C.O.W. #209. EOW Crossover: Bridge the Gap - Voting!

[Si_Swe]

ROUND #209 VOTING

Topic: Bridge the Gap.

Single Vote (<20 entries)...

Deadline for the voting: Wednesday Apr. 29th, 2011

Remember to show some love, thank the people who's entries you liked but couldn't vote for. Also, if you've got the time, please add some crits.

[Rob Powell]

Artist: Rob Powell

Concept: Bridge Mites

On a group of islands in the Pacific live a swarm of creatures, no bigger than the human hand, called Bridge Mites. Named for their bridge building abilities, they live underground in a vast network of tunnels filled with a fungus which they feed on. To expand their colony and to find more sustinence they build bridges between islands so they can access new grounds for feeding. It is actually the females that do all the building, as they chew on dirt and sand to create a cement like substance once its dries. Unlike the females, the males are winged and can fly and they also use their sharp pincers to fend off any predators. They can also create a bridge of their own by linking claws with other males so the females can work more efficiantly.
1215163

[Jonas_J]

Artist: Braintree

Concept: The terrifying gluing bug of Doom!


This creature was given the most unimaginative name ever conceived by man. The biologist that came up with this name was later burned on the stakes for bad taste. He will be sorely missed ... *ahem* well, lets get on with the description. The terrifying gluing bugs are small bug-like things that build bridges across rivers and creeks in order to transport their queen to new feeding grounds. To build the bridge they gather all sorts of stuff from the forest: bark, branches, droppings, turds, and they use sticky slime from glands on their backs to piece these things together. This slim glows bright orange when it hardens.

[SOUTHERN]

Artist: Southern

Concept: Reaching Scarab

The reaching Scarab is the largest of the travelling scarab species. The sole purpose of this lumbering beast is to allow all worker scarabs, hivewalkers and grubs to keep moving across the open desert plains. The landscape is constantly broken by sand ravines that have been carved by wind and erosion over millions of years. The bridge building process can take over 30 hours as the tendrils reach out and knit together forming the platform for the hordes to pass over. Once the herd is across the Scarab loses the tendril bridge and strides across the gap and begins building up resources ready for the next crossing.

[DPFX]

Artist: DPFX

Concept: Asteroid Dweller


These invertabrates extract nourishment from mineral deposits on asteroids. Though their means of communicatin is unknown, they can coordinate en masse to connect themselves together and build a living bridge between moving asteroids if a catastrophic collision is imminent.

[TeganM]

Artist: TeganM

Concept: Norble


The Grand Blossoming Norble, or Norble for short, was first discovered deep in the jungles of the island Thipplwhick. A group of “explorors” looking for a “specific chemical” (rather their drug of choice); a sickeningly sweet and sticky liquid chemical (called Narable) the native Thipplwickians had recently started exporting for profit. After losing several members of their ill equipped, and often intoxicated team in various accidents the substance finally fell into their laps. Or in this particular case; on their heads.

The Narable had been coming from what the locals call Norbles. The lizard is constantly drooling the fluid from its mouth, unintentionally coating its body and anything in its path with the substance as it climbs, aiding in gripping to surfaces and deterring predators. The drool causes psychedelic effects, disorienting predators; but is also poisonous in large doses. Living in the upper canopy the drool often falls to the jungle floor, where it is collected and traded by the native Thipplwickians.

The animal lives in colonies of its fellows, and have evolved a number of amazing techniques to aid in their survival. The flowers on their heads are constantly attracting insects by producing a sweet smell. When more and more Norbles group together, the smell becomes strong enough to attract their prey from miles around. Perhaps their most unique trait is shown when travel becomes necessary from tree to tree; the slow moving Norbles work together to form bridges across impossible gaps; using their extra appendages to grasp hold of one another, often on the raised ridges along their back, to create stable formations. The Norbles also use their eyes, which are free to move independently, to locate the fellow Norble they are grasping, and another Norble that is currently grasping themselves. There are typically two “Watch Norbles" at the ends of the bridge constantly scaning the area for canopy predators, sending alerts of danger by attempting to violently shake the norble next to it. When this alert goes through, the trembling ripples through the cluster of Norbles and the bridge splits at the middle, and chains of Norble swing away towards the safety of their current tree.

