C.O.W. - #024: Huge Deep Sea Creature - VOTING!!!

[Fozzybar]

ROUND #024 VOTING

Topic: Huge Deep Sea Creature

Deadline for the voting: Saturday, 15 October 2005

Posting thread (closed):
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=53057









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possessed:
concept: Book of Job 41:1-34: "Can you draw out a Leviathan with a hook or press down its tongue with a cord? Canst thou put a hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a bridal ring?..."
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2271/hugedeepseacreature3dy.jpg
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nightfend:
concept: Monstrous Sea Terror - The water world of Cygnus III seemed like the perfect place. Lush beaches, warm waters and perfect weather. It was only after small boats and submarines started disappearing that the colonists to this new world realized something was very wrong with their paradise. Lurking deep beneath the oceans, the Monstrous Sea Terrors roam the oceans as undisputed kings. These cunning predators feed on anything that they find, including the colonists who mistakenly venture into their domain.
http://www.icondream.com/images/cow/huge_sea_creature02.jpg
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hurricane:
concept: colosseus aequoreus
Scientist recently found a corpse of a gigantic octopussy floating near the shores of California, USA.
The spicies has never been seen before and the scientist are clueless of
where it origins from. read more>>
http://www.diduct.com/Hurri_Sketchbook/Sep-05/cow_deepsea.jpg
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Nefarious:
concept: Thalassiosaur
Forgotten through the aeons, this creature has remained undiscovered by man in the darkest depths of the sea. Being the largest species in the water, the thalassiosaur has nothing to fear from other predators, but its equally large feeding requirements have limited its numbers to only a few.
http://home.earthlink.net/~nefarious/images/COW_DeepSea.png
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Hanuka:
concept: DEEP THROAT
Deep Throat is a mammal and often classified as whale. It's intentions however are much more vicious than your average whale's. He means ill. By all means. He will kill you. And your mother. Just out of spite, because he can and because he has those cool yet sloppily rendered teeth. Look at his eyes. He will get you and he will rob all your worldly possessions. He is just planning the PERFECT CRIME! Back in the day, when Mr. T and G.I. Joe were still around, Deep Throat and his gang often went to the Korova Milk Bar and had a milk-plus; milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what they were drinking. This would sharpen you up and get you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v101/hanuka/deepthroat.jpg
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Helzon:
concept: Trench Stalker shown as (Abyssal Maggot)
"Opportunism(n)-the art, policy, or practice of taking advantage of opportunities or circumstances often with little regard for principles or consequences." as defined by Merriam-Webster.
Such is the life of the Trench Stalker, from it's first fluttering breaths to it's last death rattle. All known evidence of this creature is through local legend, and inconclusive markings located along area Chilean beaches.
What has been deduced from lore is that periodically the shifting and grinding along the Marianas trench will from time to time release large pockets of carbon-dioxide and oxygen. Unfortunate ships that happen to be in the area are lost to these super-massive releases. Yet what is lost to one is but an irresistable opportunity for another. It is suspected that the Trench Lurker can feel the vibrations of a sudden release and poise itself along the rugged walls of the trench, and when the time comes will ride the swift moving torrent to the surface, it's massive bulk made weightless. It feeds voraciously sweeping all into it's maw on both the trip up and back. And when one elder Trench Stalker dies...the breeding season begins by the laying of Abyssal Maggots who consume the dead, bones and all...leaving no other evidence behind of their existence.
Model display at 1/5th scale
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/Helzon/AbyssalMaggot2copy.jpg
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WARHEAD:
concept: GIGANTICUS MARIUS - The extremely rare giant deep sea fish of the deeps.
Only glimpsed once by a deep sea research vessel this creature is huge - weighing in at 500 tonnes and is approximately 150m long with a tough exoskeleton to survive the massive pressures in some of the deepest regions of the sea. Its bioluminescent tentacles are used to capture it's prey with poison injected into the body and huge eyes help it see in the dark
.....considering the size of the creature it is yet unknown what the creature feeds on, rumours are that it's prey is even larger......
http://www.war-studio.com/HostedImages/COWuc.jpg
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Oregano:
concept: Giant Jelly Catches Cetacean!
An adult blue whale grasped liesurely in one of its many tenticals, a giant jelly descends into the depths on Tuesday afternoon as the research team of the USS Mysticeti topside, and scientists the world watched the massive creature fall majestically into the depths of the South Pacific. Without a doubt, the largest example of a deep sea jelly ever caught on film, the scientific community is astounded by this newly discovered species, and indeed, all of the unprecidented discoveries of the last week. Its discovery is too recent to have earned it a name, or know anything about its life cycle, preferred habitat, diet or reproductive cycle; however this gigantic jelly is believed to possibly feed upon colosseus aequori as well as blue whales, as a the research team was in fact trailing a school from Southern California when they stumbled upon this astounding specimen.
http://sketchforums.com/uploads/post-11-1128548046.jpg
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br0kenspirit:
concept: Depth Titan
An enourmous deep-sea creature, the Depth Titans can be found on some of the most profound regions of the Pacific Ocean. They are slow swimming, and have relatively small mouths in relation to their huge bodies, which are spherically shaped and end in a long, thin tail. Near the mouth are dozens of bioluminiscent lights that are used to lure its prey for easy consumption. Many of the observed individuals present scars on their bodies in unusual markings that resemble jaw wounds, suggesting the posibility of even larger deep-sea predators, to which the Depth Titans would be basic food.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/bk7600/cow24f2.jpg
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Nutter:
concept: Thought to be the first fire breathing fish ever to be found, the Aqueous Inceneratious nomakesenseous is about 100m long and feeds on Deep Fried Calamari of the Giant Squid type. Scientists are still unsure of what the whole creature actually looks like as the artist was too lazy to draw the rest of it.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a178/Lechy/oceancreature.jpg
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Beatnik:
concept: The Fangtooth Vipersquid is generally harmless unless provoked. They live an average of six miles below the surface and come up to feed at night. Their large powerful claws easily crush any prey it can catch, but the fangs are not to be overlooked. The lights on their head will shine bright when threatened or when looking for a mate.
http://hotfish.com/misc/deepseaCOW.jpg
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Eshara:
concept: Octonailious:
Thanks to recent new advancements in technology humans are now able to explore much deeper into the depths of the ocean. Because of this there have been a number of new discoveries. Most memorable is the Octonailious. It was discovered by Henry L. Johnson. What is known about this creature so far is that it uses its innate camouflage on its back to blend in with its surroundings. To blend in better it digs a small trench for itself and sits in waiting. It doesn't move until the schools of gwandula fish are close by. Once they are close enough it feeds in a frenzied rage until it is full. They are solitary creatures and don’t see each other until it is mating season. They're like this because to many Octonailious's in one area would deplete the food source dramatically.
Below is a picture of the Octonailious after a big feast:
http://www.thehgl.com/rebecca/pictures/deepseacreature_smaller.jpg
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panda:
concept: The narwhal worm gored open the plug at the bottom of atlantis with its horn, and atlantis sank.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/viapanda/Narwhal-Worm-web.jpg
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Schlo-mo:
concept: The Chinawhite Sea Dragon, a beast that was once thought to be just a Mythical creature of fables is a large serpintine-like underwater predator. As Pictured here with a small Pod of blue whales, the Chinawhite Sea Dragon has immense control over the Beard of anntenae -like-strands that hang from his under jaw, the strands act as a amplifier for movement detection within the surrounding, dark and distant waters. Picking up such movemnt of a gargantuan range allows the Dragon to find and easily consume a huge array of the worlds biggest sea beasties. Although they are and sparce and illusive creature, what they certainly make up for in lack of numbers is huge size and speed. With the ability of using its fins and eel-esque body structure, the Dragon can propel and navigate over great distances across the deepest depths of the ocean.
http://www.creativespot.org/post/data/636/cowserp2.jpg
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Xpose:
concept: Shin-Mira, persumed to be leftovers from the dinosaur era's, lives in the darks depths of the ocean. Feeding on both plants and sea animals it can grow to extremely large proprtions. It's calls are oftenly mistaken for whale's but the Shin-Mira uses it almost like sonar. You'll never see one near the surface due to the pressure diffrences. Unfortunately if it rises to the surface it simply dies so the only real visuals are taken with state of the art computerized subs.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/xpose/drawings/Shin-Mira.jpg
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Shadoman:
concept: Giant Poisonous Altravertea
The Giant Poisonous Altravertea are ancient creatures found deep off the coast of Iceland. Their sizes range from 42’ to a suspected length of 57’. They are very elusive creatures whom, for the most part, keep to themselves, but will severely sting and paralyze any predators or animals that swim too close. The unique mating rituals of the Altravertea is the only way that this creature draws attention to itself. The female’s short tentacles will glow and release pheromones to attract the males.
http://www.shawnadomanis.com/images/cow/cow24.jpg
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Dusty:
concept: Giant Mimic Squid
The Giant Mimic Squid, the larger cousin of the recently found mimic octopus is particularly interesting for what it disguises itself as. While the mimic octopus has been known to impersonate flounder and seaweed, camera images of this squid found it impersonating something much more interesting. While we can only speculate what the squid has seen that would cause it to make this shape, we do know that the squid is incredibly intelligent and may actually be giving us a glimpse of another unknown species. Hundreds of tentacles wrap around each other to form what appears to be a neck, head and mouth, and tentacles on the side wrap around to form what appear to be flippers. Amazingly enough, the squid actually uses its makeshift flippers to swim through the water just as you would expect it to do were it a real "sea serpent". The squid does not have suction cups, but small pliable "teeth" that can bend against the skin as to not puncture itself. After the amazing live pictures of the Giant Squid....we never imagined we would be so lucky to find this new species in the same month. Furthermore, the suggestion that some species of sea serpent truly makes this one of those amazing discoveries of all time.
http://home.comcast.net/~turbutter5/deepsea.jpg
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duddlebug:
concept: Ye Monstrous Pirate Muncher
The Pirate Muncher is a carnivoruous sea monster with an appetite for pirates. He'd probably enjoy any human folk, but pirates are particularly easy prey. He spends most of his time searching through ship wrecks on the sea bed, but has a penchant for 'fresh' pirates too, and to enjoy 'fresh pirates' he has to head to the surface. The Pirate Muncher is very clever for a sea monster and has learnt to draw. He lures pirates to his razor sharp teeth by drawing treasure maps and sending them off, by their hundred, in bottles for pirates to find. Pirates can't resist a treasure map... or treasure for that matter... so they greedily succumb to the Pirate Muncher's clever trap. The Pirate Muncher piles some sand on his head and a palm tree or two. He tops his little fake island with a chest of treasure (easy to find on the sea bed in pirate infested waters) and patiently waits for the pirates. Soon he knows a ship will turn up full of juicy pirates to collect their treasure. Once the Pirate Muncher is sure they can't get away he tosses them in the air and swallows them whole. He keeps a firm hold on the anchor so he can have a chew on the ship too. And if necessary, he finds the masts and yardarms particularly useful for picking pirates from his teeth.
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8800/piratemuncher9jg.jpg
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JakkaS:
concept: BLINDFISH
The "Blindfish" is a huge creature living in the deepest areas of ocean. The whole life it spends on drifting and searching for drawning oragnic matter at the ocean bottom. Those really big fishes are absolutely helpless without small "glow-worms". The small ones, in return for protection, do the pilot's work in dark deep water - that's the way they coexist with each others.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a314/JakkaS/HugeDeepSeaCreature--JakkaS.jpg
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young paddy1:
concept: A creature that will usually wait for a pod of whales to herd a vast school of fish or squid for themselves before attacking and eating the lot, the Aquae Mortis Ingens is a lazy bugger, but that doesn't mean it won't snap up a hapless shoal or lone cetacean.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v19/youngpaddy1/seamonster.jpg
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[Fozzybar]

