Archive for Prop & Technology Design

Snow & Lights:

Seasons greetings! While getting into the festive spirit I could not resist taking a short break from my current project, (that I aim to upload within the new year) and instead design something more fitting for this chilly and wondrous time of year.

Reulan Winter WispReunilan Winter Wisp

The Reunilan Winter Wisps from the traditionally chilly world of Reunila are a small but numerous species composed almost entirely of energy. Living for just under two Reunilan years (425 Earth days), the wisps spend the majority of their lives underground attached to the tree roots of Reunila’s northern forests. There similar to a fungus they feed off decaying matter, breaking it down into nutrients for the trees themselves. It is only when the wisps “flower”, during their second and final winter that they actually become visible, leaving the soil as floating balls of energy surrounded in a thin silken shell, which has the appearance of glistening crystalline ice. In this stage they live for no longer than three days as they “dance” in any available ray of light within forest clearings and over frozen ponds and marshes, searching for a mate with which to breed. Their floating bodies are extremely cold, so much so that they can actually chill the air around them, creating beautiful ice crystals that glimmer in their wake and deterring all but the most specialised of predators. There a fables that tell of times of when they was once so numerous that they turned night into day and dragged winter into spring.

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The Poala of Prema Zan:

Poala SentinelA Poala sentinel riding its Quadclaw Walker

Designed to be a truly alien race the Poala are a species of sentient telepathic crystalline lifeforms. Able to create microscopic nano bots fully under their control. The Poala use this natural asset to build their technology and expand their telepathic powers for which they use to communicate, with both organics and machines. Naturally slow moving at inches a day, they further use their mental powers to control their technology in combination with their nano’s, utilising special robotic walkers known as Quadclaw Walkers to traverse vast distances at speeds considered the norm by most other species. While they have complete mastery over computers an extremely rare few can use their powers on organics, luckily the most an average Poala can accomplish is to read peoples minds, but only with considerable concentration.

Prema ZanThe Poala on Prema Zan

In addition to designing the Poala I also wanted to design their homeworld, Prema Zan, a rocky world exposed to the vacuum of space, portraying another trait the Poala possess. 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 our solar systems asteroid belt. Stylistically I took a slightly more cartoony approach with these artworks.

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Ancient Gods & Monster Seagulls:

Continuing my self directed Kaiju project I have designed three further monster characters inspired by Japanese cinema. 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 notion of them being reflected as ancient gods.

Pharaoh Zorrtic Pharaoh Zorrtic

The giant cyborg Pharaoh Zorrtic is the ruler and protector of the Zorrtic people, a race of Anubis-esque humanoids.

King Tooby IIKing Tooby II

This giant and vastly powerful golem has the apperence of an animated stone statue but is infact a highly advanced robot. The successor and “son” of the once famous King Tooby I, King Tobby II awaits on his “fathers” throne at the Grand Palace of Tooby on Umbequarn IV.

Gulmar MutantGulmar Mutant

 With large hollow sacks in their torso connected to their hands via tube-like flexible arms a Gulmar can act like monstrous vacuum cleaner, with both the ability suck objects into its body, then fire them back out again at extreme velocities. Standing at an already Frightful 7 foot a rare genetic deformity can sometimes double that turning your average Gulmar into a giant. Yet while its even rarer to get a Gulmar taller than that, dozens of ancient legends and myths tell of ones colossal enough to destroy a skyscraper.

Semi-Fun Fact: The name Gulmar is a cross between Gull and Fulmar, two seabirds that reflect its bird like head. It is also one of my favourite creature designs too date.

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Weapon Testing:

Alien Bolt RifleAlien Bolt Rifle

My first individually designed weapon prop done specially for this portfolio. This alien gun was designed to be a cross between a rifle and a shotgun, with the intent of it being wielded by a large, strong race. Although I will admit its not perfect for me this is a step in a new direction, since I generally consider myself to be a character/creature specialist, not a prop designer. However if I continue to wish to design technologically advance aliens wielding gadgets and weapons then its a skill I shall need to continue to learn and strive to master.

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Path Watchers:

Elcomoo Path WatcherElcomoo Path Watcher

Yam'flitt Path WatcherYam’flitt Path Watcher

These two medieval looking humanoids where designed to appear as if they lived in a magical fantasy world, yet still be placeable within the alien dominated science fiction worlds like the rest of my designs. Additionally the two races where envisioned to be distantly related species, capable of residing on the same homeworld, yet not necessarily being friendly towards one another. These examples depict an elitist soldier rank known as the “Path Watchers”, the sentinels and defenders of their strongholds. Trained to know every aspect of the landscapes from where they reside, they know every accessible route an enemy can take and every means to prevent them.

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Unorthodox Bird Collection:

These three alien humanoids all contain aspects inspired by birds, particularly those from UK (ok, admittedly I maybe a bit of a birder). While not necessarily being purely avian in design these creature do atleast incorporate a small intentional attribute of a bird, resulting in this hybrid collection, drawing on inspirations from not just one but multiple biological sources weather it be bird, reptile, mammal ect…

Nix MollyNix Molly

The Nix (molly being a female cat) is perhaps the most obvious as to where its avian influence came from, naturally being its large eagle-like wings. Its feline aspects however were drawn from the appearance of the mythological Sphinx.

GoomuaGoomua

As captioned in the image this whimsical looking humanoid was based on the game bird, the Black Grouse. Being styled on a game bird I wanted the Goomua, to appear stocky and reasonably dim-witted and unintelligent. The result is a creature and potential character I am rather fond of and would one day like to return to and expand upon.

Thral HoverboarderThral Hoverboarder

While clearly based on a chameleon its not directly obvious where its bird attributes may derive. While the Goomua above was more of a characterised version of its chosen bird the Thral instead shows it as a subtle hint in the form of its chest and crest patterning. This patterning was inspired by the equally subtle speckling on the plumage of the Spotted-flycatcher a bird I felt was rather fitting for a chameleon based creature. The Thrals depiction as a hoverboarder was just for fun however.

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