FiddzyDesign – Concept Artwork

Greetings from Fiddzy at FiddzyDesign.

Seems like a lifetime ago since I last posted and for that I deeply apologise. However despite a tight schedule and various technical issues I am happy to announce that as the new year approaches as will a wealth of new artwork from the massive back catalogue of character and creature designs I have been busy scribbling onto any scrap of paper I can find. Plus along with each design further and more in-depth descriptions and background information, as I shall begin to branch together each design into a larger coherent universe (or universes), codenamed “Universe 77″.

Again, I apologise for the lack of updates, but please check back soon as I can promise that more is on the way. (and if they don’t then my head is simply going to explode from several months of archived ideas and concepts crammed into it)

Coming soon: Vampire cactus in a desert of rust…

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This whimsical pot clad creation came from a simple sketch drawn while thinking up new idea’s for future Calci golem designs, and my own personal interest in the biology of the Portuguese Man o’ War, a colonial organism made up of not one individual species, but several, known as zooids.  It was this idea of a symbiotic relationship among two distinct species, as well as a species relationship with an external non-organic structure, as seen in my Calci golem designs, which lead to this alien oddity, the Klingting.

Terracotta Klingting

The Klingting is not one, but two drastically different species living in a symbiotic relationship that together form a single colonial organism. The two creatures that make up an individual Klingting are, the Kling, a bulbous fish like animal with two arm-like eye stalks, and the Ting, a green gelatinous slime mold decedent.

Both species survive together in a perfect state of mutualism. The Kling provides all the benefits of a complex organism, such as, sight, the ability to communicate and in the case of the Kling, sentience, all of which is shared through a neural bond between the two. It also provides the Ting with food in the form of its waste and a special sugar it excretes. The Ting in turn provides the Kling with a liquidity home, a means of terrestrial mobility, a boosted immune system and further protection from its ability to form inorganic shells. If separated both will eventually die, although the Kling can sometimes survive if it finds a body of suitable water.

The Klingting communicate with each other by drumming on their inorganic shells, hence their onomatopoetic name Klingting.

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The Stone Calcibus, is not a new design but rather a re-imagining of a golem design done well over a year ago when I first started this blog (Conjurer & the Conjured). The spark which triggered this re-imagining was from my more recent golem inspired creations, the Rubber Golem & the Bone Calcibus, plus my desire to see just how far my skills have developed since them early sketches and what areas still require improvement.

Stone Calcibus / Rubble Golem

The Stone Calcibus, also known as the Rubble or Stone Golem, is the final hive mind form of Calci (a gravity altering race of colonial microscopic entities) found inhabiting ancient ruins and dungeons. Typically taking on the form of a humanoid consisting of broken statues and stone, the Stone Calcibus can bear a remarkable resemblance to the mythological golems and as such these mysterious creatures have acquired many myths of their own, most famously that they are the ancient guardians of hidden treasure’s and temples. This has lead them to gain another more whimsical name, “The Bouncers of the Past”.

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Due to an unfortunate combination of work, holidays and a general lack of time I have regrettably been neglecting this site, something I can only apologise for, especailly to anyone who has tried to contact me within that time frame. However with a new year comes a new start, and with a new start comes newer and stronger motivation to advance and improve.

So to kick start the new year while I work on my most recent skull anatomy study of a Dimetrodon, a long extinct therapsid famous for its sail like back. This quick sketch was done as part of my ongoing quest to learn the fundamental basics of creature anatomy, and how important it is to know what a creature looks like both on the surface and within.

Anatomy Study – Dimetrodon Skull

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^ Sorry mile fans

Happy Birthday FiddzyDesign Blog, as you are now one whole year old today since your first glorious post. Sadly however while there’s no new work to post today on this annual celebration, a new cycle of work is just around the corner.

Looking back at my work from the last year I fill that I have improved significantly, gaining a much greater insight into digital rendering and drawing as a whole, however there’s still much to learn and always things to improve upon and relearn. So, back to the sketchbook for another year… BEGIN!

Thanks

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Here are a collection of some of my most recent study sketches. They where drawn primarily as background preparation and research for some of my newest creature designs such as the Bone Calcibus, while others such as the tree frog illustration where done solely for fun and general study.

