C.O.W.#143 Arctic Juggernaut of Death -- VOTING!

[Michael Jaecks]

C.O.W. #143 Arctic Juggernaut of Death!! -- VOTING!!

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ROUND #143 VOTING

Topic: Arctic Juggernaut of Death!!


Deadline for the voting: Monday 25 May 2009

Posting thread (closed): http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=157687.


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OK - before voting/posting read this!!!

1. Please give c&c or a reason why you voted for the image!

2. Feel free to comment on any or all entries, the artists will appreciate it!

3. No voting for your own entry!!! If a participants votes for his own entry, every member has the right to call him a stupid lame moron in this thread! And i will delete his/her vote anyway...
4. The poll is public and everyone will be able to see who votes for whom. No self-votes.

[Wixxi]

Artist: Wixxi

Concept: Nordic Mantle Rat
The Nordic Mantle Rat is used to living in the stormy landscapes of the coldest places on earth such as the North and South pole. They move only at night and during heavy snowstorms for their light absorbing mantle and dark skin give them exelent camouflage. They also have very lightsensitive eyes used to the dark. With their long arms and legs they can run at high speeds and because they are so big they have no problem what so ever moving over obstacles or through shallow water. For the icy wastelands are very short on food they have developed perfect hunting skills. With their enormous teeth they literally crush their prey mostly swallowing them at once. By humans the mantle rats are referred to as the moving coats for they look alot like a moving rock wearing a furry coat. But don't be diseaved by its somehow furry cute look!

[MEMPER]

My final. Wish I had more time but alas...
Known to the locals as the Yos'haa, the Tundran Krango is a rarely seen and even more rarely reported upon. Being so large, the Yos'haa needs to live and hunt on the more substantial ice masses. Living primarily in caves and only venturing out at night, its primary food source must be anything nocturnal and anything smaller than itself.
Incredibly strong and fast, the Yos'haa can move at speeds up to 40mph in a prey chase lasting about 5 miles.

[Evil_comrad]

Artist: Evil Comrad

Concept: Furiosaur

These dinosaurs feast on pinguins and bears. They are 3 times the size of a full grown bear.
Although their fur is brown in a white landscape and their only camouflage is their light grey skin, they move fast and are the second biggest creature there.
The blue hard bone on their head and on their arms are sensors that make them aware of the warmth of body temperature so they can feel whenever a living being is coming nearer.

[Teundeboer]

Artist: Teundeboer

Concept: Steve
A beast taller than mountains, and with a serious addiction to meat. It strands around the arctics looking for anything juicy and tasty, such as a family of Eskimos.

671741

[Icecold]

Artist: Icecold

Concept: Ancient Giant Sea Clam
This creature, is hidden under the iceberg for almost all the time, it lures it's victims with a wonderfull blooming flower, it shines so bright that it can be seen from miles. When the pray gets near it, it's already it's end. Powerfull electricity bolt stuns even the hardest and most resilient creature's. Those who lack the streanght to survive it, die instantly. Then the Giant Clam of Doom emerges from undearneath the iceberg to grab his dinner with his powerfull tentacles and put it into the infinite darkness, what happens there noone knows, and i warn you don't even dare to try out!

[Nadiamoon]

Artist: Nadiamoon

Concept:Holodno

Holodno is a monster from the White Sea shore. It can pretend being iceberg hiding in the waters of the sea or deep snow. Holodno is wild, but trainable if adopted when it's young.

671967

[Jangles]

Artist: Jangles

Concept: Arctic Angler
Arctic Anglers are a colossal serpent-esque species that lurk in the snowy darkness of the Siberian Wilderness. They are named for their odd mode of predation, in which a fleshy growth extends from the beasts head and acts as a lure. Rarely seen by humans, the Angler dwells underground. The creature only comes to the surface once it's time for feasting.

672007

[NicHolS]

Artist: Nichols

Concept: Valtoittaur Tortoise

Long believed extinct, the Valtoittaur Tortoise is a distant relative to the giant tortoise and is the largest and most aggressive of this reptile family. Often mistaken by many mis fortunate arctic explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries the Valtoittaur will often lay dormant hidden under layers of ice and snow waiting for signs of warmth of unaware passers by. They can range in size from 10 to 20 meters in height and are often mistaken for ice caps and ice shelves until they charge their prey. These animals belong to the most ancient group of reptiles, appearing about 250 million years ago. Only 8 individual cases have been documented in recent history since their rediscovery and all resulting in extremely violent encounters with up to 35 known fatalities in total. This single photo is the only known evidence to their existence and many experts still are skeptical of its authenticity.

