Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Digital Sculpting Bug Designs

For our first assignment in digital sculpting, we're doing alien bugs. Here are some ideas I did up last night based off some sketches I did. Two of them are based off Japanese Rhino Beetles (my favourite kind of bug) while the third is based off the description at the end of the short story, I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream.


Rhino beetle design with a star-like "helmet". The points are bioluminescent, as well as the smaller spots that populate the shell. It also has a similar feature as a lightning bug, where the lower bit of their abdomen also glows. These beetles usually travel in large packs and when they rest, make it look like the night sky is on whatever they have landed on, be it a large field, a tree, or the roof of a cave. They gather sunlight via the larger "gems" on their horn and helmet.



A water-based beetle, this one is incapable of flight, but excels at swimming. It's horn is like a ship's bow, designed to better cut through the water and much of its propulsion comes from the twin jets on its back. They start right above the eye area, under the helmet and along the back. They filter water through the front and out the back for movement. Specialized "gills" are on the sides of its head and two feelers are near the creature's mandibles (they're kinda like shrimp's I guess, but shorter). They're legs are supposed to have small webbing on them for slower movement through the water. The top of their helmet is very fluid and is ended with a bioluminescent bulb. Its body also has a small trail of bioluminescent dots along the sides and its feet are also tip with small suction cups.


A rough, quick blah "painting" of my slug design, based off the description at the end of Harlan Ellison's short story, I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. I had other ideas in my sketchbook, but didn't get around to messing around with them in SAI or scanning them in. The description at the end, by the way, is this:

"I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within." (Ellison, I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream)

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