Anatomy studies – Human Teeth & ReptilesAnatomy Study – Swine Facial FeaturesAnatomy Study – Tree FrogAnatomy Study – Mammoth Skulls & TusksAnatomy Study – Sheep Skull

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The Rubber Golem

The Rubber Golem is a mysterious modern elemental, that first appeared locked inside a container full of the rubber ducks which make up the vast majority of form. Its origins and creation are entirely unknown, with many sometimes wild theories explaining as to how it got in the container to start with and from where it gained its lone space hopper head piece. The current leading theory is that this golem is in actuality just a renegade swarm of Calci, and that its proper definition should be the Rubber Calcibus. Since its first appearance the Rubber Golem has completely vanished, becoming nothing more than a modern myth, with only the occasional rubber duck left in an obscure location to remind the world of its presence.

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Bone Calcibus / Bone Golem

The Calci are a colonial race of microscopic semi-corporeal entities that gather together in the trillions to form the Calcibus, a powerful hive mind which acts as a single voice for the colony, and as such is often viewed by others as an individual entity. In addition to this the Calcibus has the power to incorporate inanimate objects into its body, to create a projective shell for its occupants, and as means of further interacting with the corporeal world. Dozens of myths surround the Calcibus, with many cultures mistaking them for ancient golem and demonic guardians of the underworld.

The design and inspiration of the Calcibus came form some recent animal skull studies I had been doing over the last month (which I‘ll post at a latter date), as well as the mythology of the golem.

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The creation of this vast gas giant inhabitant came from two separate factors, the first was my desire to further experiment with the translucent effects I had been working on in my last creature design the Turoktune, and the second was the brief from C.O.W #175 – Great White Carnivorous Worm with Young. I then decided to set the piece within the upper layers of a gas giant so I could play around with atmospheric rendering.

Rytanni Vrymiju & Young

The Rytanni Vrymiju are a species of colossal floating worms, found within the upper layers of the gas giant G. Whimlip, a world where life thrives in “oceans” of gas.
Adult Rytanni Vrymiju can grow up to 120 meters in length, and drift through the upper atmosphere hunting for smaller organisms in a process similar to filter feeding. The young, which are normally born in broods between 4 and 5, are not quite as placid as the adults, parasitically feeding off their mother and constantly trying to out compete each other for the richest feeding area behind her head. They continue to feed like this until they are large enough to fend for themselves, usually drinking their mothers dry in the process.

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The design of this gelatinous demonoid, the Turoktune, was born as an experimental piece focusing on highlight rendering and translucency.  Like my other most recent designs I have also thought up a backstory for these vicious underworld sirens to help expand upon their design.

A “Human” Turoktune

The Turoktune are a mysterious species of unknown origin found in the dark back allies and under layers of the luxurious casino metropolis’s world of Laz Raxi. They stalk and kill anyone foolish or drunk enough to enter the cities long abandoned lower levels, and even though the authorities “officially” deny their existence they are believed to be responsible for thousands of missing person accounts. While no one is believed to have meet a Turoktune and survived, it is rumoured that they lure in their prey with a mesmerising light display which emanates from chemical reactions within their translucent skin, captivating any creature with the ability of sight, creating an irresistible, hallucinogenic and provocative spectacle. They then consume their transfixed prey, incorporating their bones and memories into their own.

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These two new creature designs both portray potentially dangerous and hazardous giants, that while destructive serve roles which are both beneficial and vital to the protection and sustainability for their homeworld’s in the long run.

The Giant Rencharon of Renchar

The Giant Rencharon are five legged arthropods found on the moonworld of Renchar, a large rocky and metal rich world orbiting the massive gas giant, Nixdra III. The Giant Rencharon’s most distinctive feature is its large, naturally evolved, abdomen mounted, heated plasma canon, a highly powerful canon, even when compared by technological standards. The primary purpose of this canon is to shoot down potential aerial predators, however they can also use it to blast meteorites and asteroids out of the sky when Nixdra III annually passes through the edge of the systems largest asteroid belt. Its because of the Giant Rencharon that Renchar is been labelled a red listed hazardous world, due to the Giant Rencharon often shooting ships clean out of the sky, mistaking them for incoming asteroids, that while inconvenient for mining corporations it provides natural protection for the worlds rich and precious resources.

The Ka Ryygel of Telus V

The Ka Ryygel or “Forest Harvester”, are a long lived and colossal species of gentle giants found on the planet Telus V, where every 600 years or so they all simultaneously awaken from  hibernation and consume almost 50% of the planets thick forests, pulling the trees from the ground with their expendable arms, then roasting all plant matter in a furnace like stomach, before filtering through the remaining ash and charcoal for precious nutrients in an additional two secondary stomach chambers.

