C.O.W. #201 born bad, voting!

[(lark]

C.O.W. #201 Born Bad_Voting!

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ROUND #201 VOTING

Topic: Born Bad


Deadline for the voting: Feb. 16th

[Ludic]

Artist: Ludic

Concept: Scrumptious Vulture

From the moment this bird-like creature is born it's introduced to death,
Since the only way for it to be born is directly through the mothers stomach.

[retter]

Artist: retter

Concept: Nomm
The Nomm is a devilish creature, the mom Nomm is not fond of spending all the energy required to raise a child itself so it pawns the job off to whatever poor creature it can find. When the baby Nomm is ready to enter the outside world it doesn't exit its surrogate mother the traditional way, it chooses to eat its way out, killing the host in the process.

[brenthollowell]

My first COW. Done in corel painter 11. this little muncher folds his neck skin over his face and flattens his spine flaps. he then lures prey in with his chin light and draws attention from his deadly tailspike. GAME OVER, fellas.

[MarcSampson]

Artist: MarcSampson

Concept: Motherworm


The Motherworm is a nasty creature it can only reproduce by infecting pregnant women. While they are sleeping a drone infects the mother with the Virus, after this the Motherworm starts to grow inside the Human Mother, it feasts first from the human baby after this it gets violently outside of the human body. The Mother nearly always dies during this procedure. There are rumours that some tribes used the Motherworms birth as a ritual.

[Eclectix]

Artist: Eclectix

Concept: Egg Doppelganger


The newborn egg doppelganger is birthed into an anomolosaur's nest while she is away hunting. The newborn superficially resembles an anomolosaur egg at first glance, but hidden in the nest debris are six segmented legs which allow it to move about, and the "egg" pod opens to reveal a digestive sac complete with 3 grasping tentacles and one specialized hollow feeding tentacle tipped with a barbed spine. The entire feeding orifice is lined with wicked teeth, which may be used for attack or defense, but are primarily used following the creature's metamorphosis into adulthood. The feeding tentacle may be used to suck vital liquids from shattered eggs, while the young unborn embryos may be pulled into the digestive sac and absorbed by the creature.

The egg doppelganger uses the nutrition it gets from the nearby eggs to build strength while it prepares for metamorphosis into an adult. If it does not feed within moments of birth it risks its own death, for the mother anomolosaur may identify its odor and destroy it unless it feeds upon one of the mother's eggs, thus absorbing the odors of the egg and masking the smell of the egg doppelganger.

After consuming all of the unborn eggs the creature takes advantage of the anomolosaur as a source of protection while it undergoes metamorphosis into an adult. Once metamorphosis is complete, the egg doppelganger usually slips away quietly, but occasionally the last act it will take upon leaving the nest is to slay and feed upon its foster mother. For this reason it is known to some of the local settlers as the "wicked stepchild."

1164717

[Jerner]

Artist: Jerner

Concept: Periculosus Hirudores

The Periculosus Hirudores grows and developes inside a cocoon which has to be planted on a "host animal" of some kind by the mother. In this case, this newborn is places on a bears neck.
The Periculosus Hirudores gets nutrition to grow from the host which makes it gain strenght and prepare it for it's birth/transformation.
When the creature is ready and finally breaks out of it's cocoon, it immediately attacks the carrier with its vicious fangs and sharp teeth, burying deep in the flesh spreading nerve damaging venom and will partially eat the inside of the host animal, creating its very first nest..


[LINK] (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RI_YaEgceMA/TVOGmkUxAaI/AAAAAAAAATc/B32mEdif__A/s1600/cow-201+final.jpg) to fullsized image.

[Zeitwolf]

Artist: Zeitwolf

Concept: Wasteland Autovescer

The wasteland autovescer Nemolynx autovescus, native to almost all M-class planets of the galaxy rim, is the largest carnivorous land vertebrate to dwell stony and meager wastelands all over the planet. Particularly sparse hills and plateaus offer only very few hunting opportunities. To avoid the starving of a newborn autovescer, two cubs develop in the mother's belly, of which one is underdeveloped and not meant to grow up. The other cub, born alive with a taste for fresh blood will feast on its sibling while the mother is still licking it dry.