[Tommoy]

Artist: Tommoy

Concept: Ice Wolf
Summoned by the great Eskimo Kaiser Irban the Arctic Ice Wolf wiped out the entire penguin population on the frozen plaines of Woob Waan. Just because the great Kaiser thought penguins walk stupid.

[RETEP]

Artist: RETEP

Concept: Corithous

Corithous was originally thought to be a god, protecting the untouched regions of the arcitc. Corithous is a highly territorial creature, anything crossing its strictly defined borders will immediately be attacked. There is believed to be groups of Corithous, but no one has been able to penetrate their borders.

[HugeHarHar]

Artist: HugeHarHar

Concept: Rexious!
A massive near pre-historic relic still hunting in the frozen northern waters. The creature's rocky like head enables it to crash through frozen waters and smash any food it may come across.

[NakedZergling]

This creature has no name. It has only been seen a few times. It smells ships and towns from miles away, using it's tail to swim under the ice. It uses the spikes by it's eyes to crack the ice and devour anything there.

PS this is my first entry..i hope it's ok enough to be submitted.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v702/rabidwombat/monstersmallcopy.jpg

[scorge]

Artist: Scorge

Concept: Whitehead
Spending most of its time in the frozen waters off the arctic coast, the Whitehead Juggernaut hits the shore at full speed, destroying everything in its murderous path.

[Hari Gopinathan]

ARCTIC JUGGERNAUT
In the white icy deserts of the arctic this creature is known as RAGE DEMON or the Arctic juggernaut. These are the name by which it is referred to in the legends of the Arctic. The creature knows no exhaustion due to the excessive pumping of adrenaline. The production of fatigue toxins is extremely less in its muscles- giving it extreme stamina, speed and strength. But the drawback is that it has an extremely fast metabolic system. So whatever it eats gets digested almost completely and very fast. Hence it has the urge to keep feeding. This monster can run for hours on end with ever increasing speed. Another awesome feature are the super-dense horn like bony protrusions that are arrayed all over its head and shoulders and that adorn its elbows,joints and the tip of its powerful tail. All these features and its awesome strength combined are the reason why its called the Arctic juggernaut. It can achieve extremely great speeds and thanks to its great strength and bony armor can crash through most obstacles. It has been known even to have bored right through icebergs. It is the supreme predator of the Arctic. It knows no fear and takes down animals far larger than itself thus doing justice to he name JUGGERNAUT.

http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt53/HariGopinathan/snowjuggernautconcept.jpg

This is my first time in C.O.W. I kinda posted my final image with concept in the COW WIP thread yesterday. Hope I am not too late in posting it here now.

[Majenkus]

Artist: Majenkus

Concept: Werebear

Polar bears are the largest carnivores on land and dominate the arctic, except on the first full moon of every third month, as long as it is a Tuesday. This is when the Werebears are unleashed from their genetic prison. Almost twice as large as the polar bear, the Werebear weighs in at almost 1500 kg, and has at least five times the bad attitude. Rumors among local peoples suggests that long ago a polar bear had awkward, but totally consensual sex with a wolf. The Werebears actually begin their lives as normal wolf cubs born to normal wolf mothers, but as the descendants from a strange heritage, they transform upon the night of the anniversary when, you know . . . that thing happened. The Werbears are possessed by an unstoppable rage stemming from the shame of their freakish interspeciesness.

[Crowsrock]

Artist: Crowsrock
Concept: God of Uurhnud
Ice-age hunters feared the creature as a god, a apocalyptic bringer of destruction. The monster ate the mammoth taking the meat that humans needed to survive. Its emergence was the worst that could happen to the hunters. Where it roamed nothing remained to be hunted.

[skunk257]

Artist: Skunk257

Concept: Juggernaut


logg entry 265:
... It's clearly feverish, stumbling and staggering in circles. Its deafening roar usually inspires fear and panic... but its tone has changed, if I hadn’t known better I could swear it was crying... for three days now its been the same... it's visibly growing tired, emaciated...

logg entry 266:
... Either it's gone blind... or it hallucinating, last night in an attempt to lead it away from the colony, I sent a scout team to the west, to distract it with flairs. But when provoked, there was no response... If it is blind, then we must act! Tomorrow we attack with everything we have, although we are dangerously under equipped. It is likely that we could all die, but if there is a chance! Just one chance, to kill this thing, this thing that has taken so many lives! It must be done.

logg entry 267:
Just after dawn we attacked, our gamble paid off, it appeared not to even realise we were there, it could barely stand when we reached it, my men lashed ropes to its leg’s to try and topple it... to be honest, whether we attacked or not I think it would have died, our medical staff took samples from the corpse, it appears that it contracted a viral infection, probably from one of the thousands that had died by it's fury.

