunion/anniversary party in Maine. I got a lot of quality time with my Mom, brothers, as well as various cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Everything went perfectly. One highlight was getting to see a bald eagle fly right past the house on lake Maranacook where we were staying. This was a first for me, and I was very excited about it. Also got tons of fresh seafood which is always a plus...anyway enough reminiscing about last week, here are the sketches I did while up there. I didn't really take the time to do any candid life sketching, but I enjoyed these little beasties I concocted:




This first guy, i started drawing some sort of dinosaur, then decided to make it more interesting by adding in human features in it....I then kept that for my theme and created this human-dino hybrid creature. It's a little eerie to look at, but it was fun to do.





Next we have this little guy. I have no idea what he is...I just thought he was cute :)




Next we have this canid. I really liked the pose I put him in, and thought the expression was too good to not add something for him to be reacting to.



Now we have a graphic approach to a barn owl (Tyto alba). I started with the outlined shape on the left side, and tried to finish the form without disrupting the simplicity of the outline. I tried to contain as much of the character as I could inside that shape.



And finally, I got bored while waiting for my dinner at the Chick-A-Dee restaurant in Turner, Maine with some couple dozens of family members.  I drew this creature trying to keep the idea in mind that I wanted to create a monster that didn't resemble any living animal. It's really tough to do, and it's something I'm always trying to practice here and there. I particularly liked the idea of having suction-cup like legs, and a pair that sprout from the tail.