-Taken from the Journel of Davidous Attenburoughly, Chief Historian of the Royal Merchant Guild of Mortegan

[♦♦Jackdaw♦♦]

Artist: Arthur 'Two Sheds'

Concept: Watson's Beast


The courtship ritual of the Watson's beast is most unusual. Using their hind legs to grip a cliff edge, the male and female will suspend themselves over the most dizzying crevass they can find, relying only on each other's grip and a small pad on thier snouts with which they carefully and evenly distribute their weight. Extra support is also found through the use of thin but strong spines protruding from the elbow joint. This act requires total and complete trust in one another. Failure will result in the two animals falling to thier deaths, while a succesful courtship will lead to the forming of a life long mating pair.

This ritual can last for days, even weeks. Local tribes have learned to take advantage of the 'bridge' like structure these animals create, allowing them to traverse otherwise uncrossable gaps.

[Si_Swe]

Artist: Si_Swe

Concept: Hooked Wananga


The Hooked Wananga is an arboreal, migratory and colonial arachnid. Living in an arid climate, the Wanaga must make their way from tree to tree in order to locate sources of water for the colony. The problem resides in transporting the young and the queen, who are slower and more vulnerable. There is very little solid ground in the craggy canyons where the Tendriss Vine they reside in, thus the workers of the colony use must make a bridge on which the young and Queen Wanaga may cross to the next viable tree. This is done by having the workers hook together using their unique hooks, to create something not dissimilar to a rope bridge. Once they've been hooked together, they hang from their current tree, having the worker on the bottom begin to swing slowly back and forth, until their is enough momentum to reach and hook onto the next vine. The workers must bear a large amount of weight, and thus only the workers with the thickest leg sinews are allowed to be on the ends of the bridges. At this point the Queen and young can cross. It is a trecherous process, the workers not having flat backs and their being many spaces in the bridge, so the queen must rely on the series of grooves in the Wananga carapaces to lock into with her legs. Wananga will do this process multiple times a day to find a water source, where they will generally stay for a period of up to a week. The bridges have been known to be 10-15 meters long, the longest recorded being 19 meters and being comprised of nearly 30 Wananga workers.

[Rob Powell]

Good round everyone! There were a few that I would've like to see enter, such as Velocity Kendall and Good Soup.

Not that I'm an expert or anything but here are some crits. :)

Braintree: Got my vote! Liked the clever description and the design of the bug is wonderfully executed! The only thing I'd suggest is to add something to the background so it doesn't look so plain. Even just a shadow under the creature, soit doesn't look like it's just floating in space.

SOUTHERN: Nice idea incorporating the look of the suspension bridge in this one. Only thing I could say is that this went a bit off topic seeing as one creature could make the bridge. I do find the lighting at the bottom right is a little bit distracting from the creature, though.

DPFX: An interesting looking creature. One thing I notice is the textures on the asteroid near the top left seems to have more texture and details than the asteroid closest to the viewer, but that's just me. The gridlines behind the creature are a little bit distracting though, maybe fading the grid a little more so it's not so prominent in the image.

TeganM: I liked the description that went with this, very good back story that really adds to the concept. I can tell a lot of thought went into writing this. The image itself needed a bit more work. Try adding a little reverse gradiation to the background to add some atmosphere, and adding some warmer colours closer to the focal point of the image, since your image is dominated by the cooler greens and blues. Adding some reds or purples to the flower, since it's sposed to be an attractive part of the creature could help draw the eye twards the head.

Arthur 'Two Sheds': Clever design. Overall there is a good sense of scale by having some tribesfolk walk across this bridge. I don't really have anything to suggest, maybe darken the right side on the cliff a bit so the center of the image stands out a little more.

Si_Swe: Liked the design. I understand that you were a bit tight on time, but it looks like you need to push the form just a little bit, and add a little more highlighting. The fading near the back was a good way to add a little atmosphere, but a little less fading on the right hind leg seeing as it is closer to the viewer than the tail. It also would've been interesting to see a more detailed Queen Wananga though.

Hope these were a least a little helpful :)

[TeganM]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm hoping to get a lot more this was my first post, so I'm planning to keep trying to get better.

[Niva.]

Braintree: Awesome looking critter, w/o the description it didn't seem to match the brief.

Arthur: You're always a winner in my opinion :) Voted.

[millz]

voted for Arthur, in terms of design of the creature i think Braintree did an excellent job but the entry didn't put as much creative thought into the brief as some of the others and the lack of atmosphere/environment didn't help. I also liked the imagination applied to Southerns' creature but overall the intrigueing backstory and nice artwork of Arthur came out ontop.