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0kelvin:
concept: Jumbo Shrimp Jelly Cocktail!
October 7, 2005: In what is being called the most important week in the history of marine biology, yet another new magnificent species has been discovered by scientists. It began as the research team aboard the USS Mysticeti sent a submersible to further study their newly discovered giant jelly. They followed the jellyfish deep into the highly volcanic Tonga trench and were astounded to watch it be promptly devoured by what the scientists have dubbed the Jumbo Shrimp. Measuring nearly a full league (4.8 km) from tail to head, it has surpassed the Japanese Spider Crab as the world's largest crustacean (by roughly 1200 times). After returning to the surface and putting on a fresh pair of pants, Professor W. T. Sherman of the research team said, "This is by far the largest organism the world has ever seen, and will ever see, because anything bigger than this would just be silly. Don't even try to come up with something larger, this is the absolute limit for believable size." The Jumbo Shrimp is believed to feed primarily on the schools of hundreds of giant squid swimming nearby.
Inset: School of giant squid.
Inset: Inset: A giant squid, which last week would've been hot shit to see, but now is just kinda neat.
http://www.whereismyeyeball.com/images/CA/COW/COW24final.jpg
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princeofhappiness:
concept: The Red Lantern Leviathan
This rare deep sea creature belongs to the squid and octopus family. What differentiates it from others, however, is that it has a lantern on its head, which is useful in navigation and feeding in the darkest of waters. The Red Lantern Leviathan is not a hostile creature. Despite its gigantic size (20 metres in length), it spends its time eating seaweed using little suckers found under its two tentacles. The two front tentacles are used to pull out plants form the earth.
http://img323.imageshack.us/img323/9125/monster11vh.jpg
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sephone:
concept: In the deep seas 100 miles from Hawaii there has been what looks like a new type of deep sea whale that has been discovered. Little is known about this species only that it looks like it goes up into the oceans surface and fills these giant airsacs full of air before it submerses back into the deep. Staying maybe days at a time before it comes back up for air.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v651/seph001/deepsea_small.jpg
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BlkCelebration:
concept: Luzoro
The Luzoro, a giant deep sea dweller closely related to the common goldfish is two times the size of an adult whale. They are passive and spend their time slowly travelling accross the deepest parts of the sea. Some say their appearence is similar to that of an elderly man; perhaps explaining its slow pace swimming. They give shelter in their poisonous tentacles to smaller fish which are immune to the poison. They sometimes become its food, but the Luzoro bases its diet on plancton for the most part. They have no known enemies, hence their brightly colored bio-luminesent marks and tentacles are not a defense mechanism; they are purely for asthetic purposes.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a242/monasterio/pescado.jpg
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Yodaah:
concept: This is the Ichtyonarcoticus. He measures 17 meters long, but there are rumours that some bigger kinds of 24 meters length, have been witnessed. The arms beside his jaw are furnished with venomous stings. After grabbing his victim with his teeth he anaesthetizes it with his stings in order to paralyze it. This assures more comfort while eating. He really comes from the Deep Blue Sea, living in giant ditchs, 10 000 meters below the surface. Down there he is hunting giant squids, sharks and whales. He is not to particular in choosing nourishment, unless he comes up to get some humans for lunch once in a while...
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b261/Yodaah/Giant-Sea-Monster-TIF.jpg
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RES:
concept: The Big BOB
This titanic creature was recently discovered in the lowest recesses of the deepest known sea trench.
BOB (a nick name given to the creature by it discoverer because of it ungainly swimming motion) was first thought to be the last of a prehistoric species but on further investigation of the many ancient tethered spheres which Bob seems to care for it has been realized that these are in fact eggs containing Bob’s offspring.
The eggs appear to take millions of years to develop suggesting that BOB could be one of the first creatures ever to swim the sea and has retreated to the trench to procreate.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v302/RES-Ryan/CW_BigSeaMonster3.jpg
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Fozzybar:
concept: Architeuthis Rex Profunditatis
Amongst Crypto-Zoologist also known as "The Mighty Fright" this deep sea monster is the real merciless hunter of whales on our planet...no whaler ship is more efficient or acurate than this ancient giant of the abyss...
Once impaled its horn and digged its crawls into the whale, its victim has no chance to survive...In fact this monster also hunts for other Architeuthis and doesn't contemn any creature around as long as it's big enough...
Recently they found one specimen of this species stranded on the coast of Argentina - already dead of course...inside in its 3 stomachs they found a total of 2 common Architeuthis, 1 Physeter macrocephalus [sperm whale] and a dozen of big sharks...
http://www.kidomatix.com/ca/cow/cow_024_hugedeepseacreature_fozzybar.jpg
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tuchten:
concept: Dark water avatar
This is not the story of a monster, this is simply the product of toxic waste humanity left buried in the dark waters.
For years we kept doing it. For decades it grew. Forever we cried.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/tuchten2/tuchten%20begins/cowfish.jpg
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Form:
concept: Deep Heart
The discovery of the lost city off the coast of Chile was met with mixed reaction. While the scientific world was awash with excitement and speculation, the discovery of a huge plaque written in fragmented archaic arabic set the christian right into a blaze of outrage. Its rough translation was "The sun will disappear from the sky". Attempts to explore the ruins were hampered by religious extremists, convinced that the plaque hinted at the apocalypse.
After prolongued discussions with the UN, one expedition was approved to explore the deep city and bring back photographic record.
This photo was taken from the deepwater camera of a ROV sent to capture live feed of the exploration by the USSR Camriev. It soon became clear that the inscription referred to this mammoth beast, who blocked out any light that trickled down from the sun above.
Upon exiting the city, the creature ceased pursuit of the submersible, trailing its long body back into the labarynthine city. Upon surfacing, the crew of the Camriev were observed to be in extreme shock, and were shaking uncontrollably. Attempts to communicate verbally did not succeed - it appeared the crew had all been made deaf.
The crew's captain was handed a sheet of paper and a pen, on which he wrote:
"The sound of the beast eclipses all. The guardian of that city... the sound is like the beating of a gargantuan heart...deafening... the sound of the deep heart."
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a67/thebohemian/subf.jpg
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scumgrinder:
concept: El viento - not yet classified
Discovered in 1875 it was named after the ship that sank trying to catch it. It is unknown how many of them exist and how long they live. like most large sea creatures it feeds on plancton and waste. Some scientists think it must be a relative of jellyfish with enlarged dermis to resist high pressure. The other one of its kind , a relatively smaller creature known as Dresden has an entirely different appearance yet the cell structure and number of tentacles and eyes remains the same. Scientist suggest the shape of these creatures is determined by the earth's magnetic fields.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a232/scumgrinder/elviento.jpg
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eliWolff
concept: Giant LobsterSquid Years of toxic waste have been slowly seeping into the giant squid's spawning area and eventually they start to mutate. Now the DNA from the giant squids has mixed with the DNA from a deep sea spiked lobster.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5121/1211/1600/lobsterSquid.jpg

[Fozzybar]

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!






not accepted entries:

none

close to rejection:

none

[Fozzybar]

New round is on:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=613018

[scumgrinder]

ahaha "ye monstruous pirate muncher". My favorite.

