[johnchen]

Originally Posted by GeoCat

Looking great John! But where did the beak come from, and why would a highly evolved species such as the Na'vi mate with creatures?

No big deal, just saying

Keep up the fantastic work dude!

in order to survive in the oceans, firstly the banshees evolved to survive underwater, then a off shoot of the early navi was forced off the land and into the water, in the beginning the early Navi used the water banshee's as transport like on land, but because "the bond" was so constant they eventually evolved and combined to form this creature. Beaks are more effective at catching prey in the water, early banshees had beaks rather then jaws, also the beak is the only hard external body part of this creature, they use it to joust, head butt each other.

I can make up this stuff all day man

one thing I'm curious to see in Avatar 2 is how they evolve the Navi to breath underwater, if indeed they decide to visit. I hope they dont just decide that the humans left underwater breathing machines for them to use lol.

[Doppelganger]

johnchen's creature looks hungry. so I made him a snack.

This creature is a bit of both worlds. it needs to be near and in water most of the time.
His ear things are air bags as he cannot breath underwater. he eats mostly plant life but does add in small fish. I think he would also be completely harmless to other bigger inhabitants.
as you can see he skims the water with his fins in the water and his body on top. I would gather that hes very hard to catch, and is extremely fast. At night his ears glow similar to a firefly.
hes still a bit soft at the moment but he is shaping up real good. let me know what you think.
The image is rendered in Zbrush, additional renders from Mentleray into a mattpainting.
the whole thing took a little over 4 hours.
On another note let me know if the image is too dark, I think my cintiq's gamma might be too bright.

[GeoCat]

Looks great Doppelanger!

[mayanew]

love your creatures GeoCat.
How do you do that turntable?

[GeoCat]

@Mayanew

As lovely as they are, those aren't my models. They belong to Woogity. I was just commenting on his work in that post...

apologies for any confusion

Anyway looking pretty good mayenew... keep it coming!

[Woogity]

Doppelganger: Really liking that new critter! I think the jellyfish head chick in your 2A image has some really cool ideas in it as well.


something that might be useful to keep in mind is that all of the creatures in pandora typically have similar themes, not that you would have to go with them because these are for different worlds, but all the mammal lizard type critters have six limbs and their nostrils are located by their shoulders, similarly every creature from what i can tell has the two head tentacles that allow it to do the weird mind meld thing.


updates coming soonish.


-Woog

[johnchen]

Sluggercrab I see a ton of these slowly moving along the ocean beach in an establishing shot with the camera flying down the beachline.

[GeoCat]

Wow John, these guys look fantastic...

Excellent work!

[S1D3W1ND3R]

Hi, first time post. Awesome topic, thanks johnchen. Here's my concept, starting on the model now

[johnchen]

Welcome to the challenge StephenGoodson, cool looking creature and nice concepting. looking forward to seeing your wips.

John

[Woogity]

updates!


few more pieces to go, and probably 2 more sculpting passes before color.





-Woog

[S1D3W1ND3R]

Thats coming along nicely Woog, the tail section's really great it reminds me of a peacock mantis shrimp. maybe make the mandible/pedipalp things more segmented or obviously jointed- like it uses them to push the food to its mouth, just my 2c's!

[johnchen]

Woogity - Thats one nasty bug, reminds me of the bugs in Starship troopers. The foot / toes are an interesting design, but they feel like they couldnt support the weight of the heavy body up top. great work so far, I hope you get a chance to texture it in your chosen environment.

[Woogity]

Johnchen: really nice textures on that guy love the purples in the shell and the antenna bits!

Doppleganger: really like that last creature, something about the bulbous head parts i think really fits well in the pandora world for a creature that is meant to be fairly tiny.

[Doppelganger]

Hey gang sorry I have been out of touch here for awhile. I just got back into town and the next few days will be busy but ill try for an hour at lunch tomorrow, I got a Sunday afternoon planned to just sit and go on some ideas, I cant wait.

@mayanew I like your early sketches, which one are you going for?


@johnchen I really like the sluggercrab concept, I love the spotted colours on his legs, however the slug part feels dark in comparison and the shell it self has an opportunity to be wild in its design. the shell also is a bit symmetrical. I would love to see the other bird guy creature in a scene with these things.


@Woogity Ill touch on your crit of my little pink creature I think?
the creature is an octoped were as in most of Pandora's inhabitants are hexapodal.
To your point about the nostrils, I noticed this early on in research, this is only true for the larger animals, as they get smaller their nostrils get more and more to where they are in our world (the monkey creature and black deer peacock thing are good examples) the intelligent creatures are depicted as tetrapods with nostrils where humans nostrils are, which I'm betting is what any intelligent life in 2 or 3 will have, even the banshee is a tetrapod and has very little in common with other species in its kingdom. your response indicates the creature is hard to read so ill have to go over it again so its forms are clear thanks for the comments don't be shy keep them coming (ps to all, should I make it a hexapod?)
your creature design for the crab like species is interesting, have you tried colour look dev yet?
I've noticed a few people are basing their creatures off of existing Pandoran jungle species as you mentioned in a post to me. If so then beware the sin creature. this movie is heavy handed with physiognomy in this case (beautiful meaning good and ugly meaning bad) and unless your creature is evil then it would be out of place compared to the previous film (much like 90% of my concepts lol) in fact because we do not know the rules of the new worlds were left at two points.
1. we either take existing creature designs make variations and drowned them in water( which is terrible concepting practice) or 2. we make original creatures that we just say is in that world. for example Johns slugercrab doesn't have much in common in that universe, but its a great design, however if it was seen in Avatar 2 then people would say wow that's exactly like Avatar.
Which is why I just went crazy out there and didn't care about whether it fit's the world, I just keep going till the moderators rein me back. personally though because we cant possibly know the rules for those new environments, and we only have what came before than I wouldn't try to much to make them exactly like the jungles of Pandora (unless that's your gaol then ill shut up).
If you think about it the oceans of Pandora will be as different in design to there land as our oceans are to ours.