1165669

[skullbeast]

Artist: skullbeast

Concept: Zoeool
Zoeool are born, then leap on the backs of their mothers, they latch their claws in deep and begin to feed until the entire corpse is consumed. the mother provides life and a great head start for the Zoeool.

[Izer]

Artist: Izer

Concept: Gruor
This nasty little bastard doesn't wait to be pushed out to start its rein of terror.

[retter]

My vote goes to Jerner, beautifully rendered.

[brenthollowell]

good job everyone. this was my first cow, and i found it very fun. i look forward to participating more often!

[Zeitwolf]

My vote goes to Eclectix. It's the most original concept and we can see the whole body of the creature. Only critique: the cuckoo's egg size in the thumb is way larger than the jaws of the hatched creature can make us believe.

@Jerner: awesome values and rendering. I hope you will post more in the future! *reads your blog*

[ChromaticCodex]

Electrix- A wonderful COW! Good concept, reminds me of a species of bird that lays its eggs in other bird's nests. Their young develop much faster than the host species and it's chicks force the weakling birds out of the nest, stealing all the mother bird's motherly affection. I like the roughness of the finnished piece and how the grainy drawing lines are still visable. Nice edge quality, texture, drawing, and idea. Deffinatly gets the vote. I agree with Zietwolf though, the creature's mouth looks too small the close into a form the size of one of those eggs.

Jerner- Great Rendering and focus. The foreground is LOADED with detail and the background is super blurry. Really pushes the depth. My main complaint is that I can't really judge the merit of the creature design. Give us some diagram of the critter's life cycle.. how the mom delivers the young to host, it feeding off the host in the womb, etc. They don't have to be anywhere near as polished as your final. That would let you show the critter fully out and killing a bear, or chilling in an empty bear ribcage or something.

Skullbeast, Izer, Lucid- If the momma is going to do that, she'd better have lots of other babies off camera. If man meets woman, they get busy, momma getts eaten or EXPLODES after having one birth... how does this species perpetuate itself? Seems like there halving there poulation all the time isn't the best reproductive strategy.

Good work everybody! Thanks for all the tasty eye-food

[Izer]

@ChromaticCodex, haha I'd say genetic defect, psychosis, last one out of the fox hole, or mad at being forced into the word, oh or really just for fun. It was fun to draw none the less.
Btw my vote went to skullbeast, cause i couldn't get over just how freaky that little guy looks, and reminds me of ''critters'' circa 1986. Cyas in another round, thanks for letting me participate.

[Acki]

Hey guys,
I am just jumping in for a minute to give some help, crit and props concerning the artwork itself, not the idea.
I wanted to compete with you, but I have been busy with school and personal work.

Ludic, I am missing the dynamic movement of the “breaking through” a creature’s chest.
It looks to static. Try to draw a curved line to figure out the direction of the force and the movement. Let the blood follow it. Let the bird move with all its power and strength in the same direction.
The rendering need some work too, but it is even more important to send the correct message to the viewer’s eye.
Retter, honestly I do not like it. The rendering is very bad. That doesn’t include the colors. You can give your creature nearly any color if the rendering and the style fits. Try to improve that. I want to be honest, and don’t want to tell everybody how cool his work is, when it is not true. That does not help.
Brenthollowell, Looks okay for a sketch. But not fo a finished concept. I do not know the rest of your work, but you could turn this piece into a really bad ass one!
MarcSampson, Nice try with the perspective. But it looks like you have been lazy man. The idea and and the layot are great foundations. But it looks like you just splashed all in careless.
Eclectix, this one is pretty cool. Your piece is one of my favorites so far.

Jerner, one word: cool =)

Zeitwolf, no… the perspective is so wrong. Also the rendering looks heartless. I think I have seen much better work from you?
Skullbeast, that’s a nasty kid haha. The rendering could need some work but I like the character of your work.
Izer, that’s a cool layout. Needs a LOT of improvement, but it’s a very cool layout.
Well, if I wrote some stuff, that makes no sense please tell me. English and so…. ;)
Cheers acki

[Zeitwolf]

Thanks Acki,
I'd appreciate any helpful critique other than "no". ;-)

[dragon4lunch]

For me it was between Eclectix and Skullbeast. While Eclectix had better rendering and a better idea - I give my vote to Skullbeast for having a charming looking creature. I wish you had improved it a bit in the rendering department, but you get my vote.