[Dusty]

not accepted entries:

none

close to rejection:

none

Actually it looks like you either forgot to add Eliwolff's or you forgot to list that you rejected it for some reason....

-Dusty

[Fozzybar]

Well...actually i never saw his/her entry...i thought he/she just posted the concept text and was going to post the artwork later, but even now i didn't see the image...??? sorry if there was one, but i checked the thread about 20 times the last week and never saw an image...

[Dusty]

Hmmm....must just be in my cache then. He had it up, but maybe he took it down.

Edit: Ah, I see ya got it there now.

-Dusty

[Fozzybar]

ok....just went to the original thread and it didn't show again, but i went in the "edit post" mode and copy&pasted the link (yes, there was one)...after that i saw the image...i added his/her nick to the poll and also the entry to the list!

Thanx for the hint Dusty!

btw if you (Dusty) or scumgrinder want to change the given vote, just tell me i will do it for you...

[Carnifex]

aight,i'll never get how the timezones work,but it's soooo typical that the posting thread gets closed just when i've finished my pic.
out of protest i won't vote.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b363/siansaar/cowdeepseaC.jpg

if i had,my vote would have gone to 0kelvin

edit: helzon excellent work on the colours this time.

[scumgrinder]

it's a red x for me

[princeofhappiness]

Well done everybody, great work.

Voted for Fozzybar- i think his soft brushstrokes and use of light has made the creature realistic and tangible. I can picture it swimming in the waters as soon as i saw it. The way he created the deep sea effect, with its sort of dusty/planktoned area revealed by the light from the creature, and fading to black at the bottom adds to this as well.

[Fozzybar]

aight,i'll never get how the timezones work,but it's soooo typical that the posting thread gets closed just when i've finished my pic.

Ok, i will tell you how the timezone works:

1st: I live in Germany - it's in the same time zone as Austria!

2nd: The deadline was set for October 7th, which makes Friday...we have Saturday night right now (october 8th)...10 pm as i closed the posting thread...

I always close the posting threads at COW one day after the deadline - at least! That means the only ones who can miss the deadline are members living not on our planet.......................isn't Austria on one of Saturn moons? >:D :wink:

[Carnifex]

well then the forum clock must be apeshit. it says you closed at 12:01 am. it manages to completely ignore my timesetting aswell by saying i have it to gmt plus 2 hours,whereas it should be gmt plus 1. or am i wrong on that?

and besides i only found this weeks cow today(no effin access to a pc), and am generally in a bad mood today.
so fuck you very much.
and i don't care if i'm rude right now,i'm not in the mood for jokes.

[Dusty]

possessed: Neat looking design. It kind of seems to me like it would be much smaller though. Something that would get mistaken as a "merman" or something. I think its the arms, mostly. I don't get much of a feeling of huge from it. The only crit I can give painting-wise is that the texture seems a hair overdone. Is it Hard Light? I think the scales would look a lot better and less tacked on if you used overlay (while dropping the contrast back) or soft light.

nightfend: Really awesome painting. Good storytelling in the piece itself, too. Don't have much to crit other than I think the mouth is maybe a *wee* bit over-the-top. It kind of reminds of of something from a 50s sci fi movie, which is great if you were intending that.

hurricane: This one was an early favorite for me. Painting is great, and I love it that its dead in the water...just floating there. The lighting underneath is fantastic.

Nefarious: I'm not really seeing this as anything more than a dinosaur to be honest. Good job on the scale, but I think it should be a lot bigger as per the contest rules. I swear I have seen something very similar in about a million dinosaur books. I realize that is what you were going for in your description, but I think a little more time on the design would have helped. The shadow of the fin seems a little bit too contrasty to the rest of the white parts on the body, too.

Hanuka: Not too fond of your description, because I think the design is kind of neat. I'd like to see a legitimate concept behind it. Painting style is nice and the mouth is unique.

Helzon: VERY cool design, but I think you went a little overboard on the shininess. Underwater you don't really get that glossy. Octopi, for example, look very smooth underwater, but when taken out of water they looks slimy and glossy. Also, the color of the creature should take on a lot of the hues of the water....it seems more like this creature is on land or maybe in a cave with an air pocket. I absolutely love the drawing itself, though.

WARHEAD: Definitely looks like a deap sea creature would look. Using the underbites, teeth, and angler type stuff looks great! I don't really care for the FOV blur on the sub, though. I think it makes it look a little photoshoppy. The sub is good for scale, but I think it would have helped the piece to just leave it painted with no blur.

Oregano: Awesome colors, and fantastic painting. That thing is just freakishly huge!

br0kenspirit: I love this concept, and the painting is really good too. The design is very unique from the "squid approach" that many (including myself) decided to go with. Awesome piece.

Nutter : I like the painting a lot, but you'll have to forgive me that the concept description disappoints me again. I really like reading the descriptions even if they are badly written (for example, I am not a writer...Im sure from a writing standpoint, my description sucks), but when people throw their arms up and just throw something down cuz they don't feel like typing it up, it just makes me sad and I think as a whole it weakens the piece. As a painting though, your creature is very good. I like the fire breathing concept and would love to see it explained as to how its used under water without getting put out. For example does it use some kind of oil producing glands that allow the fire to not burn out immediately or something? Would be neat to find out....

Beatnik: Nice to see some cartoony entries....I like his expression and the teeth are cute. Pushing the cartoony aspect more would make this even stronger, I think.

Eshara: Deap sea fish traditionally look pretty evil....so its nice to see something look a bit more benign. Considering that, though, it does feel like its not a deep deep sea creature, especially with the free diver used for scale. Love the camo concept!

panda: Description is fairly weak, but I love the painting! I don't see how something with a horn roughly the size of a submarine sank and entire city. That said...love the lighting and the design itself. It definitely feels like it accurate pitch black water and only the light from the sub is revealing the creature. Excellent job.

Schlo-mo: Ooo...very nice. Kind of looks a bit like a dogfish! A dogfish that is insanely large. ;) hahaha. I like these ones that use blue whales for scale....definitely lets you know how big the thing is. I also like your description and how it adds almost a legendary status to the creature.

Xpose: The right (far) fin in the front seems a little inaccurate. Dropping it down would help that a bit, I think. The design is interesting and I like the almost "humpback whale" type bumps on his flippers. More details and wrinkles around the joints and just overall detail on the body would help immensely.

Shadoman: Nice looking squid concept! Very believable too. I like the colors a lot and the addition of the second one in the background is really nice to see.

duddlebug: This is obviously the funniest one of the bunch. Cute idea, though despite your description saying otherwise I definitely do not get a "deep sea" feel from this at all. Seems like you had this idea for a long time and kind of shoehorned it into the competition a bit, because the pirate idea is a little random for when you think of "deap sea creature". I absolutely adore the description though. I love it that he draws the maps to himself and sends them out into the ocean so pirates can find them. I would love to see a children's book with this entire concept as a story, to be honest. Very cute. I'd probably vote for it were it not for the reasons above.

JakkaS : Very cool concept and a FANTASTIC painting. I love the color usage a lot, especially nice contrast of the red on the gill area. The design itself is very unique....one of my top 5.

young paddy1: I like how it looks almost like a combination of an octopus and a whale in many ways. That correlation helps show its scale even if there where no whale in front to show it. The painting is accurately dark, I think, but I think you could have shown a lot more details to make the piece more interesting. Its too dark.

