alexries

Antler progress

Working on the inner surface of the 'antlers': near the base, I am giving them a cutting/gripping edge, which allows the creature to butcher its prey and either cut it into smaller pieces, or push it ...

Pattern Revision

Work continues! A fair few ups and downs regarding the design led to a rethink and re-pattern. I have brought back some of the reef environment, and decided to simplify the mouth a little as I was hav...

Sandflats

Working out the details of the sand-slope the creature is hunting on. The red photosynthetic life give me the chance to help establish some visual scale and perspective, so I will tweak them as I go t...

Final Approach...

Now that I am happy with the shape and basic design, I stripped the color off the creature to allow me to render its skin properly; I will add the patterns back on later with other layers. 
2015-12-09 07:47:38 +0000 UTC View Post

New Direction

As happens VERY often over the course of my artworks, a slight change of direction is underway. I am moving the creature into the sand flats, and having it ambush creatures swimming overhead. I want t...

Mouth Design

Working on the functional aspects of the mouthparts and attack tentacles. When this is nailed down I need to find a place to re-integrate the eyes at the base of the tentacles, and determine how food ...

Update

Coloring tests continue, still very early stages. One a direction is established I can commit and add details, textures etc. For now though, the experiments are mostly around how much detail to add to...

Coloring Begins

The stage of experimental and sometimes disastrous initial coloring begins! I will move onto the main creature before doing much more on the prey item, but wanted to do a little fine detail work on th...

Set Dressing

Added some basic environmental elements and color so that I can adjust the values and composition.

Most of this stage is about making the main creature fit well within its environment, before co...

Display Structures

Seeing as I am exploring the display/ritual combat structure idea with the ambush worms' huge, oversized jaws, I conducted some research into the diversity of such structures. While the antlers of dee...

Next Stage

Now that I am reasonably happy with the line art, I have begun the masking process. Dropping in the basic areas I need, adding some simple monochrome shading to key areas, and layering things out as e...

Living Fossils

I have decided to take a slightly different direction with this critter that allows me to both experiment a little with the form, and also demonstrate another evolutionary concept - the so called 'liv...

Update

Working on the cleaned up line art before coloring, and coming to a decision about how the prey capture happens. At the moment, the 'eyestalks' shoot out and ensnare prey which is then drawn towards t...

Spiny Things

Conducting research as I design the jaw mechanism of the birrin ancestor; here are some of the intriguing and rather giger-esque images one comes across if you look at the tongue (radula) of a mollusk...

Posing the Creature

Work continues on getting a good pose before fine tuning the design for coloring.

At this stage I am attempting to get a flowing, balanced composition that also accurately portrays the kind of p...

Ambush Worm

Sketches of the early attack sequences of the Ambush Worm: At this stage in birrin evolution, the eye stalks, which were originally part of a filter feeding mechanism, are still involved directly...

Early Bird

An early (YEARS old) pencil rendering of a possible avian relative of the birrin. This was back when the birrin had three eye stalks, the third being a tall extra flexible one on the top of the head. ...

Bonus!

A little bonus content for my new patrons, birrin office work!

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my Patreon! Lets kick this thing off...

My first artwork is going to further explore the early evolution of the birrin, and show that even in deep time their ancestors were ...