[Reymus]

Artist:Reymus

Concept: Northern Snapdragon

-From a lost journal page

It ate most of our entire expedition, it broke through the ice floes, at first all we saw were tongues, snaking through the cracks as they grabbed people left and right, then the maw of the thing crashed through onto land, swallowing our team like shrimp, the size of it was beyond words, I couldn't see past it's head, as it focused on each victim with lantern eyes. I ran, as far as I could, I think I lost it, though it made no noise when it found us, so I can't be sure. Have to finish this journal, make sure somebody knows what happened...

[Ive]

Artist: Ive

Concept: Tyrannopyschus

Tyrannopsychus is a powerful telepath that lives in freezing temperatures of arctic. Although it has many mental abilities, the most notorious one is its telekinetic power, the power to control and move any object and matter in its vicinity. It spends most of its life hibernating under deep ice, until feeding time that is! Then, it becomes constantly shifting unstoppable force of ice that devours everything in its way. It is indestructable as long it stays in temperature that is cold enough, in fact conspiracy theorist agree that global warming is a tactic forged by world goverments to melt all ice on earth - thus destroying tyrannopsychus once and for all.

[Mr.Juicy]

[*B]Artist: [*COLOR=White]Mr.Juicy[/COLOR]

Concept: [*COLOR=White]Glaciateconus[/COLOR]
[/B]Glaciateconus is known for his strange digestive system. Once the pray is eaten it goes straight to ice on the monster back. There it will be slowly digested.

[sketchius]

Artist: sketchius

Concept: Northern Ice Tempest


Taking several decades to form, these frozen hulks are known to carve a path of destruction throughout the northern regions of Kuadnahl. Though the human settlements in the area put up a hearty defense, the tempest's only known weakness is the sun itself, which ends its reign of destruction within a week of its arrival.
673240

[Soulweaver]

Artist: Soulweaver

Concept: Situuttuq
The situuttuq is so massive that it is capable of causing avalanches when it moves. The avalanche may startle the creature into a panic... and the resulting stampede causes even more avalanches. Situuttuqs are known to unintentionally wipe out all flora and fauna in the vicinity in this way.

[toasted]

Artist: Toasted

Concept: DreadMoose
In more ancient times the Dread Moose was known to attack anything that entered its territory. Anything it heard, saw, smelled,and god help anything it tasted. In a strange act of cosmic fairness a roaming god of mischief took away the dread moose's sight, its nose, its ears and even its tongue. The surrounding tribes took to the street and danced for now they could hunt where they pleased. Unfortunately for the tribes without its senses the Dread Moose cannot tell where its territory ends and with a newly gained rage has been attacking everything everywhere ever since.

[frixon]

There. My first entry to cow. A bit of a quickie and not exactly my style and above all - a total cliche, but hey, it's a first. :)

Artist: frixon
Concept: ice mountain
Looking like an ordinary iceberg the gigantic juggernaut attacks unsuspecting ships all around the northern hemisphere on Earth A2.

http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs44/f/2009/137/3/b/ice_mountain_by_fichot.jpg

[skullbeast]

Artist: Skullbeast

Concept: Pouel
Arctic juggernaut of death. Once every millennium the climate goes through changes that throw the land in to utter turmoil. The polar ice caps melt and unleash frozen prisoners that cannot survive without the cold. These beasts roam the land and smash the life from all in they're path and in addition they are highly magnetic and all compasses point directly to them as if they were North. The Pouel devour the fallen and convert their bodies into ozone. Once the ravaged and depleted lands ozone layer is repaired the poles freeze and the Pouel return to their slumbers.

[Sapphire]

Artist: Sapphire

Concept: Kyanisk
This deadly arctic predator is especially equipped for hunting ice-locked prey. With a sharp, beaklike tongue that protrudes from rows of spiky teeth over 4 inches long, it stabs through the ice and spears the unfortunate victim. Backwards-facing spikes act like fish hooks and keep the prey from slipping back into the water. Its body is covered with a sharp, shiny layered mineral, similar in appearence to kyanite, which splinters and terminates into deadly spikes.