0kelvin: As a description? Excellent job. As a painting? Well done...I love the lighting below. As a concept? Its a shrimp. Something a little more creative to break it up so it doesn't just look like you are making a textbook shrimp would have been a lot better. Not saying you have to add so much gobbledeegook that you can't even tell its a shrimp anymore, but there are a lot of different species of shrimp/lobsters etc. to draw influence from. I could order this at a restaraunt, you know? No offense, of course because the painting is great...but more effort into designing the CREATURE itself, would have been much better. I'd love to see the concept of a giant shrimp taken further...

princeofhappiness: Very VERY strange. ;) In a good way, of course, but I have to point out that that "nose" or whatever looks like some kind of penis or something from the inside of a vagina. But I use lots of phallic imagery in my stuff too, so that's not a point against you. Just saying...when I saw it I giggled a bit. ;) The design itself is awesome though and the colors are insanely vibrant and stylized nicely. Great job!

sephone: I love the concept of storing the air so that it can go deep into the ocean for long periods without have to go to the surface all the time. Also interesting seeing that it is not a plankton style whale....but something like an orca because of the teeth. It still feels like a whale, but just a nasty one at that. I really like this one!

BlkCelebration: Absolutely gorgeous colors....very vibrant! The design is really interesting and cute in a way too.

Yodaah: Design is neat and even though its monochromatic, it still looks great. The background is sevely lacking though. At least its not white,but flat gray isn't much better. ;)

RES: Very unique design, and I like the story a lot.

Fozzybar: You got my vote. The painting is badass and the concept and design are great. The lighting, especially, is just goreous. I love the sort of "bloomy" effect you got going on with it. The subtle fade-offs are really well done.

tuchten: Awesome drawing...not seeing much point to the left inverted one, though. Nor do I see a point to all of the extra scale things like the cow and the extra fish. The piece is strong, it only needs one scale reference, I think. Some color would have been nice, but I know that isnt a requirment.

Form: Awesome composition. Nice to see a full on city in the background there. The design is interesting and the description is fantastic!

scumgrinder: Awesome design, though it seems a little alien. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The color choice is a little strange as deep sea waters don't really have a warm glow like that...unless its the creature that is emenating it, I guess. But that isn't in your description so I don't know. Overall really nice!

eliWolff: I like the style and fusing two creatures together is always fun. The main crit that I have is that the right legs seem like they are angled too far up. Drop then down a little bit and you'll be good to go.


*whew*

Good job everyone! This was an awesome subject this week....really fun to see everyone's pieces.

-Dusty

[Nefarious]

There was a lot of really nice work but I have to go with Nightfend. His work looks like it would be a perfect cover for a 1960's sci-fi novel. I think what strikes me most is the menacing look he captured in the eye. His creature has a very threatening look to it and makes the rest of ours look rather benign in comparison. I also like how the focus shifting was handled in a subtle manner.

[Fellah.]

So much killer stuff in this round! Some are beautiful, some are amazing and some are really cool :)
My vote goes to Form this time - great story and i just love that little head with the red eyes!
Nice work dude!

[S.C. Watson]

Dusty, thanks for the comments :bashful:

I voted for Hurricane's because I fell in love with it the moment I saw it and haven't been able to find another to takes it's place. Or something. Anyway, Hurricane got my vote :confident

BY THE WAY, in case no one noticed, I parodied Hurricane's entry in my description, and then 0kelvin parodied mine. I don't think anyone caught this, as no one has commented on it :nohope: :[






*I* thought it was funny....

[Form]

hey this round i voted for fellah cos he voted fo.....oh i mean ah.... shit shit shit.... i voted for JakkaS, i really liked the colour and overal 'oomph' the design had.

thanks for the comments dusty, i wish i had the time to return the favour :P

thanks for the vote fellah! :P

[AndrewLey]

Really nice work from everyone

I voted for br0kenspirit because it looks HUGE and it make me think "damn - why didn't I think of that!" - which is always the sign of a great design.

[Eshara]

Well it was hard to pick, but I went with Scumgrinder. I liked his composition and creature design the most, even though the colors dont quite look deep seaish.

Dusty - First, thank you for your comments they help a lot. :) I meant for it to be that the body suite used for diving was improved for deep sea diving, but I didnt say that in my description (And for some reason I didn't think to make it clearer heh).

[nightfend]

Wow, there were SO many good entries this time. This definitely was the hardest round for me to decide on. I was really torn between br0kenspirit's and duddlebug's entries. Duddlebug's illustration was amazing, and I think the only reason I ended up not voting for it was that it didn't incorporate enough "deep sea" into the illustration. I was really torn on this one, but after viewing the images multiple times, I kept coming back to Br0kenspirit's illustration. The illustration really fits the subject matter perfectly as it feels very large and like it definitely dwells in the deepest parts of the ocean. Really nice work Br0kenspirit!

There were a couple of illustrations that were so good I had to also comment on them:

Fozzybar - I really like the lighting effect you did for this creature. It's a really well rendered illustration. I'm not sure I fully get the idea that it's a large sized creature, but otherwise it's really well done.

tuchten - Your concept was well done. Something about how the anatomy was drawn that makes it very believable. It's a great concept piece, and I'd love to have seen a final painting of the creature.

Dusty - I like the multi-tentacled, elegant feel that your creature has to it. And the mimicing concept is pretty cool. The the image is a little dark and could have stood to have a little more lighting effects put on it to make it feel more three dimensional.

Wish I had time to critique everyone elses as there were just so many great illustrations this time around. COW just keeps getting better and better Foz! :yayca:

[Xpose]

It was sooo hard to choose between them all. There were so many entries and all of them were really good but in the end I choose Nighfiend. Loved the concept and the colors really gave it a deep sea type feel. Thanks for the critique dusty! I do appreciate it a bunch! See you guys next round =]

[scumgrinder]

Well it was hard to pick, but I went with Scumgrinder. I liked his composition and creature design the most, even though the colors dont quite look deep seaish.

Dusty - First, thank you for your comments they help a lot. :) I meant for it to be that the body suite used for diving was improved for deep sea diving, but I didnt say that in my description (And for some reason I didn't think to make it clearer heh).

well, in defense of my concept, everybody was using minisubs so i had to think of another way to get enough light to show the creature, so in my case it was surfacing to lay eggs or something monsterlike. the glow at the top left corner is the surface, while the monster is coming from the depth, that's why you can't see the tentacles...
i ended up correcting the original sketch after the thread was closed, i thought the character needed more limbs
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a232/scumgrinder/el_viento_wip.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a232/scumgrinder/el_viento_color.jpg

[Fozzybar]

and besides i only found this weeks cow today(no effin access to a pc), and am generally in a bad mood today.
so fuck you very much.
and i don't care if i'm rude right now,i'm not in the mood for jokes.

Baby, if you can't hold a deadline just shut up, especially if you saw the thread the last day...i am always in the mood for jokes, so i like it when aliens like you getting upset and making a fool of themselves...

Don't you know when it's Friday or Saturday? Forget the time stamps of any forum...

[Dusty]

Glad someone made light of that shit. That was just pure bitchery right there.
"Fuck you very much"? Come on dude....its a tiny art competition. Don't get so bent out of shape. Your fault you didnt see it till now, not Fozzy's.

-Dusty

[Form]

i tend to disagree. Its my general opinion that EVERYTHING is ALWAYS fozzys fault, in some way.

[Fozzybar]

i tend to disagree. Its my general opinion that EVERYTHING is ALWAYS fozzys fault, in some way.
Form, will you be in Prague? I am still not sure if i will come, but if you will be there, that would be the go sign for me, just to kick your lil' pert ass :)

[Fozzybar]

thanx Dusty...seems there are some rational and mature people still on the net...

[Form]

Nup :D Hehe im safe till i go backpacking next july ;)

[Gloominati]

voted for br0kenspirit. I do not even know why I just know that as I went through all the images this was the only one that made my hard beat as hell. There is a great atmosphere in this piece and this giant ......thing.... looks terrifying as hell. AWESOME!!

[Hanuka]

i went with scumgrinder, because it looked so organic and i liked the overall feeling of his piece. i love the colors, btw.

thanks for all the comments, dusty. there actually is a concept behind my monster, but i didn't really feel like being ernest at that point... hope i can comment on everyone as well, later on.

[Helzon]

Voted for brokenspirit....in essence because it didn't look like a squid or some hybrid lobster/fish/squid/whale. Secondly the scale is off the chart...and by hell it just looks friggin cool. Great Job!

Carnifex...thanks man for the compliment...I appreciate that..
Dusty...yeah..the reason for the lack of bounce light from the background is because I was going for a more 'this is a model of the creature in a gallery or museum' and it's on display...the little things around it are supposed to be people...just to give a sense of scale. Nonetheless I thank you for taking the time to comment and crit...in fact..you've stepped into the 'arteric and Mighty Crit Cow' shoes this week. Speaking of which ....I miss them...the silly bastards...
Been a great week to play in the sandbox with you all...
Cheers!