When interplanetary settlers first encountered the Ka Ryygel they initially saw them as a global threat and bid to destroy them. However they soon realised that these herbivorous giants actually played an integral role in the planets ecology, in a similar fashion to the forest fires here on Earth, clearing land to promote new growth, then fertilising it with the waste materials and undigested seeds, that the Ka Ryygel spray from the tip of their long hollow tail.

Semi-Fun Fact: The Ka Ryygel “Forest Harvester” was originally designed for the ConceptArt C.O.W challenge #173 – Forest Harvester, a topic idea that was my own suggestion.

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Here is my newest ConceptArt.org C.O.W entry, The Neptune’s Spire, a colossal mutant sea anemone. Designed for the C.O.W #171 – Giant Amphibious War Beast contest,  aimed at creating monstrous behemoths recruited by humans as fresh water lake guardians in the year 4010, after server climate change left the Earth covered almost entirely in water until the oceans receded and fresh water became the new oil.

Neptune’s Spire

Towering into the sky like the skyscraper’s from the years before the great melt, a Neptune’s Spire in its watery home is a wondrous spectacle to behold, however it is also an extremely dangerous one. With powerful hydrokinesis abilities these highly evolved  sea anemone can control the very water they stand in, creating devastating whirlpools, tidal waves, columns of water and even vast storm systems by manipulating the moisture in the air around them.

Many human clans have tried to domesticate them however gaining the trust of a wild Neptune’s Spire is an almost impossible task, instead having to be raised and trained from birth to their battle ready maturity, a process that takes almost 200 years, and even then its loyalty is not always guaranteed. Although when successful, these amphibious cnidarians make the ultimate lake guardians, able to annihilate entire armies with the precocious resource they are trying to claim for themselves, fresh water.

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The image below was my entry into this weeks ConceptArt.org C.O.W contest, C.O.W. #170- The Real Cookie Monster. The goal of this contest was to redesign the Cookie Monster Muppet from Sesame Street fame into any kind of creature, just as long as its blue.

The Cookieback Whale

The Cookieback Whale is an immense cookie obsessed leviathan, inhabiting is own twisted dimension known as the “Cookieverse”, a vast Confectionery filled bubble, stuck between universes. However although isolated and remote the Cookieback Whale can open portals directly into the cookie jars and containers of our universe and beyond, dragging their contents back into its dimension. This ability to harvest cookie’s from an near infinite number of universe’s has allowed it to stockpile billions upon billions of its favorite food source, which coalesce into gigantic “Biscuit Belts”, and even entire solar systems that remain perfectly persevered for it to endlessly feast upon.

So the next time you notice that someone has stolen the cookie’s from your cookie jar, don’t blame your friends, family or that pesky mouse you have been chasing for all these years, instead know that the Cookieback Whale has paid a visit, and shall most likely return again if it smells its most favourite food of them all…. Cookie’s.

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At the end of January I uploaded a piece called “Cave of the Opinnanite”, that featured a clan of large sentient purple gastropods, I named the Opinnanite, living in their subterranean home. Painted as an experimental colour piece to help improve my digital rendering skills, I was never truly happy with its final outcome, especially when it came to the purple slime monsters themselves. Knowing I could of pushed their design further I decided it was time for a redesign, resulting in the Opinnanite version 2.0 …

War Opinnanite

For the redesign I focused more on its form and structure, trying to create a more believable creature (well as believable as a slime monster can be), with more life and character. The biggest change was the face, this time giving it a more humanoid appearance, rather than the originals dim-witted, blobfish inspired face. I also wanted to push its gastropod biology, giving it an even more fluid appearance, almost as if it was made from sludge. Finally the World War II helmet and grenade where more of an aesthetic fun touch, used to help show the creature as a sentient character, rather than a slimy purple biomass.

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The two creature designs below came from the work produced for this weeks conceptart.org Creature of the Week (C.O.W) contest, C.O.W #169 Beautiful Rebirth. The aim of this contest was to pick a monster from fiction that has or might off scared you, then redesign it as a cute and beautiful creature. For my entry I picked the Critter aliens from the Critter film series, a race of hairy, toothed and ugly murderous alien rodents.

Beautiful Rebirth – My Pet Critter

This first image was my entry into the C.O.W Beautiful Rebirth contest. Taking the Critter alien and merging it with hamster like qualities to give it a cuter more innocent appearance, then imagining what it would be like to take it and give it a makeover, with pink candy floss like hair giving it embedded beauty while still keeping the essence of the creatures unpleasant nature.