[AhChu]

Artist: aHCHU

Concept: Arctic King Crab
your- The Dangers of Seismic Testing
Increased run ins with these juggernauts as seismic testing in the arctic becomes more of a priority with world wide diminishing fuels. Nothing pisses these guys off more than an acoustic slap in the face. There is no record so far for the biggest Arctic King Crab, their size still baffles the scientific community to this day

[Tonic]

Artist: Tonic

Concept: Rexilla
A mutated hybrid of tyrannosaurus rex and Godzilla. Very stupid, brute and loves spectacular rampages.

http://tonic-art.com/gallery/cow/143_arctic_juggernaut/cow143_arctic_juggernaut_tonic.jpg

[Buchmaler]

Artist: Buchmaler

Concept: Arctic Snail
This gigantic snail is, against what one could beliefe, very fast. It uses it strong Arms and sharp claws to gain momentum and glide very fast over the ice. While that, it uses its tentacles to collect every organic lifeform (like a mop) and to throw it in its ever open big mouth. In the Snailhouse is a special stomach that servs as a cooling chamber where the Snail can hold much polar-bar-meat fresh to eat it when the polar bears (the main food source) holds winter sleep. (Sorry for my poor english)

[blobs]

Artist: Blobs

Concept: Ice Maw


Description coming..

And here it is..

The alien crash landed on one of the Earth's Poles. It was delivered in an egg like meteor (kinda like Monkey). And while the alien's original plan was to attack and devour all the snow in the world, it soon discovered living creatures! It quickly discovered it had a taste for man flesh, and so it settled on the plan to eat all of them instead. They seemed to have a loverly taste compared to the woeful blandness of the snow, and at least the living creatures put up a fight......... the snow was a wimp.

Weedy snow!

[Michael Jaecks]

There were no entries cut this week, but I felt like a few were close...

frixon: I'm never quite sure what to do when someone submits something in the vector art/paper cut out/superflat sort of style. I'm never going to be the sort of mod who objects to any one style... and I do think your work clearly shows design skill... I'm just to sure how many votes are out there for this kind of work... I do like it, but you can see what sort of work get attention in COW. So, you're in the poll, but consider a different style perhaps next time?

Majenkus: Please put a little more time into your entry for next time. I considered pulling it, but I am feeling generous today....COW is a week long activity and you can see how much work people who succeed at it put into their entries...

Hari Gopinathan: Same for you. I think you need to put more time into your COW entries.

There are a few others I could say the same thing for, but I think you guys know who you are.

Wixxi for instance is clearly spending more time on this entry than some of the first rounds I ran, and I really appreciate that.... Consider for a moment that people who are winning rounds of COW are often spending 10, 15 or more hours on an entry depending. There are definitely some speed demons out there, but everyone who wins COW regardless of experience is working really hard to do so. I'd like to see everyone perform up to the best of their abilities...

All righty. Good luck to everyone the polls!

[Reymus]

I voted for NicHolS, it's clean, flows, and follows the turtle theme ;).

For me it was a tie between that and Ive's, but that was a little too humanoid maybe.

Soulweaver - Moose + Octopus + Elephant rocks, the only problem is that little figure dosen't fit, maybe a silhouette of a figure or many figures similar to Skunk below the monster.

Scorge - Nightmarish! I love the work around it's face. The electricity/fins in the back look out of place though.

Skunk257 - The little people struggling to keep that thing reined is awesome. Maybe a little too much empty canvas to the left.

[Michael Jaecks]

New round is on!

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=158242

[Razorleaf]

I voted for Blobs. His creature reminds me of those on the movie "Tremors" but it has the size and the blind killing rage to crush/destroy/demolition everything in its path - hence the definition juggernaut. Nice! :)

[HugeHarHar]

I voted for NicHolS. The style, rendering, and the design are all top notch.

Tonic and Blog we're both close seconds.

[skunk257]

voted for HugeHarHar loved the style

also really like the concept by AhChu, if the render and texture was pushed a bit more, would of had my vote ;)

i also thought Ive's entry (no matter how aawesome) was a little to humanoid

[toasted]

voted for Ive mostly cause its spectacular and partially because its well done

but i want to kno what ever happened to trevor
with his work up there my vote might have been swayed

[NakedZergling]

any chance i can get feedback on mine? i would appreciate it! thanks

[MEMPER]

I like Ive's painting style and I love the stance-reminds me of snowboarding.
I also love Tonic's handling of the environment.

Nichols My vote goes to you and I think you had the best composition but I believe the painting could have been pushed a bit further.

Others like Wixxi, Hari, NakedZerling, & Teundeboer. You guys could benefit by trying to let go of the line drawing. It can be hard to trust yourself but using edges instead is better for most paintings. Each of your paintings would be stronger if more edges were incorporated.

I must add though that I think Blobs gets my favorite painting style. Makes me want to touch the surface..

[Hari Gopinathan]

Michael I had very little time but the topic was too awesome to pass up. Thanks for not cutting my entry.
And thanks a lot for the comments Memper, appreciate it. :)
I voted for Memper cos i liked his entry from the WIP stage.
Though I wish Trevor had posted his entry--- That had been seriously awesome too.

[Crowsrock]

Voted for Nichols.
It is really dynamic and I like how the creature storms forward, unstoppable.