[possessed]

Thnx for the critique Dusty, I agree completely, I got way to carried away with the texture on it's body and I couldn't find a good way to reduce it later.
There are some really fun entries this Cow though I miss mike's..
Lots of praise goes to Nightfend, br0kenspirit, JakkaS, sephone, BlkCelebration and RES, those were definately my favorites.
Nightfend: Great design, awesome colors, it's just a very solid piece imo.
Br0kenspirit: Believable concept, If you wanna survive in the deep sea your physique has to be adapted to that. A spherical form is ideal for the Deep pressure.
JakkaS: nice design and cool rendering. Maybe a slightly more dynamic pose would have made this even better.
Sephone: I dunno I just really like the saurian look of the creature :)
BlkCelebration: I like the concept and the text that went along with it and it's all glowy and pretty :)
RES: lots of elements that make sense for a huge deep sea creature so that's a plus. I like the floating eggsacs.

[SimoSK8]

Duddlebug grabbed mine. Was a tight call, but duddle tickled my funny tooth and pulled out a vote. :)
Really really good stuff from all!

[JeffZNY]

Wow, HUGE turnout. Great topic. I really wanted to enter this week, but couldn't find the time yet again. That's really not an excuse...more like a condemnation of myself. I've been very busy lately, but there is always time for more art. I will enter next week's, I promise...be prepared!

oh, and carni...why would you talk that way to the dude who set this whole ship sailing? examine your head, my friend

[Carnifex]

i meant that i didn't have access to the computer until saturday evening. so much for "my fault". i'm not blaming fozzy for closing the thread, but i don't like made being fun off. and everyone has the right to be bitchy someday. for me it was that day.

edit: and don't take everything so damn serious i'm saying!
now you've done it! i'm voting afterall!
gah. :blahblah:

[eliWolff]

I voted for Yodaah because I liked the way it was drawn the best. I thought it was a good clean looking concept that was easy to see. Some of the entries seemed to be lit very darkly, which for a creature concept would make it tough for a modeler to see the details in what to model.. Also thanks to Dusty for getting my entry added back in. Weird that it didn't show up before.

[WARHEAD]

Well ! This week was really tough ! There were a lot of awesome concepts this week - this is what COW is about :teeth:

It was really tough to vote and crit this time round. I was torn between a few, duddlebug deserves a mention for the great rendering and wit of the piece, but in the end I went for br0kenspirit.... I really like the aesthetics and style of this piece and there is a sense of hugeness to the creature. The design is cool but simple at the same time and I like the monochrome values of the piece.

Great work everyone. Let's hope the next one is as inspiring !

[brokk]

Wow...

... I'm stunned.

I seriously, and I really mean this, I thought I was definatly going to get 0 votes this round. Maybe one or two but more likely zero. I tried to do something different this round from the previous ones because I wanted to focus more on color and an illustration approach, two things I feel I'm needing a lot of work at. I almost didnt even feel like posting what I did for this round, but, this is a learning activity : )
So getting back home today, and seeing I had eight votes was a real shocker, and reading the comments even more so. You guys are just too kind : )

You wont believe how hard it was for me to decide between nightfend and Helzon. In the end I voted for nightfend, but it was such a damn close.

Crit n' comment time.

possessed: There is something that I think is working against this image, the rocks beneath the creature. When I saw them, I thought they were skulls. I know they are not skulls, but at a quick glance, they sort of look skullish, well, at least to me : P
This is a problem because it makes me as a viewer have a point of scale reference that doesn't fit the topic, in other words, they make the creature look small by size relation. Also, it may have been better for the nature of the topic to try and have the creature fill up more of the space on the page, there is a lot of background space surrounding the creature which I dont know if it is working too well. Maybe working at a higher resolution, and cropping the image close to the creature so you have it taking up a lot of the space on the page and keep some of the background underneath it.
The tail that fades away into the darkness of the waters was a good idea and I think its working. If you had combined that with a more exagerated perspective, making things closer to the viewer look bigger and take up more space, I think it could have made the image work more.
Also, I know a lot of entries have this going on including mine, but if you included a small vessel, a swimmer, a whale, or some other realistically large object but made really small, the size of the creature would appear massive by comparison.
The textures are rocking, and I like the colors on the creature. Not so crazy about the enviornment, but the creature is looking good. Your textures these last rounds have been awesome, you just need to figure out a way to pop stuff up more on certain areas, try to focus the attention more on a certain spot, either by contrast of values, hues, lines leading to that point, detail level, etc. Keep up the good work!

nightfend: I saw the wip when you posted it... and yeah I'm shamless enough to request that you post the process steps! hehehe...
Man I like this entry a lot. I like how it works both as an illustration and as a creature concept. My only crit on the image is that the lower tentacles look kinda crooked. I know, tentacles have no bone structure, so in concept its just fine. But compositionally they look a bit disperese... I dont know if I'm expressing myself correctly. Maybe you could have made them a bit curvier, and tried to incorporate them more into the composition, so they would lead more attention to the eye and reaching tentacle for example. But they are covered in shadows and they are not the main focus of attention so its not really an issue, just a nit pick.
I'm gonna try to express this correctly: there is something that I really admire from you and thats that you make really solid entries. What I mean is, you make things very concise, the idea is clear, and if fits the topic very well. I like how you take elements that the viewer can relate to, like the tentacles on this entry, but also put in things like the vertical mouth between the eyes, combining all the elements into something unique and solid. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, I would dare to say, that sometimes I think you play things more on the safe side... what I mean is, I'd like to see you push some stuff more. For example, on the brain eater cow, it could have been said that stealing brains for eating was something quite predictable. Slashing or bashing the skull or some other "messy" way to open it, was also something that could be said to be predictable. So was this round, tentacles, bioluminicesce (I'm guilty of this too) could be predicted. And I think its perfect to have them because they fit the topic and are something the viewer can relate to, but my crit was that, sometimes I would preffer to see more "risky" images and less known or predictable elements in them.
Anyway, its redundant to say take this all with a grain of salt.
The entry is rocking, and you have my vote.

hurricane: very eerie... I was going to say that the creature looked a bit dead floating in there, but then I read the description and saw that it was a massive, dead floating squid that had been found. Eerie. Also that lighting from below looks awesome and really adds to the atmosphere. I think that if you darkened the surroundings more, especially on the top of the picture, and if the creature blended with the darkness of the enviorment at certain parts, it would look even more scary and add more to the enviornment, especially with that below lighting. I know it says it was found near the shores so its appropiate that the surrounding waters aren't really that dark, but maybe mood and atmosphere was more important than following the concept that closely in this case. Also the creature could have taken up more space on the page.
Good stuff.

Nefarious: spooky. I like the creature and the idea, and the lighting. The compositional idea is cool, crit is that you could have taken that even further perhaps. Making the body even longer, exagerating a bit the perspective, and making the head larger so it looks closer to the viewer, and just let that tail spiral back in circles blending into darkness. About the creature itself, the jaws look kinda weak, and thin. Maybe putting on some more heavy duty jaws it would look more scary. I like the needle teeth idea.
Cheers.

Hanuka: lol, the description made me chuckle. Good compositional idea, the space on the page that the creature is taking up looks nice. The creature itself looks kinda crooked though, I can see what the idea was, but the neck looks as if it were cracked and folded to fit the composition. I think its something you can solve if you draw ellipses or rings across his body, and try to accomodate those in perspective. Then draw the lines that would be the contour of the body following those ellipses in perspective.
Korova milk bar huh? : P A Clokwork Orange is a crazy movie indeed : )
Cheers.

Helzon: Dude. DUDE. Chromatically challenged my ass... When I was scrolling down and saw the image my jaw dropped. This is one of the strongests images in this thread. Very nice rendering, I really like how the skin looks glossy with those highlights, and it works well against the black outlines. I wasn't sure about all that empty space above and arround the create, but the contrast between figure and background is done really well and the creature really pulls the attention to itself. Crit is that, maybe the creature could use some shadows on some parts. I can see greens and reds on the creature, so I see you are trying hue variations, but maybe the back legs could be covered up in some shadows, at least enough to separate them a little from the front part of the creature. Don't get me wrong, I love the rendering, but right now the creature I think is too in-your-face, its like BAM!, creature, there you go. I see you put shadowy parts like under one of the front arms, but these shadows could be somewhat stronger. Especially since the lighting looks strong. Strong light, strong shadows; diffuse light, diffuse shadows. I love the colors on the head and spines.
A more abstract crit... your entries, visually, are sometimes hard to relate to. For example, in the shit eater one. If I didnt read the description or know that the concept was shit eater, there was nothing or not enough elements in the concept/image that comunicated the idea of shit eater. This round too. I cannot find anything in the image, without the text, to know that this is a deep-sea creature. It looks like this well designed well rendered, monstrous... thing. But there is nothing that says "deap sea creature". I like your creature desings, and they are original, but maybe you could try to put in more relatable elements into them, so the viewer can relate more, and the image works independant of the description. Basically I'm saying the oposite of what I was saying to nightfend. Also, the description this round was pretty hard for me to understand right away. I honestly had to read it several times to know what this was. Call me stupid, but still, I think its best to try to make things as clear as possible for the viewer, in the image, and also in the concept description. Again, take this with a grain of salt.
nightfend and yours were my favorite entries this round, but I decided to vote for nighfend because I thought the concept was transmitted more clearly. But if I could have voted doble, I would have voted for both.
Keep up the good stuff.

