C.O.W. - #132: Aerial Cephalopod

[yoitisi]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/images/cow/cow.jpg

For more infos and details about the rules go here:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=110879


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Round #132

Topic:
Aerial Cephalopod

Deadline:
Tuesday, 10 February 2009



note: The deadline won't be EXACTLY after a week...it can last up to 24 hours more, i am human and have to work also, you know ;)
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How to post

In this thread you can post all wips, questions, comments etc
However if you are done with your entry, post the final image in the following thread.

THREAD FOR FINAL ENTRIES (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=149339)

READ THE INFO IN THE 1ST POST OF THE FINALS THREAD TO SEE HOW TO POST YOUR FINAL IMAGE!!!

582877

[yoitisi]

ADDITIONAL INFO

1. For those people that are too lazy to grab a dictionairy, cephalopod mostly means it has tentacles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod

2. No individual/character!!! Make a concept of a species!

[Moai]

Aweshum!

[DefiledVisions]

Sounds like great fun... the first thing I came to think of is Bumskee's Flying Fish-thing... one of the older cows, an extremely cool piece.

Imagine it being like the "Sperm whale of the sky" whos only natural enemy is this Aerial Cephalopod

[Meon]

Sweet, here's my first Concept Art for it, just to have something to go from.

i imagine the species to live in the Himalaya mountains.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/Espengenin/first.jpg

im going to work more on the design.

[Nikola Marinkovic]

Sounds fun. :)

[Swordhand]

I might give it a shot.
Espenboi: Cool, but how does it fly?

[OTTA]

Nice Topic! Sound Fun !

[Moai]

Here's a very loose sketch of my idea. A highly-evolved squid, its fins have evolved into wings. Its tentacles trail behind it. The two largest tentacles have evolved into rudder-like structures, while the other tentacles bear claws with which to snag other fliers out of the air.

[fury03]

Cool idea... Here's a quick idea... Wanted it to produce gases, over take cities. Thought of war of the worlds right off the bat, so hopefully i don't get too close to that

583373

[fughi from yuggoth]

These are works by alex ries, I'll post them for inspiration!
These are NOT done by me and i would be glad if i can ever arrange such things.

maybe i'll take them off i alex ries calls back and don't want them up here,
or if yoitisi or anybody else with sumthin to say makes clear that this is against the rules or stuff.

http://www.alexries.com/jpg/gallery/c_fly.jpg

http://www.alexries.com/jpg/gallery/m-EVA.jpg

http://www.alexries.com/jpg/gallery/c-serrummk3.jpg

[Arthur-gl]

wow, those are fantastic fughi. I know they were not made by you, but still.
Great inspiration=D

Here's my idea for now:

http://www.comlock.net/drawings/sk01.jpg
http://www.comlock.net/drawings/sk02.jpg
http://www.comlock.net/drawings/sk03.jpg

http://www.comlock.net/drawings/sk04.jpg
http://www.comlock.net/drawings/sk05.jpg

[TimM]

I hope to try this one, sounds like fun. Plus, cephalopods. Dude, I'm there.

[Nikola Marinkovic]

here's a sketch of the idea I will go from...

[Joey-b]

Arthur - gl, I had the same idea as you haha.. ohh well dont think i've got the time anyway, nice sketches

[AlisonRobin]

First part of my idea: A nautilus that propels itself by expelling air from between its eight arms, which have fused into a funnel. Its tentacles are wings. Just a WIP.

[zimfin]

Good stuff already folks.
I have done some thumbnails though I'm not sure I have the exact design down yet. Planning on having my creature growing in a low gravity environment making it easier to "balloon" itself around and use wings to maneuver. The design and idea may well change as I proceed.

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee272/zimfin/cephalopods.jpg

[Wiggers]

Great start all!

[Kin]

Hi everyone, long time lurker first time poster in any COW thread, It's awesome to see so many talented people get together to participate in these threads so I wanted to try one for myself.

[siiilon]

I like this topic, and watching to your concepts I am sure this gonna be good round >:)
Here's mine
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/7748/cephalopod1ub6.jpg

[T_Turrill]

i'm going for a more ethereal balloony look. i'm envisioning this creature as an air equivalent of a wait-and-ambush predator in the deep sea: they have large spans of time with no prey passing by so they have a very slow metabolism, and live a very long time. The larger creature there on the left is the cephalopod, i figure the one on the right is a giant skygoing cnidarian of some sort. The cephalopod (which i'm calling The Cloud Eater) is similar in shape because the cnidarians are its prey. perhaps it could emit the same pheromones or have other ways to mimic them. :)

but enough natural history, i'll save that for the final piece. :P

[darkly]

T_Turril: Man, your sketches are great!

[siiilon]

T_Turrill: I love it >:)

[Joey-b]

Mine is gonna be more of a gliding Squid hehe
wings should be bigger

here is sketching
during traffic jam

[Fabian Roth]

Some neat ideas already...

zimfin: love those sketches...

If I find the the time, I will do a hovering creature that works like a hot air ballon using the uprising air over magma fields or volcanos...