[Buchmaler]

Hard to decide, no one of the better ones stands out imho... the one Ive did is too human-like fo my taste and Nichols is, again for my persoal taste, too rough ... i think i will not vote this round because i cannot decide.

[Wixxi]

Great round, lots of nice entries all around!
I voted for Ive, i just love the monsters face, very creepy. Don't like to imagine it turning its head in my direction XD. The idea of thelephatic powers is also pretty original. But most of all i like the soft rendering, very inspiring!

[ChromaticCodex]

Tonic, nice job.. lots of action, I think it's a great representation of the concept... I'm also a sucker for those wide angle shots of creature destruction. If I had 2 votes, i'd also vote for HugeHarHar . the atmospheric persepectiveness/ blurryness of the water is really cool, I wish there'd been a little more love given to the underside/flippers though. nice job.

[skullbeast]

I voted for blobs! fun and cool! the tongue is awesome!

Ive - cool monster, but too humanoid.

skunk257 - well done! my second fave! you have got the scale working.

Memper - what a great vibe! Vicious! great work!

Reymus, scorge (reminds me of dagon, and that makes me smile), tommoy, NicHolS great work.

[sketchius]

Comments and critiques:

Wixxi: Nordic Mantle Rat -- Nice work. I like that it preys upon bears. :) Two things that I noticed--the pattern on its back looks a little flat. I would have liked to have seen it curve around the form more. Second, it looks like the face is a dead-on front view, but the horns don't seem quite symmetrical.

MEMPER: Yos'haa -- Very dynamic. I get a great sense of this creatures locomotion. I like the modeling, value structure, and color choices. This reminds me of the thing that chases Kirk in the new Star Trek movie! Was yours inspired by that? The only thing that bothers me much about the piece is that the human reference figure seems a little sketchy.

Evil Comrad: Furiosaur -- A cool creature with some fun anatomy. :) One thing I would suggest is to add some more color overall--much of the piece has no color at all, which makes the blood look out of place to me. Google 'winter' or 'snowscape' and look at some of those environments. You'll notice that they are mostly blue. Try playing with Color Balance or Hue/Saturation in Photoshop.

Teundeboer: Steve -- Haha, nice narrative. The creature reminds me of the Cookie Monster ;) I think the only major thing it needs is some more refinement--the brushwork is still very large and blocky. Also, the hand holding the igloo doesn't seem quite right. It seems like the fingers are too much in front of the igloo, they need to be wrapping around from behind, which would give them more of a foreshortened appearance.

Icecold: Ancient Giant Sea Clam -- I like the energy in this piece, but even after reading your description I'm don't quite understand what's going on with the blue area under the clam. At first I thought it was water, but there seems to be a figure standing there. Maybe that's the iceburg and it's burst through the ice or nearby water?

Nadiamoon: Holodno -- I like the concept where it camouflages itself as an iceberg. It's doesn't quite strike me as a juggernaut of death though. :D The piece is well unified in terms of color. The only thing I might suggest is more refinement--I feel like the more interesting areas could have more detail.

Jangles: Arctic Angler -- This is a fun concept. The piece is overall very gray though. I would have liked to have seen more color brought in. Try to avoid too many areas of pure black or pure white.

Nichols: Valtoittaur Tortoise -- You got my vote. :) The piece is well-executed and feels finished. I like the composition and color choices. You seem to have a great handle on shape. I don't have any criticisms.

Tommoy: Ice Wolf -- You have some awesome use of color and musculature in your piece! I think overall it is very solid. There are a few nitpicks I noticed. One, it seems like his front left foot in in a hole. Two, it seems strange that inside of his mouth is so grayish. Three, I might have liked to have seen a difference in value or color between the snow in the foreground and the snow in the background, just to create more depth. But these are nitpicks. Great piece!

RETEP: Corithous -- This is a very cool creature design! :) It's strange that the creature has no visible mouth, but since it is a god that's not really a problem. The only specific criticism I have is that this might be a good example of a time when you could break the rule where you don't put the subject in the middle. I think the creature lends itself to symmetry that would be strengthened by such placement. Other than that, the final image just seems a bit small and underdeveloped. It would have liked to have seen more time put into rendering.

HugeHarHar: Rexious! -- Great lighting and sense of a underwater environment. I like the detail in the face. Something about the pure black seems a little distracting but I think it works for this piece. It gives it a sort of an 'inked' comic book feel, but I don't know if that's what you were going for. :)

NakedZergling: no name -- This creature made me chuckle. I like the style. The only criticism I have is that at first glance I would have assumed it was a really small creature because it has some human-like features to give us a scale reference. Maybe you could put a little human figure next to it to show us how big it is.