WARHEAD: good call on the big eyes. A creature with big eyes is easy to relate to living in areas with little light, I think. I think that the tendrils hanging could have been arranged a bit more according to the composition, using them as lines to attract attention to the face area, which is the area that the most detail could be placed, since it would be the main focus point. Again, good call on the blurry ship, because it helps concentrate on the face of the creature I think. I like how the tail blends into the dark waters. Crit is just that, some more details on the face so the viewer has something to look at for a while.

Oregano: one of my favorites, after nightfend and Helzon. When I realized the jelly had a blue whale in one of the tentacles I realized the creature was humongous. Crit is just that, though, that it took me a bit of time to realize the size of the creature. The attention is on the creature, and it was the first thing I looked at, rather than the small zoom graph on the left showing the whale trapped in one of the tentacles. If that graph wasn't there, I could not tell that the jelly was holding a blue whale. Maybe if you arranged the composition differently, made the image somewhat bigger, and showed the whale in the same image as the huge jelly, the size relation would be evident much more quickly. You could still incorporate a graph, but it could be better if the size relation was apparent more quickly.
About the creature design, I would have liked to see a few more dangling tentacles, coming out of the body as well as those comming out from the head, maybe they could just continue to the border of the page showing that they continue a longer way, right now the tentacles feel a bit short, in relation to the head.

br0kenspirit: you're lucky to even get votes, you slacker. Next time work harder on your stuff, dont just cover stuff up in shadows : P

Nutter: hey, cool idea! Crits are that I would have liked to see some giant squids, maybe swimming around and another one being caught. Also I think you're relying on the same thing as I did on my image, too much shadowy parts, I can't see the creature desing clearly. But cool entry.

Beatnik: the creature and the ship look like two separate elements that aren't interacting with each other. Maybe it would help more if the claw was reaching out more directly at the ship, it looks like its reaching up right now. And the eyes looking at the ship too, right now they look like they're staring into something else. I like how the green lights reflect on the body, and how the creature looks like its moving fast. But the direction of that claw is really feeling like its breaking the speed too, instead of pointing up, point it at the ship, have the eyes stare at the ship, all following the speedlines that indicate the fast movement. Maybe you could place the ship more up on the picture for this. Some tentacles could be covered in shadows too, its not necessary to show all of them, just some, and the rest in shadows.

Eshara: good idea and I like the red seaweed as opposed to the blue of the enviornment and the creature. The creature could be contrasted more from the background somewhat, maybe a few more different hues and/or some lighter values on some areas. The composition isn't working all that well for me... maybe if the body was bended in an "S" shape, having the body and head twist around to the left, and making some more use of perspective.

panda: cool. The empty space on the lower right is kinda bothersome though. I see you covered it in shadows, but its still there nonetheless. There is too much empty space to the right of the creature. I know that he has those spines coming out of his back, maybe if you accomodated those more upward, making an "S" shape with the rest of the body, you could crop a lot of that space on the right. Also some more details and attention to the head area, and some parts look a bit sketchy, try blending them or something that makes them look less sketchy-like.

Schlo-mo: I was thinking of doing a mythical creature too, like a leviathan. But I slacked and thought putting some stuff on a sphere was going to be less compromising (which in fact wasnt. Karma, karma... : P )
Crit is that, without reading the description, I cannot tell that those are bluewhales, so the size relation isnt that evident right away. If you could tell that they are bluewhales without reading the description, I think that the image would have more impact since the size comparsion would be more quick to see. I would try lowering the camera level some more and see what happens, viewing it from above doesn't transmit the idea that this creature is very large right now, but maybe viewing it from eye-level, or even from below, along with the blue whales easy to spot, would give more testament to its size. Cool creature idea.

Xpose: its sad that they die if they rise to the surface... but they're ok living where they are though, I guess, so then its not really sad. An interesting take on the subject.
Since they can only be studied living with state of the art computerized subs, you could have included a sub in there! : P
The sub could be emiting light, so the creature would have some lighter areas on the body, and also help show the size relation.

Shadoman: cool, everything looks clear, and I like that. But some parts I would have preffered to see covered in some shadows, I see that the one in the back is covered more than the one in the front, but the one on the front looks too clear... its like telling a joke and giving it away at the same time, it shows too much I think. Having some shadowy parts would allow it to merge a little more with the background, and also establish some more specific attention spots, right now, the creature on the front is rendered all at the same level of consideration, so there isnt really a place for the eye to rest and focus. Perhaps shading the body, and making the glowing tentacles brighter, putting in some white in there with the violet, or something like that. I like the idea and the design elements on the corners of the page as well.

Dusty: I really like the "head" formed by the tentacles. Crit is that area could be accented more, putting some brighter shades of green, some yellow-greens and light yellow-greens for example. Other than that, the "neck" is comming into contact with the real squid's head, and its forming a tanget. It would help the compostion more to have the real squid's head placed lower in the picture, I think.

duddlebug: lol, awesome, I really like this. The ship/pirate size relation looks a bit off, either the ship is too small or the pirates on the creature's head big, though I realize the style is more on the humorous side. I would have liked to see the pirates on the head just a bit bigger, and have them a bit more defined, enough to show quirky facial expressions and such. So as not to have the ship take too much up of the space on the page, the ship could be set further back and actually made a bit smaller, as if it was somewhat away, and have the anchor line receding from the grasping tentacle to the ship, showing that there is distance and that the ship is not directly above.

I'm beat... I'll continue with the entries I haven't commented/critted later, right now I'm gonna go catch some sleep (havent slept today)..
EDIT: and also fix sentences that are incoherent or wonky or whatever, grammar, and that stuff : P

EDIT 2: it says "the text that you just entered is too long (24137 characters). Please shorten it to 20000 characters long." so I'll post the rest of the comments on another message below.

[Fozzybar]

Tough, tough, tough....did i mention tough?...Decision!!! Between nightfend and br0ken spirit.... though i was close to vote against br0ken spirit because of his f*** nickname, which kills me every time i am preparing the poll threads :) hehe, nono, just kidding, i voted for broken spirit, because his creature is something i REALLY can imagine encountering in the deep and wetting your scientific pants down in the submarine...only crit is the bottom part of the image...it looks not well balanced in colors/tones...

nightfend...as i mentioned you were very very very....did i mention very? close to my vote...at the end i went for the fresher design of br0kens creature...anyway keep rocking my friend, you're one of the hot candidates every round, because of your great rendering skills and cool designs/concepts...one day you will win i am sure!

So many cool entries this week...i cannot c&c at the moment, quite busy right now...but maybe later this week...maybe not..HAHA! :perv:

[voraz]

great stuff everybody, i voted for Hurricane, but also liked the one from duddlebug a lot.
Also liked the one from warhead, Jakkas, Yoddah, Form Tuchten, Nightfend and so on...

By the way, couldn't see the one from eliwolf (red X)...

[Shinryu]

Oregano got my vote, really enjoyed tuchten's aswell

great stuff all

-shin

[duddlebug]

duddlebug: Cute idea, though despite your description saying otherwise I definitely do not get a "deep sea" feel from this at all. Seems like you had this idea for a long time and kind of shoehorned it into the competition a bit, because the pirate idea is a little random for when you think of "deap sea creature".

Hahaha... that is so far from the truth! This idea came through after i actually started the picture!

I entered this week's COW because it was the first for a few weeks that wasn't evil or based on less appealing areas of a person's anatomy. And i wanted to do a friendly COW because they always seems to be mean and nasty. So my first sketch was a big grinning version of the 'monster' i did, but without teeth and with it's eyes where the Pirate Muncher's nostrils are. And just in front of the creature was a little submersible with spotlights. So when i checked the thread and saw Nighfend's and Hurricane's pieces both with subs, i played around with the sketch and it became the Pirate Muncher. It was about this time i kinda neglected (forgot?) the 'deep' part of the brief. But i hadn't read Fozzy's description... only the actual title... so 'Deep' didn't seem quite as important! My mistake... but like i said... his tentacles are 'deep'... :P

Thanks for the votes so far... i thought i'd be shunned for my creature not being 'Deep' enough!!

My vote went for nightfend.

I think someone mentioned b-movies in their critique and i'd agree! Looks like a sci-fi creature and i think the colours are spot on. The mouth would scare anybody!

His main contenders for my vote were Form (cool story! And city!) and Nutter (hilarious monster, great colours and the description made me laugh because of the 'lazy' line which also meant i couldn't vote for you! haha!). Also close were Fozzy (nice rendering and good looking creature), Hurricane (Great image! Lovely rendering! FAb lighting! Made me change my mind!) and Jakkas (the face cracks me up!)

