Crimson COW (Week of March 28th)

[Pubic Enemy]

This week's theme and brief by previous winner, Skeffin

Creature of the Week

»Eldritch«

"Gigantic, sprawling horrors from another plane that dwarf mankind and view us as little more than ants. They may be a sprawling mass of many limbs and multiple faces, or strange, geometric entities whose body shapes are unlike anything that would ever naturally develop on earth, or perhaps shadowy spectres that float in the sky to leer down at you as you walk home at night."

The best of the COWs will be picked by an anonymous poll in the Finals thread and the winner is given the opportunity to pick the theme of the next COW's design, as well as becoming the title banner for that week! So go hard, design something interesting and unique!


Guidelines:

• No photograph paint overs, must be 100% original work. (See next rule for exception)
  
• 3D is permitted and renders MAY be used as whole or in part of a painting, as long as YOU created the work. Pre-made and/or purchased online assets are forbidden.
  
• Studies are recommended, but not required.
  
• There is no restriction on image formats (horizontal, vertical, square).
  
• Environment backgrounds are optional.
  
• Keep in mind you are not required to stick to what is in the passage. It is more of a guide in terms of mood.
  
  

Rules:

• You must post at least one WIP in the WIP thread to be accepted into the final poll.
  
• Finals must be posted in the finals thread before the deadline.
  
• This has to be a creature, but humans can be with the creature. Humanoid creatures are allowed.
  
• At least 3/4 of the creature must be visible.
  
• Only ONE submission per person in the finals thread.
  
• No fanart. We want to see your original, unique interpretations!
  
• Voting will be held for 5 days after the deadline.
  
• In an event of a tiebreaker, a winner will be chosen through a randomized name picker.
  
  

Deadline is April 11th @ UTC: 23:59

-+|| WIP THREAD ||+-

[RottenPocket]

E-e-excellent....

[RottenPocket]

I like the whole creepy oversized, squeezy through doorway monsters but I kind of like no. 1 creature's shape on it's own. 

[Pubic Enemy]

Creature no. 1 does have an interesting silhouette (very spindly and spider-like), but they all have a delightful crawly charm to them.

[RottenPocket]

Creature no. 1 does have an interesting silhouette (very spindly and spider-like), but they all have a delightful crawly charm to them.

 Agreed - although of course I went and did something completely different. Definitely saving that thumbnail for later.




I don't typically praise programs but I will say, using Clip Studio makes me wish I had used it waaaaay earlier in my digital art making. The media available responds a lot more naturally than PhotoChop. I'll steer away from the inky brushes this time and work on rendering this beastie properly.

[Pubic Enemy]

Dang, lookin' good already! Really nice lines and anatomical details.

Also, agreed on Clip vs PhotoChop. PS has a lot of nice features, especially for painting, but the feeling of it just isn't so good.

[RottenPocket]

Yeah, I think it's because you can adjust the pen pressure behaviour for each pen setting along with a lot more texture/colour distance for each than what PhotoChop allowed. I will have to relearn how to make my own brushed though. 

For instance starting hatching with the full brush size before tapering to a point just like if it were on paper helped so I didn't have to put full pressure at the beginning of each line. And the kneadable eraser - actually works heaps better than just tweaking the strength of the normal eraser. 

Anywho, one last WIP as I'll only have time maybe wed or sun to finish up. 

Feel free to step in anytime guys.
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[Skeffin]

Looks really cool ! I'll be jumping in with a wip later this week, just been super busy lately. Also going to try and do the chow as well because forest creatures are my shit but we'll see if I have time

[Jana]

Rotten Pocket I like your concept, looks really creepy, I 100% do not want to cross ways with that at night. I am also using CSP and I like it very much.

Trying to come up with ideas. I kind of want an expedition team to find something weird in an ice cave. Should it be the weird eel monster with a big eye or the woobly jellyfish-something with a brain core?