[Nikola Marinkovic]

some update... :)

[zimfin]

Well, I keep jumping from detailing one area to the next, so nothing is as I want it yet. I plan on creating a lot more depth with the clouds, possibly adding another cephalopod in the distance. I haven't decided how transparent I want the Balloon to be yet. I think I might add some smaller balloons r something to its back tentacles though I am not sure yet.

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee272/zimfin/Aerial-cephalopod2.jpg

[Christoffer]

Oh this is niiice! Count me in!

*draws*

[Nikola Marinkovic]

this looks great zimfin...

[MoHog]

wip, will be continuing with a different perspective and some anatomical changes...
http://i350.photobucket.com/albums/q429/LouAy/cephalopod.jpg

maybe some natural form of the internal combustion engine or fusion?

Zimfin: I swear you get more skilled every round, nice thumbs + colour update

thanks for the great inspirations fughi

[zimfin]

Okay, worked on the wings and tentacles. slowly but surely getting closer to that balloon! Not sure what I'll do when I get there though! Lol.

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee272/zimfin/Aerial-cephalopod3.jpg

[siiilon]

zimfin: very nice, but I wonder if that beautiful background doesn't steal too much of focus from the creature.

Here another step: I added background, colors, changed framing and think what else could I do to give it the right tense atmospere of a hunt. No details neither reflections in the watter.
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/8536/cephalopod3kk7.jpg

[Ironhead]

It´s very interesting that many ideas take the same line. (Mine too, by the way). The mean Problem for me is to get this thing flying without wings.

[Bralt Hannicart]

3 hours messing around in PS...not too happy about it, doesn't look very original but what the heck, it was a good practice.

http://www.bralt.be/AerialCephalopod_web.jpg

[dwinbotp]

great concepts from everyone! here's my initial concept so far. basically, it's a giant muscle/heart that can fly, breathes in oxygen, transforming it into hot gases when it needs to fly, valves releasing the gas makes them drop down on unsuspecting prey.

[zimfin]

Great stuff folks!
I am pretty much done now. Finished the balloon at last. As mentioned earlier the creature lives on a low gravity planet. With large oceans filled with volcanic activity, it uses the heated air which escapes through the water in order to float easier. The Red marks on it's "balloon" are small muscle valves which open to release trapped air allowing the creature to lower it's height. To hunt, it lowers itself to sea or land level and scoops prey up with its suckered tentacles.

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee272/zimfin/Aerial-cephalopod4-flat.jpg

[Joey-b]

what i got

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y260/b-yeoj/COW132done.jpg

[T_Turrill]

these are such cute beebees, yall! i love tentacled critters. <3

Zimfin, so would it eat land based slow moving prey? maybe prey like frogs that cant see you if you dont move haha. i like the idea of the parachute thing but it'd be interesting to see the critter have a tactic for if a strong wind were to bash him into a cliff face or something? like he can compress the balloon and shoot out a quick jet of air that zips him away?
also whats the scale youre thinking of with this guy?

siilon i love the compact feel of your critter - he really has a zippy, small hummingbird feel. do the bees mean he's a future earth beebee?

bralt DUDE i love the colors and tonies. those bubbles make me happy.. it's simple but it really solves the problem.

i'm hurrying to get mine up to snuff! yeeeee i might not make it. blame those jerks at CHOW. :P

*ducks and runs away*

~Tiffany

[AlisonRobin]

Wow, you guys are great! :) This is another WIP for my flying nautilus.

[G@m]

My first wip for the cow, i dont really like it so im probably taking the final, if i'm ever going to start it to another complete direction. The big hole was his method to gather water from the atmosphere and trough some internal mechanism send it to the two lateral oval where the water was going to be ejected to form a cloud to hide himself. The membrane would work as sails.
585671

[TimM]

Here's my progress, I started it at lunch today and kept working on it when I got home.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/Timmah_45/aericeph.jpg

Edit:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/Timmah_45/aericeph2.jpg

[Nikola Marinkovic]

great work everyone.
i finished mine:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o212/Hari013/cow132AerialCephalopod.jpg

cheers. :)

[MoHog]

latest wip, slowly honing it down to the final beastie

http://i350.photobucket.com/albums/q429/LouAy/squideeadvance.jpg

any crits would be great, might add a bg of clouds

also any ideas on how best to add colour to a grayscale?

[Arthur-gl]

wow, lots of cool entries allready.

Bralt Hannicart:very nice rendering. I like the colours too.

!damn, I really like that pencil sketch you have there, G@m
Especially love the eye area.

siiilon: Starting to look good! A suggestion to make the composition a little more interesting to look at: I think you could have moved one of those two "bees" closer to the camera . You could also try to offcenter the main creature so it is not perfectly in the middle.

MoHog: if you use photoshop, you can make a new layer and set it to "colour"
then you can easily colour the greyscale underneath without messing the values. Alost the same can be done if you set the layer to "overlay"


Anyways, I picked one of my earlier thumbs and finished of my squiddy creature for now:

http://www.comlock.net/drawings/aerial-cephalopod.jpg

[Nexus]

Man, it's been a long time. Dealing with a lot of stuff right now but I need to remind myself how cathartic these creature designs are.