[Eclectix]

Since I wasn't sure what the conventions were on commenting while the vote is still ongoing, I was refraining from adding my comments, but since it seems that such comments are fine I'll throw mine in as well.

Ludic: I like that you used interesting markings to express the individuality of the species. Like Acki, though, I also don't get a sense of the "bursting out". I hope you keep creating creature art (as if you could stop when you really have a passion for it) because I think you have a lot of potential yet to be unleashed. You only need to work on fundamentals (and don't we all?)

Retter: The truth is the basic creature design itself is not entirely bad. The colors do present an assault to my eyes though; they are very, very bright. This might be what you are going for, but I would suggest that you try to perfect the tried and true. In art, all rules are made to be broken, but first you must really understand them. Only then can you understand how to successfully break them. My advice; keep working on color theory, shading, and so forth.

Brenthollowell: On its own I like your piece quite a bit. I didn't vote for it though because it's not clear to me that the creature is a newborn, or that it is about to make its first kill for that matter. It seems to be part of an alien world which may be its birth environment, and the moth may or may not be its first victim, but nothing in the picture tells me that.

MarcSampson: This one has more potential than it has obtained I think. I could believe that you wanted a sort of washed-out look, and it might work too except that the forced perspective of the creature doesn't work for me simply because there is no frame of reference to work from (we know how long a leg is, but we don't know how long this creature's neck should be). I think it really needs more definition to convince the eye that the creature exists in three dimensions. I really liked it in the WIP thread, but I was a bit surprised that it was posted here without more development.

Me: Yeah, I can totally see that the mouth doesn't look like it would close to the same size as the other eggs. I was thinking it was flexible and all the "stuff" inside it would stretch it out, but if it doesn't look right then it doesn't look right. This is why I like this place; people will tell you where your work needs more...well, work. I appreciate all the feedback.

Jerner: At first glance this piece almost looks like it could be a photograph or a still frame from a movie. Very convincing shading. The only reason I didn't vote for it was because it didn't really show enough of the creature for me to get a sense of what the creature looks like. I also would have liked to see it actually making its first kill; that would have sold me on it I think.

Zeitwolf: I like the concept. I love the details you added, such as the gills on the undeveloped pup. It does look a little unfinished to me, though. Loose rendering is fine in some cases, but in this case it just looks abandoned. Variation in brush thickness would help I think. Also some variation in the temperature of lighting (warm light from outside, cool reflected lighting, or something like that) would have sold this piece better I think.

Skullbeast: Like others, I voted for yours because of the character of the creatures. The mother looks totally freaked out and the baby is in sheer ecstasy as it tears into her flesh; too awesome. The arms look a little muppet-like to me for some reason, maybe because of the weird rubbery look the creatures have.

Izer: I like your creature too. The problem for me with this piece is the composition; the creature is a small dark silhouette on a sea of blinding white. I have to look closely to discern it clearly. If you had zoomed in on the subject and darkened the background to a more neutral color this would have helped a lot I think.

I really enjoyed participating in this COW and I really look forward to more!

[Jerner]

retter - Thank you very much :3

Zeitwolf - Thanks, I'm looking forward for more challanges, and getting better at the concept part :) lol really? *happy*

ChromaticCodex - Thank you, really! this is kind of what I've been looking for and hoping this would be all about - giving and recieving crits, how I've been searching for this! - and I couldn't agree with you more. As I'm new to this, I wasn't sure what to focus on and such. I did have an image sequence which showed how the killing of the victim, but didn't know if it was allowed to show more than 1 illustration in the final etc.
I will definately put more effort in the creature and composition before I dive in to detail next time, although I'm quite the detail-addict.

Hey guys,
"I want to be honest, and don’t want to tell everybody how cool his work is, when it is not true. That does not help."

Jerner, one word: cool =)
I take that as a compliment :o but next time it will be better (:

Eclectix - I'm with you on that, I didn't really think the final composition through, I just went along with it. I did give myself a challenge, trying to make the cocoon look real/webby with the light and such, but I should try to focus on the concept and presentation more to next time. Thanks for sharing opinion! - great concept aswell!

skullbeast - That baby sure is born bad. I like the general feeling of the final, I can really imagine the mother's screeching. Nice(/gross) job.