Scorge: Whitehead -- Lol. I love the narrative in your piece. It's amusing to imagine this creature stomping its way through a crowd of walruses. I think the piece is very solid. Maybe your description could use some more attention. ;)

Hari Gopinathan: RAGE DEMON -- It looks like you started with a nice drawing, but struggled with rendering it. I would suggest starting with a mid-value colored background so you can both lighten the areas of the creature that are lit and darken the areas that are in shadow.

Majenkus: Werebear -- Haha, very nice description. :) The pose could use some work--it looks a little like its dancing! Other than that the only suggestion I have would be to creep in a little more color. Though its a polar bear in a white environment I would expect to see some blue-ish light from the moon.

Crowsrock: God of Uurhnud -- Great creature design! It looks believable as a big, hulking beast. I would like to see more color. Much of the piece is pure grayscale! Try playing with Color Balance or Hue/Saturation in Photoshop.

Skunk257: Juggernaut -- I think you have a cool concept and you executed it well. The scale, the design of the creature, the log excerpts all work nicely. I would like to see a little more of the blue that we see on its feet added slightly to other places higher up on the creature. Great job overall!

Reymus: Northern Snapdragon -- Great design! One thing you might want to watch out for is where the piece transitions between a line drawing and a painting (with no outlines). In some places it seems more 'drawerly' and in other places it seems more 'painterly'. Also, I'm a bit confused about the background. Is the creature coming out of some sort of portal?

Ive: Tyrannopyschus -- Very nicely rendered with great color choices. At first glance I thought that it had stomped into the ice and caused it to fly up in the air, but after reading the description I get the impression that the ice is hanging in the air from the creature's telekinesis. :D I like the tentacle-looking things under the skin. The only critiques I have are 1) it's bordering on too humanoid and 2) add a human figure or a familiar object to give a sense of scale.

Mr.Juicy: Glaciateconus -- Cool concept and design, and the piece is well rendered. A couple of things I might change: The tail runs parrell to, and slightly off of, the edge of the format which seems kind odd to me. Second, I can't tell if the creatures left foot is resting on the hillor up in the air.

Soulweaver: Situuttuq -- Nice anatomy and well rendered. The only thing I would suggest is to use a less centered composition. Maybe we could see an avalanche in progress on one side?

Toasted: DreadMoose -- I like the story in the description and the anatomy. I feel like the markmaking is a little crazy. It makes the piece feel very energetic, but the pose seems kind of static. What if the creature was shown in the middle of its thrashing, blind killing frenzy?

frixon: ice mountain -- This is a cool, clean style and a nice concept. I think you executed the piece well. Hope to see you in future events!

Skullbeast: Pouel -- I like the sheer scale of the creature and the lighting and the texture. I also really enjoy your style of sketching creatures out with collections of shapes. The only criticism I might have is that the human figures are a little too gestural.

Sapphire: Kyanisk -- Cool concept. Overall the piece seems a bit gray. Maybe you could try to incorporate more color. :)

aHCHU: Arctic King Crab -- Very cinematic and realistic. I like the concept. Some areas could use a little work. The texture on the back looks out of place. The pores on the top tentacle seem a bit rushed. Overall an awesome piece!

Tonic: Rexilla -- Beautiful environment with a great job on the creature! The only thing is, your description seems very silly for how well rendered the piece is. Good job!

Buchmaler: Arctic Snail -- Nicely illustrated creature. The polar bear is a good touch to show scale, but I didn't see it for a while. It kind of blended in. You have a cool concept. I don't know if its what you were going for, but to me the mouth looks sort of vaginal.

Blobs: Ice Maw -- First of all, I enjoyed seeing your process on the WIP thread. Very cool. I love how the modeling and anatomy turned out. Nice lighting. I like the little igloo. :) The only thing is that it seems a little big to get much taste of a tiny human! Great piece!

[Mushroom168]

its was a toss up between NicHoLs and scorge, i felt they both had a REALLY 'juggernauty' look. in the end i had to pick NicHoLs though, just because i like the idea more. i honestly wish i could vote about 7 times on this one, although then we would never get a winner

[Hunkulus]

I voted Nichols too...It fits the brief. Big n' scary!

[Swellzombie]

I'm just getting started here wanted to through out my two cents.

It was tough for me to decide between Nichols' and Ive's pieces. I went with Ive. it really impressed me and stoked my imagination differently than most. I enjoy the rendering so much, seeing that there's something through the ice on the arms and the back was a great touch.

Plus, this was a nice choice for a creature, the colors are so pleasing.

I hope to see you all in the ring soon.

Marc Palm

[Smashed_Pumpkin]

Ive got my vote. Stunning composition and brush work! I'm getting a faint echo of Frazetta from your image; wonderful!

