John CC 2 WIPs

[John]

Hey guys! If ever you'd be so generous with your time dishing out critiques, be viciously honest. I actually encourage people to speak out how bad my work is!
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As of this moment, I'm going for Option 2.

[Piotr Jasielski]

 I actually encourage people to speak out how bad my work is!

Ok, I'll try my best - your works sucks so much I won't ever need vacuum cleaner anymore.

[smrr]

Snaaaaap John

I'd really like to see more development and then I'll see what I can do about crits, 'cause I got nothing right now :) haha, I just wanna see s'more o/

[John]

Ok, I'll try my best - your works sucks so much I won't ever need vacuum cleaner anymore.

@smrr: Aww! You know you're always pleasant!

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I'm planning to get this Great One half dipped in the pool. So not much need to study or redesign the lower half. Should plans change, I'd make more studies. Going through the monster design, I kinda appreciate the thought process of the guy who made this.

[Hobitt]

Keep exploring design ideas try to get as much designs as you can. looking forward to more!

[BrushNoir]

Those baby arms hehehe. Besides the studies your doing, your handwriting is nice! (sorry, I always envy people who can write nice :p)

[Eyliana]

Too many arms! So far he actually looks kinda cute. Besides the arms .. I mean.

[Jan Kloidt]

hmm about the humanoid anatomy: imo for a monster like this there are 2 big directions; humanoid and alien. In both cases, think about his story first. Ask him questions and answer them with your design. If you make him humanoid, ask things like: why is he humanoid? Is he only partly human? Is he some kind of a human mutant? Does he even have human dna? does he have dna at all to begin with? Was he made out of human bodyparts? Did the humans create him in their image? I'm saying this to make you think about everything in your design as something that comes from somewhere, that has a reason of existence and doesn't just pop out of a void.
Even if he's non-humanoid like a lovecraftian god, (which is what i think where the idea for this design brief comes from) and you make him totally random with squid arms and crab fingers and slimy goo and no head and a thousand eyes etc, he can't be totally random as a design. In lovecraft, those monsters or gods come from a place with a set of rules (or none at all) that's completely incomprehensible to humans and that's why they are so crazy. But from a design standpoint that doesn't mean they're random: they are an embodiment of the story that belongs to them and they even show, just by being totally crazy, how mind-fuckey the place where they're coming from has to be - you don't even need to get a description of that environment.

Long story short: think about everything. Have a reason for everything you put in or leave out, be ready to answer any question that might pop up about your design and always relate everything to some kind of story.

[crackedskull]

Jan gives some good advice :D
Also if you want to do arms with multiple segments, then look at bug ligaments and see how they work.
I like that you go so deep into the creature design tho, more ppl should do that.(me included)

[Amit Dutta]

Good start John, I like your approach....keep exploring, remember the main goal is the keyframe illustration, so don't spend two weeks on creature design, as cool as it is, at the expense of the goal of the brief! :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_deities

[slash razor]

ahhh John your doing the arm study thing lol, me too....

yep have to agree with Jan Kloidt great piece of advice... having not played the game myself but from just reading the brief, I imagined some huge, other worldy, god like creature waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting venturer and squishing them like a fly... keep pushing and exploring

[John]

@Hobbit I try! What I'm doing is not as taxing, I'm doing it like I'm a Bloodborne cover band!

@BrushNoir Oh thank you! But it's my fake handwriting. I did it through www.myscriptfont.com. My real handwriting is way worse. If I had a nice penmanship, I wouldn't need to make a font!

@Eyliana Oof.. not a good sign. Good eye. Thanks!

@crackedskull Interesting. I've been looking at the wrong thing (dog and horse anatomy). I will take your bug advice. Thanks!

@Amit God, a week is almost over and I haven't gotten to the meat and potatoes yet. To be quite honest, I spend more time looking at things than hitting the tablet. Thanks for the link!

@slash razor Haha! An unsuspecting adventurer near a conveniently placed pool of blood! What can possibly go wrong! Thanks for the comments!

@Jan True. I kinda went to the reverse engineering approach. To be honest, my studies can be mistaken for a half baked fan art! It's tricky to nail an original design for the game. Because you are right. There is a sense of randomness in a common theme. Take for example, the Great One design language. Amygdala looks like a character lifted off from Aliens. Celestial Emmisary looks like Mario's mushroom nightmare. Mergo's Wet Nurse design looks like a reaper. Probably the only common thing I can take away is the multiple limbs and the overtly grotesque but symmetrical nature of its design.

It reminds me of the comic book "Gantz". I could not quite pinpoint a distinct theme in its villain designs.

Honestly, I do get off from bouncing design theories with you. Your insight is informational as well as entertaining. The game never came across as Lovecraftian to me until you, Amit and somebody else in the CC mentioned it. Thanks! Hey man, shoot me a PM if you want to discuss this further, or type it up in the shout-box. You know I'm interested!

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Update! The struggles in the composition that I only managed to get three out.


So I turned a bit to the environment study/design.

[BrushNoir]

I feel stupid now haha anyway big progress imo. Like what your doing.

[Hobitt]

So far so good keep it up!

[Legion Brewer]

Your exploration so far is really cool, and clean, looks well thought out. I'm also struggling with the compositions, so i feel you there.

[John]

@BrushNoir Crap! I'm sorry if I came off patronizing! I swear did not mean to! And thanks for the kind words!
@Hobitt Ol' Boyo! Ol' Chum! Always a ray of positivity! Thanks Hob!
@Legion Brewer Looks like I hid my neuroses well! Oh man, good luck with your compositions.. I will be posting my composition cheating method in your thread after I post this.

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Probably won't do a lot of updates for the meantime. It'll be just a torrent of bad decisions if I do! Time for me to work on the colors, the background, and probably tweak and go off on a bit of a tangent on the planned composition! And I am buckling, seeing how everybody is upping their game! I love the fierce competition from everyone! And like the good book says, "Iron sharpens iron". Thanks guys!

More studies


and

[John]

Will light things a bit in the next update... and blood!

[Hobitt]

I like it!

[John]

@Hobitt - 


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Whenever I open the my Crimson Crucible file, there's always an uneasy feeling coming from the pit of my stomach. Not a good sign.


Polishing stage until the time runs out.

[BrushNoir]

Wow dude, you got this, really great job!