I blasted this onto the screen as fast as I could. If I think too much about the thing it becomes awkward looking. Anyhow, so I went with a nautilus influence. I'm a little surprised that more people didn't also go with nautili for reference since the shell could house so many different flight options but I like what I see from everyone thus far.

Big ups to Arthur-gl. I like to see strong new talent emerge here in the CoW's. The color scheme for those cephalopods is perfect and the composition is very strong.

---Update---
Threw a color scheme down. The sky is a placeholder, I'm not sure about it yet. Might go with something else.

[Timmy the Turtle]

niceones, everybody. Arthur-gl, i love your concept, it's pretty believable! :)

my flying cephalopod lives above the black sea and inhales methane gas that rises from the water and turns it into hydrogen for floating and locomotion (much like a fighter jet, using a stream of "fart" and 2 specialized rocky bones to produce a spark)

[Nikola Marinkovic]

Awesome work Arthur-gl. :)

[Ironhead]

Here is my first quick sketch. The idea is a very little parasite.
It "eats" the gas inside the "fruits".
What ja think about it.

[Arthur-gl]

Thanks for all the nice comments y'all =)
Ironhead Nice idea, and I love the colour combination and the overall shape of your creature. really nice contrasts in your shapes!

[dwinbotp]

Just another update, completely forgot about this one, hence gonna rush this one to make it.
@zimfin, awesome ambience, love the colors.
@Arthur-gl, lovely work man, my fave so far

Added a few things, like the eyes at the side intead in front, the valves for sucking in air is now added at the back, all it needs now are some mammals to feed on.

[Nikola Marinkovic]

Great idea Ironhead. :)

[zimfin]

Nice colours and idea Ironhead.

Arthur-gl: That turned out great man, well done!

dwinbotp:Like it. Scary beast if that is a cow in its tentacle. Massive?

Well, I am done. Thanks for the help and comments folks, it has been fun.

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee272/zimfin/cow132_zimfin.jpg

[dwinbotp]

Posted my final, some WIPs, dunno if it helps anyone though.
Thanks zimfin, Yours came out lovely:)

[siiilon]

Bralt Hannicart: Simple yet very tempting, I like it >:)

T_Turrill: Thanks. What is eart beebee.

G@m: Lovely sketch

Arthur-gl: It's wonderfull >:) And thank you for your advices.

Timmy the Turtle: nice, looking forward to see more >:)

zimfin: great work, you played so much with the functionality of the creature and that's allways what I like to look at.

dwinbotp: OMG, thats so dynamic and full of atmosphere. Reminds me of X-com 2: Terror from the deep (tentaculat creature). Look like flying heart, but looks just great. Poor cow (All Taurens will cry when I tell them)


Here's my another step. I plan to add many different details, especially in the watter and clouds.
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/4417/cephalopod3ve2.jpg

[Christoffer]

Awesome creatures everyone. :D
I thought this was hard actually. Couldn't figure out what it was going to look like without totally resembling a squid or an octopus. And then how to make it fly.

This is my final anyway.
Edit - changed the background a bit. :confident
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/5725/cow132christofferka3.jpg

Some concepts.
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/889/cow132wiptw2.jpg

And this is just a result of getting away from the squid/octo references and figuring out how something with tentacles would fly.
I thought at first that it hunts vultures by mimicking their appearance, but I got stuck and moved on. :/

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5158/imgnew0034bf5.jpg

[zimfin]

Christoffer: Good job. I like your sketches a lot. Nice progression and the variety is interesting. I would be tempted to soften those highlights on the clouds if I were you as they are a little distracting.

[Christoffer]

Christoffer: Good job. I like your sketches a lot. Nice progression and the variety is interesting. I would be tempted to soften those highlights on the clouds if I were you as they are a little distracting.Thank you, man! I agree, now that you mention it. Could've held back on them a little more seing as they're suppose to be out of focus. Oh well, it's already in the finals thread so there's nothing I can do about that now. Thanks anyway! I like yours as well. Very nice colors and the design is cool and well thought out. I also like the translucency in it's wings.

[zimfin]

Thank you, man! I agree, now that you mention it. Could've held back on them a little more seing as they're suppose to be out of focus. Oh well, it's already in the finals thread so there's nothing I can do about that now. Thanks anyway! I like yours as well. Very nice colors and the design is cool and well thought out. I also like the translucency in it's wings.

Thanks! There is nothing to stop you changing and replacing the image even when it is in the final. I do it when necessary. It is only too late once it goes to poll!

[yoitisi]

Christoffer: Yep Zimfin is right, you can just press the 'edit' button and change your image, up until I put the poll up :).

[Christoffer]

Thanks for the heads up, guys! I'll see what I can do this evening. Cheers! :D

[yoitisi]

Since I'm not sure how much time I have tomorrow due to classes, I'll close this round a little later. So, for all those still working on an entry: a little over 24 hours to go on this round :)

[yoitisi]

Sorry for the delay, round is closed now. The poll will be up in a couple of minutes :)

Edit: Poll is up, check it out: C.O.W. #132: Aerial Cephalopod - VOTING! (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=149339)