[NicHolS]

hey all, a huge thanks to all those who have voted so far, i erally appreciate all your feedback and seeing as this was my first cow and im still so new to CA (only really been posting regularly in the past 1-2 weeks) im really honored! hopefully i can learn from all your feedback for next round and push the boundaries a little more as i feel my characters and esp my creatures are often very lacklustre but i really want to improve them as much as i can so any and all feedback is extremely welcome!

some feedback for the other entries this week:

Ive: great idea, the pose/composition really needed a little more and he felt too biped for me, but great rendering! definately shined for me

MEMPER : fantastic pose, i just felt it was too mandril without a face lol but the dynamic pose really impressed me! just needed something else to get my vote!

toasted: got my vote, it just very very on theme... loved the horns too... pose couldve been more dynamic but i feel it pushed all the right buttons for the topic

buchmaler: try and forcus your details in ensuring youre only emphasising on the focal point in the image, the rest doesnt need quite the polish as the eye can tend to get distracted with too much fine detail

skullbeast: epic! just needed a little more polish i think.

ahChu: nice compositional idea but i felt i wasnt quite sure what i was meant to look at... needed a single focl point and to me i kept looking at the claw but it wasnt realyl doing much... maybe adding more movement to it may have helped?

blobs: love the vibe, great render

tonic: nice image, just try and emphasise the creature more in the composition... i spent too long taking in the envronment to fully aprpeciate your creature design and i worry this is more where you spent your time too.

skunk257: nice sense of scale, i really dug this... was a close 2nd for me!

RETEP: omfg awesome imagination haha i just wasnt sure how this thing was a juggernaut of death... more an oddity of logic... but i loved it!

tommoy: haha take that penguins! i think this fell under the same feedback i gave mempher, it just lacked that something extra to make me go omfgwtf!

to al those i missed, sorry i cant reply to them all... time sadly only gives me 24 hours in the day and sandman always tends to eat about 7 or 8 of them... see you next round i hope! :)

adam

[frixon]

my vote this time goes to IVE. superb work dude. i can really feel the grandiosity. a true juggernaut. + technically really really awesome.

and thanks for all the votes on me. :)

[frixon]

There were no entries cut this week, but I felt like a few were close...

frixon: I'm never quite sure what to do when someone submits something in the vector art/paper cut out/superflat sort of style. I'm never going to be the sort of mod who objects to any one style... and I do think your work clearly shows design skill... I'm just to sure how many votes are out there for this kind of work... I do like it, but you can see what sort of work get attention in COW. So, you're in the poll, but consider a different style perhaps next time?


Sure thing man. Thanks on the feedback and letting me thru with this one. Check my works and you'll see this is not a style I often use and I can give a number of reasons for it: stupid non-cooperating tablet, lack of time, laziness...but will try harder next time i choose to take part in some activity.

Still, i have (so far) ~3% of the votes. :D better than zero. :

Thanks to all others for c&c.

[Majenkus]

Scorge - Always awesome, always pro. Cheers.

[Ive]

Hi everyone, thanks for all the votes. I really appreciate it! I haven't done illo like this for ages so this was a good excercise for me, regardless of the results^^
It's always nice to hear some compliments on my color choices since I work as comic colorist for now :) thanks once again.

As for my vote, it was a tough decision between Tonic, NicHolS and AhChu and in the end I went for Tonic, as I really liked his limited palette, composition and sense of action.

Juggernaut, definition and etymology:
A juggernaut is a term used to describe a force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path.
The word is derived from the Sanskrit जगन्नाथ Jagannātha[1] (meaning "Lord of the universe")

I think the problem with most of the entries in this round (prolly with mine too :D) was lack of "epicness" and the sense of "crushing everything in its way" from above definition.
Well, see you in one of the next rounds for sure :)

[Swellzombie]

"Juggernaut, definition and etymology:
A juggernaut is a term used to describe a force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path.
The word is derived from the Sanskrit जगन्नाथ Jagannātha[1] (meaning "Lord of the universe") "

I didn't have this definition in my head, but it's sort of what I was thinking. That's why I liked Ive's so much. It had a God-like feel to me. Which I guess does make it less than a species of creature.
What do I know?

[blobs]

Wixxi Nice work, I can't really find anything to crit on this, may be the claws could've been more defined, but otherwise great, nice n clear n crisp :)

Member I love how you handled the fur, beautifully painted. Great cheetah like pose too!

Evil comrad You have some nice shapes deveolping on your jugger, but I would've liked to have seen you rework it more to give the guy a bit more design and form.

Teundeboer Haha, this one made me laugh! The poor eskimos :)

Icecold I think you got a bit carried away with texture on this one, I think you need more definition and design put into your process.