[Amerasu]

I voted for Hurricane. Loved it from the first and nothing has replaced it for me though I'm also very partial to Nightfend's creature and Duddlebug's scene too. Great work guys! About Hurricane's painting - I love the lighting most of all and I think the skin texture is fantastic. It just looks great overall. It's exactly what I would imagine a huge, deep sea creature to look like.

Also wanted to add that this week has really brought out some great work. The competition is really stiff for this COW. Most impressive :)

[Yodaah]

Hi guys,

I'm only in this forum since August this year, so maybe I missed some important explanations concerning voting in the COW thread. So maybe someone people -and especially you Fozzy- can explain to me if voting always goes like in the "Huge Deep Sea Creature" -topic.

I was very astonished when I noticed that duddlebug's "creature" got a real majority of votes. Just don't get me wrong, it's well done and painted and all and really looks good, but in my view this simply isn't a conceptual design. It's a painting or an illustration. In order to do my portfolio the right way, I've talked to some Art Directors and workshop leaders and they all said that they are not looking for beautiful illustrations and that a concept design should communicate an idea in a realistic way, so that in general everybody is able to read the artwork in connection to the given task/topic.
So when you judge from common sense, then duddlebug's painting would be great as an illustration for a chidren's book or maybe even as a concept design for a funny animation movie, but that is special and it is not what you logically would think of when the topic is "Huge Deep Sea Creature".

I'm writing all this because in some way those votes really made me angry. I mean the name of this forum is "conceptart.org", so the main concern should be just this: conceptual art/design. If a director or an art director gives you the task to design a huge deep sea creature in general, as stated in the topics,and you give him this kind of really funny painting, then the design would be rejected. And since this is a concept art forum, in my opinion this whole COW thread would really be of great help, if it could be representative, when people really would keep the task in mind when voting and not vote like maybe my granny, when she sees a painting at the flea market and crying out :"Oh what a beautiful picture!". But I think that a lot of you who have voted tend to do it that way, but in my eyes this does not make any sense. I noticed that just those people who really did a realistic approach, who really tried to design a monster, a creature that really might live down there, did not get one single vote until now. Look at the designs of Dusty,Shadoman,panda,warhead,helzon and Nefarious. Those are all in some kind realistic but nobody voted for them, zero percent! duddlebug: almost 30% for now. That's unbelievable.

I don't know, maybe I'm bugging all of you funny voters now, but I think if people don't keep the topic as a general guideline in mind when voting, then this whole thing isn't worth anything, because in this case I'm not supposed to fullfill a certain task, but to compete with the level of entertainment of the other pictures and this has nothing to do with producing a real conceptual design. And I really think this should be changed,so that the result of the votes could be in a way as representative as when showing your single artwork or portfolio to an art department in the movie or games industry or whatever people you intend to work with. So of course I'm sure that some of you don't give a shit about my thoughts, but I believe that it really would fit common sense, if you Fozzy ,would either specify the topics, as for example: "Funny Giant Sea Creature" or "comics book-style anatomy" etc. or reject all artwork which doesn't fit the description in the way I mentioned above. That might be hard for some people, but it really makes common sense. Otherwise one could maybe start a 2nd. COW thread, where people can post anything they want and in this case I'd paint Mother Goose, adjust her skin colour a little bit, install some nice looking fins and a giant tail to her body and tell you all that this is my Huge Deep Sea Creature. This would also be quite entertaining but it's not CONCEPT DESIGN.


cheers!
Yodaah

[Yodaah]

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention:

Dusty, no offend I'm sure that there are other people who also thougt the same way you did while citisizing and voting, but in my eyes this is definetely wrong, so I just take your crit as an example.

Quote: "Yodaah: Design is neat and even though its monochromatic, it still looks great. The background is sevely lacking though. At least its not white,but flat gray isn't much better."

Firstly, if you stick to the topics, then you should not judge this way. The definition concerning the artwork,as listed in the given COW topics were:

"color or b/w"
"focus is on the creature, background is not necessary"

And this is what I was talking about in my last post. Judging this way means not to judge the conceptual design as such. It means voting for some kind of painting/picture that entertains you, because of the colors, background details or whatever. But this has no meaning. The quality and communication of the conceptual design should be the main concern!

Here are some examples of conceptual art for two great movies and a video game. Some are "monochromatic" and there is no background, which for reasons of clarifying the design is common in the industry. I'd really wish that people would keep this in mind.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b261/Yodaah/weta.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b261/Yodaah/Star-Wars-Epi-II.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b261/Yodaah/Oddworld-Inhabitants.jpg



see what I mean?

[nightfend]

Yodaah,
I agree with you in many ways... I really liked Tuchten's concept creature as well. And in the real world, Yours or Tuchten's design would be perfectly acceptable (though maybe with a few sketches of the creature from different angles).

But, COW is a strange beast, and often the illustration ability and creativity of the entries is as important as anything else. I certainly haven't found the magic formula for this contest, but it's entertaining for me to enter and pushes me to do better. So I take it with a grain of salt when my entries don't get huge numbers of votes.

I do think it's a little unfair to the other artists that posted work in this thread to just discount their concepts because they were done more as an illustration and less as concept work. There are still a lot of amazing pieces and talented artists posting art here.

[Yodaah]

Hi,

I think you misunderstood me. I'm not concerned about the number of votes I get. I think that this should work in a realisic way and not just entertain people (maybe you should read exactly what I wrote, it's a long text!). And I don't think that I'm unfair with other artists at all. We all have the same chances but concept art should be concept art and not an illustration. Again: When the topic is general then the concept should communicate a genaral idea of a huge sea monster,that's common sense. If it was common sense to post anything else, or anything funny/unrealistic so why do we only have one humouristic picture in this contest?

Think!

[Dusty]

Firstly Yodaah, I do agree with you in some ways about competing with illustrations. Its hard to compete with just a funny little story. However if it was limited, I don't think we would have anywhere near some of the fun entries we have had. Asking the artists to be more objective and really looking at the designs/concepts is great, but asking the artists to limit themselves is not.

Regarding your comment about how you shouldn't crit the background, I have to disagree. I said I liked your creature...in fact I had nothing to crit on it. That's a compliment. Your background had zero interest to it, which while that is not necessary and in cases like Duddelbug you can skirt the boundaries of being a flatout illustration as opposed to concept art, adding *some* kind of interest to make the concept art more visually appealing is a fully valid crit. For example....I'll use Feng, since everyone knows who is is:

http://www.fengzhudesign.com/char/char_feng_image01.JPG

http://www.fengzhudesign.com/char/char_feng_image03.JPG

http://www.fengzhudesign.com/char/char_feng_image17.JPG

3 examples....gradient, design, and even flat color in that last one. Its just flat, but its more visually striking and more appealing because it has SOME color to it. White backgrounds are acceptable for concepts...no doubt (And I did say "At least yours isn't white"). Many people when doing rapid concepts do not waste time with stuff like in the 2nd pic and that is perfectly acceptable. But even just making your background a slight hue would have overall made the totality of your piece more appealing, in *my opinion*. That's what critiques are, and I feel its a valid crit. Telling someone not to critique something is kind of bizarre if you ask me. If you don't agree with it, that's fine, but don't tell people not to critique something.

Honestly though, the only thing I could find to crit on your piece was your damn background. You shouldn't be getting upset at me because I had to DIG to find something for you to improve on. Half empty kind of guy, much? :p

-Dusty

(edit: had to clarify a point)

[brokk]

duddlebug's painting would be great as an illustration for a chidren's book or maybe even as a concept design for a funny animation movie
(the bold on those letters was added by me)

I'm editing my post above but I just wanted to reply quickly to this too. COW has specific features, like non-human entries, but its also open in the sense that you can take any license you want as long as it fits the topic and the specific criteria for submitting entries. Preffering realism over humor or vice-versa is only a personal taste, and its my opinion that if the entries were restricted to only either one, it would be for the worse, not the better.
Besides, duddlebug's entry works (and in a very good way) both as a concept and illustration, the creature is there, you can see it, and its solid in design and in presentation. Humor is a genre, and a large and succesfull one, humorous concepts are as sober as "realistic" ones. If there is something I've learned from COW is that making realistic entries and rendering to death is not the only means to make a good concept. There is also originality, presentation, humor, thoughtfullness of the design, uniqueness, and just, well... just something that really catches your atention and appeals in a positive way, while communicating a solid design.

I'm actually gratefull that this activity is opened... it would be for the worse if the entries submmited were restricted to one genre, I get bored when there is little variety : S

[Xpose]

haha thanks broken spirt... I did put a sub in there and it's putting light in the chest but I didn' make it light enough to tell what it is. I should have made it lighter but too late now lol. Thanks for the C+C =]

[duddlebug]

Just don't get me wrong, it's well done and painted and all and really looks good, but in my view this simply isn't a conceptual design. It's a painting or an illustration

Blimey.....