[Skeffin]

Brain core ! Brain core ! I'm partial to anything round so personally I really like that one

[Pubic Enemy]

Sorry about making the COW and CHOW concurrent this time dudes, I'll have them offset by 1 week after this. I wanted to have a CHOW thread ready on the off-chance that anyone saw my message in the Discord or Hangout and decided to come over, LOL. I can always extend the deadline of the CHOW if you guys wanna do both but don't have the time.

EDIT: I extended the deadline. I was gonna have to offset the deadlines eventually anyway.

Rotten, it's lookin' great, can't wait to see the final!

Jana, the brain core is cool but I'm leaning toward the eel with the big wobbly eye.

I've got a very rudimentary sketch here. I decided to go with a shadowy specter-like creature. Hopefully by the deadline I will have improved the silhouette and figured out a way to render it that looks cool.

[Jana]

Decided to go with the jellyfish, because I liked the idea better. WIP:

[Jana]

Worked on it some more, but I got to the point where it is getting messy, so I´ll stop for now. Its really a problem that the ice cracks have the same colour as the jellyfish.

[Skeffin]

jana: The ice cavern looks great, the material read of the ice wall is on point. 

rottenpocket: it reminds me a little of the gimmecat from FFIX, looking forward to the next render stage

here's some concepts - wanted to go experiment with a geometric shape for the creature, but ended up preferring a mix of eldritch tentacles and geometric body parts for designs 1 and 2. And liked the idea of having inner light sources within each creature. The third design has the limbs and faces of those it absorbed, writhing inside it's shadowy body, Creature 2 has a fifth leg, because there's no reason that they should stick to the format of animals on earth( plus kangaroos will use their tails as a third limb sometimes )

Also speaking of geometry, might explore the use of fractal shapes either with new designs or swapping out the tentacles for fractral shapes. 

I'm leaning towards the designs on the left, but not sure which one to go for.

[RottenPocket]

rottenpocket: it reminds me a little of the gimmecat from FFIX, looking forward to the next render stage


I'm leaning towards the designs on the left, but not sure which one to go for.

"when the gem is given, the ungrateful cat will run away, giving nothing in return." Yes

And I agree, the bottom left is very behemoth from the mist with the small underbelly tentacles - it's the most 'eldritch', although I could see the venus-flytrap also being pretty cool if you made it less planty and more fleshy. 

@Jana I like the Jelly idea, the world needs more jellies in art. You could change the ice overall hue to a more dirty green colour - deeper and older ice and a bit more otherworldly. Somehow if you could tint the slightest bit of contrasting colour into the jelly it may separate it from the cracks in the ice a bit more. 

[Jana]

rottenpocket: Okay, I will give that a try.
Skeffin: I guess you already decided on a concept, but if not I really like the left bottom one. I mean the upper one looks creepy too, but the bottom one is the one that catched my eye. Your design kind of remind me a bit of the game limbo.

[Skeffin]

kept juggling between the two designs but I think I'm gonna go with bottom left. Also thought deadline was tomorrow but turns out its actually next sunday, so yay.

[Pubic Enemy]

I think the bottom one makes for a more imposing composition. But either way, it's lookin' pretty cool.

[Skeffin]

yea the peer pressure won, went with the beast instead of the spider. Can't see a lot of detail on it as it's backlit in a dark cave though. I suppose I could stick some rim lighting on it in places where the light from the crystal/cave entrance would hit, but either way, drawing dark clothes/creatures is something I'll have to work on

[aNewPseudonym]

Hello, I'm brand new to Crimson Daggers, first post, but I figured I'd jump into one of these competitions. 

I wanted to do something with a creature emerging from a human host. As I was doing a little research, I found this Conan story, "The Devil in Iron," that starts with a fisherman awakening an ancient being after trying to steal an old dagger. In my version, this fisherman becomes a vessel for a cosmic entity to enter our dimension.







I hope I uploaded these images properly. I can't guarantee I'll actually finish this for tomorrow, but I'll try!