Krytammer

This second image was a redesigned version of my C.O.W entry, used to create my own horrid alien rodent, the garbage eating Krytammer.

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While this blog may have been in hibernation over the last month, I have been busy going back to basic’s once again, working on anatomy studies for both humans and animals, helping to further develop my drawing skills. While human anatomy training is still ongoing, with allot of help from the excellent anatomy study books by Bridgman and Hogarth, today I have decided to upload some of the animal work I have been doing, from both real world and fictional sources.

Animal Anatomy – Real World Studies

The first image above looks at the structure and form of real world animal anatomies, here studying the facial structures of  the Babirusa, Turkey Vulture and Lingcod.

LOTR – The Great Beast

This second image is a creature design based off a fictional animal from The Lord of the Rings, known as a Great Beast. To create this redesign I not only looked at the Great Beast design from The Lord of the Rings films, but I also studied the anatomies of real world animals such as the Rhinoceros and Bison.

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These two creature designs were created as an extension to alien shark designs done previously, only this time I had gained my initial inspiration from the utterly bizarre looking Australian deep-sea fish, the Blobfish, particularly the Blob Sculpin species. Although unlike the shark designs which focused primarily on linework, these alien influenced blobfish where drawn specifically looking at developing my colour application, using a more defined brush to help show greater contrast and form.

The Blobmander

The colour application on the Blobmander is similar to how I normally work, however here I have tried to use less blurring to gain sharper lines  on my colours creating greater contrast, especially in the highlights. The creature itself is a cross between the blob sculpin and a Chinese giant Salamander.

Cave of the Opinnanite

This piece showing the primitive cave dwelling Opinnanite was done as a purely digital creation, unlike the Blobmander above. This allowed me to concentrate on building form with colour rather than with linework. Overall while not perfect I felt it was a good step forward in the right direction, with this design also allowing to be play with depth of field, here using a series of 2D layers in a similar fashion as to how I use to build depth in Flash animation. While not designed to be an aquatic species the facial structure of the Opinnanite was based on the illusive blobfish.

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Continuing my project on studying both human and animal anatomies, I have started to look at the apex predators of the sea, sharks. However rather than just create some direct anatomy studies, I decided to mix both study and imagination together and come up with some rough sketches for some alien shark designs, particularly focusing on the Hammerhead shark, which is undoubtedly one of the best looking sharks, atleast in my mind.

Double HammerheadArbiter Shark

Semi-Fun Fact: The design of the Arbiter Shark was inspired by a combination of the facial structure of the Elites from the Halo franchise and the jawbone of a sheep.

Lime Shark

Semi-Fun Fact: The Lime Shark, was not named because of its bright green eyes, but rather because its serpentine appearance was based on the body of a moray eel, with “Lime” being a call-back to the sketch of a moray eel I had drawn previously.

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Between the festive cheer for Christmas and the build up towards the new decade I have being playing around with a rough holiday sketch of a demonic snowman character, known as the Snowdemon.

The Snowdemon

The initial idea behind the Snowdemon was the pure and simple concept of “an evil snowman”, which is exactly what it is, a animated snowman embodied by the a psychopathic winter spirit, able to walk the earth again for however long the winter chill may last.

…and on that cheery note I wish you all a Happy New Year!

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Recently I have decided it would be very beneficial to take a short break from producing new character and creature designs and instead take some time to reinforce and strengthen my drawing skills by going back to basics and working over the winter on some anatomy studies. Something I have not done properly for awhile now, and would greatly benefit my future work. The Images below are some of the rough sketches I have been doing, focusing particularly on skeletal structures, particularly skulls.

Four Digit Alien Hand – Anatomy StudyHuman Skeletal Studies – Rib Cage & Hand BonesHuman Skeletal Studies – Skull & Leg BoneHuman Skeletal Study – Leg BoneTyrannosaurus Rex – Skull & Anatomy StudiesMoray Eel – Facial Anatomy Study

I find that doing these kinds of studies to be extremely beneficial, allowing me to flex my drawing muscles and  develop as an artist. Over the next few weeks I shall continue to do more of these studies and begin to incorporate them into new designs.

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The Flesh Teddy

This new demonic creature design was an experimental piece done entirely digitally. Designed to be an animated, stitched together leathery monster, the Flesh Teddy is inhabited by a devious yet playful spirit which roams the world looking to both scare and entertain with its sometimes deadly practical jokes. Here I have shown the demon in its own twisted “Toy Box Dimension”.

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