Nadiamoon I'm a fan of anything tentacular so I like this one. I'm also chuffed with the lighting on this, it reads 'cold' and icey, but I reckon ya need to work more into it. It doesn't look like a finished piece to me.. just another step in that direction and you have it, imo. :)

Jangles Nice angle on this one, but I do wonder what those horns are made of, they do look rather fleshy. Again I think you should sketch out more designs first and come up with more interesting shapes for your creature. I need to do that myself, as I always seem to revert to the chunky four legged thing, if I have no idea where I'm going :)

NicholS Kick ass, you got my vote!

Tommy Nowt wrong with this Tommoy, good work :)

RETEP That's just weird! :)

HugeHarHar Nice lighting, I would've loved to have seen more of your juggernaught, though.

NakedZergling I love it, cartoony stuff should be in here more I reckon ;)

Scorge I like the design, a bit humanoid for the cow I reckon.

Hari Gopinathan Definitely needs more work. You've got a great sketch under the PS'ing somewhere.

Majenkus Nice painting, I'm not sure his back legs could support him for long in that pose ;)

Crowsrock Very juggernaughty! I like the design and the action in the scene. Cool stuff! :)

Skunk The lighting on this is great! The monster design is weird and reminds me of those giant creatures in the mist from that recent(ish) Stephen King film.. the name escpaes me, bugger! Good stuff :)

Reymus Great and weird! Love it :)

Ive Ahh man, this is so great but for me it's too humanoid so I didn't vote for it. :(

Mr.Juicy Nice design, could've done with another wave of rendering I reckon.

sketchius I actually like the composition and scenery more than the monster in this one. T'is a great scene! :) I just think your monster's lacking in design.

Soulweaver I really like this, lots of creature elements put together pretty well. Cool stuff :)

Toasted I hate the background, sorry, it looks horrible. But I do love the creature's head design, it's almost undead looking (which I'm a big fan of).

Frixon No crits, t'is cool! :)

Skullbeast T'is mighty and juggernaughty!! :)
But I do thing you get carried away with texture and the use of black at times. I'd try and reign that in a bit, experiment and see how ya go :)

Sapphire Nice work, it looks like the planes of it's head might be slightly off, try flipping the image and see what you think.

AhChu Great angle! I like this one a lot.. I would love to see another wave of rendering on the beast

Tonic Here's another one where I prefer the composition and scenery to the monster.. cool stuff Tonic!

Buchmaler Excellent! :)

Blobs Get your arse in gear you plonker!

Sorry, I wrote all this very quickly this morning, so it might not make sense to anyone but me! Doh

[AhkNemet]

This is the first time I've been in time to actually vote on one of these lol.

I gave my vote to NicholS - I loved the dynamism in the style, the movement and aggression were just fabulous! Having it in a scene helped to make it more believable for me with a very plausible description.

Close second was Memper - dude your creature just scares the cr** outta me lol It would have been cool to have seen it in a scene/situation to see more of what it could do.

Last one is Ive - some scary stuff here too, I thought the face was very ingenious and imaginative - very menacing too. I loved the colour use, I just felt it was a bit humanoid.

I thought the other entries were pretty good too - I just think people have already provided more helpful suggestions than what I could possibly offer. I think I need to lower my screen resolution a bit further though, cos I have trouble seeing some of these all in one go.

- I hope I didn't do this wrong? :)

[RETEP]

thanks for the crits!
tons of great entries. couldn't get to everyone though, but here are some crit from moi.

memper-graet sense of movement! Nicely redered hair

evil comrad- I think it would help to think of an underlying bone structure when creating a creature, without indication of bones the creature looks rubbery. great design.

Icecold- love the sense of scale, haha.

NicHols- awsome! you got my vote. BTW the Man with the yellow jacket flying through the air = priceless :D .

Tommoy- LOL, love the description! Definitely get a sense of mass and brute force. the structure of the face is a little strange, i think its because the placement of the eye is too low and not angled upward with the structure of the skull. Those penguins are great!

HugeHarHar- love it! I still wish you had a chance to add more detail to the front flipper.

nakedzergling-enjoyed the cartoony style! i feel like the feet were neglected, compared to the rendering of the rest of the body . overall great design :) .

skunk257- for some reason i love the shadow the juggernaut is casting! great sense of mass.

ive- absolutely great design :) . don't mean to beat a dead horse, but you would have gotten my vote if it wasn't so humanoid.

ahChu- wonderful sense of movement! would like to have seen some more rendering on the parts closer up.

[Michael Jaecks]

Congrats to NicHolS!

[Hari Gopinathan]

thank you---- blobs and sketchius =====for the comments!!!