FiddzyDesign – Concept Artwork

^ 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, I am coincidentally currently working on a redesign for one of last summers creations, which should hopefully become a fitting tribute when finally complete.

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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Bone Calcibus

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 golems 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 golems.

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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 abdomen mounted naturally evolved heated plasma canon, a highly powerful canon, even when compared by technological standards. The primary purpose of this canon is to shoot down potential 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 has been labelled a red listed hazardous world, with the Giant Rencharon often shooting ships clean out of the sky, mistaking them for incoming asteroids, which while inconvenient for mining corporations it allows natural protection of 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 their waste materials and the 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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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 creatures themselves, always knowing I could of pushed their design further. So eventually I finally 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, 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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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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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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Nuu Nulip – “Jelloroom”

The inspiration for the strange mushroomoid creature above came to me while redesigning the Mulood fungus monster from the post below. However unlike the mobile Mulood, for this creature design I wondered what a static carnivorous mushroom might be like. The outcome was this, the Nuu Nulip, a strange cross between a mushroom, jellyfish and a table lamp, luring in its prey with its bright luminous cap, then snagging them with its stinging jellyfish like tentacles.

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The two images below continued the new artistic style I have been playing with in recent designs, using a mixture of bold sharpening lines and realistic shading and detail, creating this almost real world/comic book character blend.

Ruur – Pyromaniac Bounty Hunter

The design behind the Ruur’s character and appearance went through several different phases. Originally appearing with a more goat like facial structure, the Ruur was initialling going to be depicted with Ancient Egyptian stylistic undertones. Then its design shifted to become a more oriental armour clad bounty hunter character before eventually shifting yet again to become this more whimsical grenade juggling jester like character as shown above, gaining a more hare like appearance.

Mikoogrupp

Unlike the Ruur, the Mikoogrupp or “Bugbird”, was a much more straight forward design, with the only real changes between this its final form and its initial design being a removal of a second pair of smaller praying mantis like arms.

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Po Po Nuff – “Koala Crab”

The rather bizarre Po Po Nuff was a somewhat random creation made from my desire to create something cute, yet creepy. Its alien appearance draws its inspiration from many real world animals including koala’s, bushbabies and even species of small single clawed dinosaur called a Shuvuuia.

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I designed the Poala to be a race of telepathic crystalline entities, that can control their technology with their computer like minds. In addition to designing the Poala I also wanted to design their homeworld, Prema Zan. Inspired by the new concept of dwarf planets (Plutoids), I decided to base the design of Prema Zan on the real world dwarf planet Ceres, a dwarf planet found in the solar systems asteroid belt. Stylistically I took a slightly more cartoony approach with these artworks.

Poala on a Quadclaw WalkerPoala on Prema Zan

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Psittacodu

Semi-Fun Fact: The Psittacodu, appearance is based on a genus of parrot beaked Dinosaurs known as Psittacosaurus.

Jeepeg

Semi-Fun Fact: The Jeepeg’s design came from mixing elements from both an eastern world dragon and a ferret. Its name, Jeepeg, is a pun on the file format, JPEG.

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Ozznobat

The idea behind the Ozznobat was to design an alien that relied on its other senses rather than sight. Instead having the Ozznobat “see” the world using advanced senses in touch, taste, hearing and especially smell, as well as having a built in form of natural radar. I wanted this to also be reflected in its culture, with their clothing being designed around empathizing texture rather than appearance, with the shoulders being a critical area. I decided to give it dark red skin like many deep sea creatures, which apparently helps to hide them in the darkness.

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Nimm Dimension Jumper

The Nimm was designed to be a lifeform that can live as both non-corporeal energy and as a corporeal humanoid being, with the additional ability of jumping between dimensions and realities. The artwork above shows the Nimm in a transition state, emerging from its non-corporeal energy state and into its physical planetary form. I actively decided against having its physical form reacting with the light form its non-corporeal form, due to the idea of its two forms existing in two different non-interactive dimensions, our world and the Nimm Dimension.

Klishish

Semi-Fun Fact: Both the Klishish and the Nimm were designed to be very Humanoid with elements of the traditional “big eyed, small gray alien” concept.

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A slightly more experimental piece, this battle scene was originally drawn as a very rough pencil sketch then scanned into Photoshop were it was coloured,  edited and sharpened. This piece features my Mulood “Fungus Creeper”, a creature originally designed as a dungeon dwelling demon, rather than a Kaiju. However I liked the design of the Mulood so much I decided to reuse it again here.

Ba’Bate vs. Mulood

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Continuing my self directed Kaiju project I have designed three further monster characters as shown below. Like the Leeton, these three Kaiju where designed to look both realistic yet silly and to have an appearance of a man in a suit.  I was heavily inspired by the idea of them being reflected as ancient gods.

Kaiju Pharaoh ZorrticKaiju King ToobyKaiju Gulmar

Semi-Fun Fact: The name Gulmar is a cross between Gull and Fulmar two seabirds that reflect its bird like head. The rest of its bulbous body was designed by the concept of it being like a giant monster vacuum cleaner, that can both suck stuff into its body, then fire it back out again.

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This is a collection of some of my “everyday aliens”. Something a very mundane and realistic sense of these galactic citizens of the space age. These illustrations were not only done to show yet more alien designs, but were also to show some costume design.

NeillickOochereem Labourer

Semi-Fun Fact: The mouth of the Oochereem was inspired by the bivalve shell of a Giant Clam. NonualNorileening

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While allot of my past designs were very Humanoid in their appearance, with mostly sentient alien characters. These two branch off into looking more at animalistic creature design.

Crimson Mountain Noth

Oxentrurus

Semi-Fun Fact: This Alien Anteater, Oxentrurus, draws its name from a stegosaurid Dinosaur from the Oxfordian stage called a Dacentrurus.

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These three creature designs were inspired by a random collection of objects and things, both real and fictional. Like the last post below, these three images are some of the earliest drawn from within my portfolio.

Alien Lemon Face

As the name suggests this alien character’s head was inspired by a quarter slice of lemon.

Alien Horse Detective – Hippolumbo

This alien with traditional green skin and an untraditional horse like face was an inspirational mix of a really old horse-like character design I had done as a kid and the legendary television detective Columbo.

Gharial Elite Shocktrooper

This alien soldier is a cross between the ancient Egyptian crocodile god Sobek and a species of  modern day crocodilian called a Gharial.

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Hello and welcome to FiddzyDesign, my name is Tom Fiddimore and I am a Graphic Design New Media graduate looking into becoming a concept artist for either the computer game, film or television industries.

This Blog will serve as an up-to-date feed for the development of my own personal concept artwork portfolio, showcasing my newest work.

For more information and facts about me please check out the aptly named “About Me…” section.

I hope you enjoy my work.

“Concept Art Powers ACTIVATE!!!”

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