Fishy Stuff

Because of the DEEP activities at Conceptart.org, and other events, most of my recent creatures have been aquatic.
These little fishies are the only creatures that I actually painted specifically for DEEP. The aim of the activity was to come up with ideas for creatures that could exist in some future underwater utopia. So these creatures are called jewel fish, and function somewhat like living jewelry. They are purchased as eggs and raised from birth to see their owners as the only source of food, so they will always be following their owners. In the same fashion that people in our world use makeup, jewelry, or fancy clothes to improve their appearance, people in the DEEP world use small, personal schools of attractive fish. Particularly rare and beautiful breeds of jewel fish are highly sought after.

This painting was a birthday present for my dad. I often make shark-themed art for him as gifts. The basic concept for this is that, in the future, a tremendous catastrophe has wiped out almost all life on land, making it free for recolonization. Whereas the land vertebrates that we know today are all descended from lobe-fined bony fish related to the modern lungfish and coelocanth, in this speculative future land life is descended from the other great clade of fish, the Chondrichthyes (sharks, rays, and chimeras). I'm not sure how likely such an evolutionary scenario would be; among other things, these fish would likely have to evolve true bony skeletons, as their cartilagenous skeletons probably wouldn't support their weight on land. But anyway, it's fun to imagine.
Most creatures that I design are vertebrates. So, I decided to practice creating some invertebrate creature designs. The above shrimp-thing is the result.


I also completed that cave troll sculpture that I posted a while back. This sculpture was one of the funnest art projects I've ever done, if simply for the sheer amount of different techniques and processes that I got to try out while making it. I got to sculpt with wax, create plaster molds, pour molten bronze, chip and grind away imperfections in the resulting bronze, sand blast the bronze sculpture, and colorize it by applying patinas (many patinas have to be applied at high temperatures, so I got to use a torch as well). Very fun and rewarding project.

The Louisiana Guardian

I'm moving to Louisiana this week. This guy will be my protector from all ill-will. Although he does not have thumbs to help me carry boxes, he can stab people in the face... Pretty helpful in the right type of situations!

Here's some bits and pieces...

Here's some bits and pieces that I've done recently.
I hope you guys and girls will like it!

Greater Crusted Lantaur

The Greater Crusty Lantaur is a boar and swine hunter, it measures in at 800lb and it's swaying walk pounds the ground into submission. Besides the large footmarks in the ground, The Greated Crusted Lantaur can easily be tracked by the grinding marks they leave on cave walls as they try to clean their hard shelled bodies.

just having some fun!

Creature in pants! hot damn!

This piece actually started off as a visual i had in my mind of a giant plant monster with fungus eyes. I took the visual from the piece and played around with new textures and this creature basically found itself.

I had a TON of fun with this creature! Hope it's received well!

Slug Golem

Oozey Icky Monster! This was fun. :)

A brief clutch of new creatures.

Unfortunately I can't show almost all of my latest work yet until their respective things are released. Hopefully a new creature soon.
In the mean time here's a few more from the site:

SCRIVENER

Invaluable to the theurgical community, the scriveners rotate their pelvises to give each pair of legs resting time during their relentless task of producing the reams of glyphs and charted incantations demanded of them.

WERECORDOBA

Bred and infected from an extinct chain of Argentinean pit dogs for the purpose of killing encroaching werewolves in an urban environment.
The plastic milk jug holds water that he can guzzle as his metabolism is so accelerated (he sweats profusely and pants simultaneously) that he constantly needs to rehydrate and eat.
The baseball bat has sharp strips of jeweler's silver hammered into it with wire wrapping around to prevent the bat from splitting. This tool is specifically used on werewolves.

SLEIPNIR

Long ago the god Loki, in the form of a white mare and impregnated by the horse Svadilfari, gave birth to Sleipnir the eight-legged. When Loki reverted to his natural form he gave Sleipnir to the god Odin, announcing that the steed could carry his rider swifter than any horse, by land, sea or air and had the power to enter the land of the dead and return.

Key Features:

The tail is not bobbed, but tied up on itself to prevent it being used as a handhold in battle.

Heavy iron shod shoes for dashing the heads of ice giants.

Runes instill the steed with protections from ice giants and the grasping hands of the dead.

The six legs at Sleipnir's front can lay down a vicious barrage of Levades during an airs above the ground Mezair maneuver.

First creature on new PC :)

I need to get my Painter X all set up again with textures and brushes. I'm still missing some of the feel i liked before, but maybe i just need to get accustom to new feel. Could be better for my work, who knows!

Anyways, the design for this creature was meant to be a level 1 rpg character. Something that could do damage, but wasn't threatening enough for a character to worry about picking a fit.

SHINY NEW FAMILY

Acrylic on Foamcore • 2o"x3o"

Spore Creature Redesign

This is a design that Mike Corriero came up with in the Spore Creator Creator. Mike and I traded the idea of doing a piece from one of each other's spore creature. I hope he has one for me in the future :)

Space Meat

A speed concept of an alien food source, used and reproduced much like our cattle here on earth.

Stan Winston Rest in Peace

I'm sure many of you already know this, but one of(if not the) greatest creature designers for film died this week.

Stan Winston was a marvelous man, and I'm sure I speak for all the artists featured on this site when i say; His work will be dearly missed as it has inspired all of us. No single man will ever fill his shoes.

- creature artists.

THE BAD IDEA

Just a painting with a crunchy beast. Thought you folk might enjoy on account of his articulated masticating horn-claw thingies. :P

Humanoid Body Structure Variations

Some rough thumbnails to show variations of body structures considered to be humanoid.

Inspired by The Mist

Heavily influenced and inspired by Stephen King's "The Mist". This was based off of the four winged creature but just drawn from memory while changing the design of the face/beak. I just love how they took such simple things as tentacles, insects (spiders, flies) and birds and produced quite unique and interesting concepts.

Fisherman,,fisherman..... no clue what to call the fisherman

I'm Gustav Dore's love child

No name still... Another illustration for Greek-Rain

"wolf fish"

Still unnamed Hammerhead sentry/watchguard

I'm still looking for a name of this species, help me out guys!

Lephauntis & Creblock

2 new creatures, Creblock and Lephauntis.
The Lephauntis name came from a drunken conversation on an art chat room some time ago, when the topic of elephants came about ;) I liked the name and it eventually came in handy.

©heers!!

Some Photoshoppery from me. My timid toying with basic texture brushes seems to be paying off. Incidentally, the butt nubs are weird hip joint things that perform the same function as human ass cheeks do for sitting. :P

Rock Jaw

A giant....
Based off of one of the previous humanoid thumbnails I had posted earlier in this blog.

Crustaci

Playing around with the concept of mixing birds and insects. I had done a few pages of creature thumbnails that were predonimately Insect based with elements of bird features and then dominate Bird thumbnail concepts with some insect based elements.

Digital Sketches

A few rough digital sketches of various creatures. Mostly naturalistic designs, in keeping with existing life forms. Invertebrate, Vertebrate, Insect, Reptile, Amphibian, Bird, Mammals..

This is another shark-man concept, i need to figure out a better name than "shark-man". In the "world", I've set up for them in my head, they were created by Poseidon to rival the god's favor of man. So many something like Poseidonites... shortened to Sednites? Sedens?

Greek-Rain

Im starting a design project where Fish evolve into mammals and take over greece.

Here is one of the generals:

THE LORIO DRAGON

15" x 2o" Acrylic on Board.

A rather decorative mechanical creature to freshen up the ol' blog...