I don't want to enter a big debate about what qualifies as 'concept art', but i have worked as a concept artist in the games industry for 6 years. And in that time i've worked on realistic games and 'cartoon' (i prefer 'stylised') games.

Concept = idea

So a concept artist is an artist who generates ideas. I render my ideas in all sorts of ways. How i render them is unimportant. Unless i'm asked to render them in a certain way. This week i've produced two full colour 'illustrative' concepts (and a Pirate Muncher in my lunch hours). Last week i was producing charcter turnarounds on a white background. They're all 'concept art'. Getting the idea across is the thing that is very very important. Artists who concept for Pixar or Disney are concept artists who produce stylised concepts, for instance. And they are very good at getting their ideas across.

I'm writing all this because in some way those votes really made me angry. I mean the name of this forum is "conceptart.org", so the main concern should be just this: conceptual art/design. If a director or an art director gives you the task to design a huge deep sea creature in general, as stated in the topics,and you give him this kind of really funny painting, then the design would be rejected.

It wouldn't get rejected if it was a huge deep sea creature for a stylised game or movie. Although he may reject it because it isn't 'deep' enough, but then you haven't mentioned that... :wink:

...but I believe that it really would fit common sense, if you Fozzy ,would either specify the topics, as for example: "Funny Giant Sea Creature" or "comics book-style anatomy" etc. or reject all artwork which doesn't fit the description in the way I mentioned above. That might be hard for some people, but it really makes common sense. Otherwise one could maybe start a 2nd. COW thread, where people can post anything they want

I think one of the appeals of the COW activity is the variety of repsonses to a few words. It all adds to the entertainment. Ironically, sometimes i think i'm at a disadvantage because i often work in a cartoon style.

...and in this case I'd paint Mother Goose, adjust her skin colour a little bit, install some nice looking fins and a giant tail to her body and tell you all that this is my Huge Deep Sea Creature.

Erm... that's not exactly how i came up with this concept...

This would also be quite entertaining but it's not CONCEPT DESIGN.

Actually... it could well be concept design.

No hard feelings Yoodah, and you may disagree with me, but i felt like i had to respond. I'm chuffed i've got so many votes. I haven't won this week's COW yet. If i do i'll be delighted. If i don't i'll enter another one. But i don't know what 'style' i'll paint it in... :^^:

[Lake]

It's a real toughie between JakkaS, nutter and 0Kelvin, but my vote has to go to 0Kelvin. That is easily the most massive looking thing we have here. The colors and the idea are completely cool. The trenches really fit in with the deep sea concept. Badass, and props to ya.

JakkaS, your rendering and painting is fantastic, better than kelvin's, I'd say, but it didn't really carry with it the feeling of immensity. Good job on the painting though!

princeofhappiness , same thing as JakkaS, it really doesn't seem that large, especially seeing as how the seaweed is so large in comparison to the suckers on its tentacles! Also, in deeper water, because of the pressure and lack of sunlight, colors tend to be much more muted. (at least that's what I've seen) On your deep sea creature, I can definitely see it working better with much less saturated colors.

sephone , hmm, I'm not sure how "sea creature" -ey it actually looks. I see many land animal elements in there that kinda belie its nature. In relation to the painting itself, I think you need to sharpen up your edges some.

BlkCelebration , aww, it's so cute! Same thing as Sephone, I think you may need to sharpen up on your edges, but also blend your colors more. Light does radiate, but it doesn't end abruptly at a point. Rays of light are usually created when objects block out the edges of the light source, so yours might be much more expansive, or at least made using a softer brush.

Yodaah, While I completely agree with you on the background (see how much effort I put into MINE), the tan/gray background probably detracted from the "sea creature" idea. Placing it above the person on a neutral sky with a shadow below it leads my brain into thinking "oh, it flies, it can't be from the ocean"

RES, completely badass, you were another great contender for my vote, but I think the yellow teeth really turned me off to this one. I'm all for yellow teeth and all, but it's hard to see how they'd be yellow in only blue light (unless they really are THAT grody.)

Fozzybar, As with some other entries, it's badass, but not sharp or defined enough for my tastes. You could perhaps have it fade out by gradually having the tentacles fade into blackness or something... It's a great piece, just not one I personally enjoy as much as the others.

tuchten, that is one BIG head. I mean a REALLY REALLY REALLY big head. If I had to crit you, it would just be to say that it doesn't speak to me. It doesn't say "deep sea leviathan titanic immensity" as much as some others.


Form, completely badass, but the coloring of the head kinda gets to me. Perhaps something closer to the body color.

scumgrinder, the fact that there's a diver there says to me that this isn't really deep sea. The jelliness of it is cool though.

eliWolff, for some reason, yours isn't showing up on my monitor....

possessed, I'm not sure what's wrong about this to me... I think it's the uneven muscles near the head... it doesn't look like it was meant to bend that way. Also, if you were going for length, the tail doesn't seem like it's really that long... perhaps it's the repetitive nature of the scales.

nightfend, you were about to get my vote, but then I realized that its mouth looked like a succubus vagina. No, but seriously, this one's REALLY good.

hurricane, after seeing this in your sketchbook, I already knew this would be one of the better entries. Lighting, water, and creatures are all fantastic. However, the the tentacles on the other side seeming to disappear (even though the rest of the creature doesn't fade off) meant that you didn't get my vote for this one. Nothing in particular, just not as much to my taste.

Nefarious, Looks like you might need to sharpen up a bit too. The mouth really doesn't appeal to me... it's difficult to see where it's skull structure might be. Try drawing out the bones first, or at least a pencilled skeleton (you know, cones and spheres and such)

Hanuka, hey, I was gonna get mad at you for painting a worm, but your description was just too funny! Only crit I gots for ya is that it looks a little flat, probably because of the "halo" around the head.

Helzon, that looks VICIOUS, but also like a land-based alien overlord.

WARHEAD, the bioluminescenco coming off of this one is cool, and the general shape of the fish is awesome. I really like the faded out sub in the foreground. Sadly though, the monstah itself feels airbrushed... too cloudlike and airy for the concept I think that you were going for.

Oregano, AWESOME... the colors, the lights, the size... teh jellies! Sadly though, the tentacles that fade off lose the lustre that you put into the rest of it!

br0kenspirit wow, this one seems BIG. REALLY BIG. Sadly though... The eyes are so exactly placed. You're lacking a bit of perspective here. Not much, but enough so that I voted elsewhere this time.

Nutter this is sweet! It's cute AND terrifying! So many good entries... damn that I can't pick more than one, ya know?

Beatnik, too cartoony for me. The body parts are kinda bulbous, and they feel slightly disconnected from one another. The eyelids in particular don't seem to be part of the creature.

Eshara, looks like you, too, need some sharpening up. You should try looking at the other examples of deep sea creatures, if you haven't already. Get a feel for the anatomy of fish and whales and how their limbs and eyes connect to their bodies.

Schlo-mo, perhaps this would work far better for a different entry. It's an excellent piece, it just doesn't say HUGE to me.

Xpose, this is a cool creature! It's certainly huge, and it's certainly deep sea. (good thing you put in that little rock, or it would have been much more difficult to tell.) The only thing I'll crit you on is your composition. The pose and the placement looks so rigid on the page. It's kinda bland in comparison to say... Nightfends, where the beast is VERY active, or to Hurricane's, where it's sitting still like yours but is also quite relaxed.

Shadoman doesn't really say "deep sea" to me. The colors seem too saturated. In fact, if you had gone with the colors and/or pose of the one in the background, and left some of the pink parts bright, I think your piece would be a lot stronger.

Dusty that's totally cool! Only crit I got for you is that the spines on the tentacles seem like an afterthought. Personally, I think they actually kind of detract from the rest of the entry. i'd love to see what it looked like without them!

duddlebug, this picture makes LOLva spew out of my LOLcano. This is totally awesome! If I wasn't in the mood for nightmare, and instead was looking for comedy, you would definitely have gotten my vote.

young paddy1 cool, but undefined. You need to work on your perspective, as the tentacles don't look quite right. Also, it's difficult to tell which part of your creature is supposed to be what.

WHEW that took a freaking long time! So many good entries this time around.

[scumgrinder]

(*edit)@Yodaah
this was my first entry ever for the COW. i never ever did anything for a poll or a contest or whatever this is. While working on it i realized how many different styles all of us have and how some of our creatures are better when presented as concepts, and some are better when presented in scenarios. Like someone said before, duddlebugs's stuff works because the creature is there but you can also see the ship and pirates for scale reference and also how the creature interacts. From his illustration you get information about the creatures size, eating habits, colors etc.

All of those things wouldn't be well represented against a plain backgroundin a sketchy way. I am not saying this would be the case with every monster but in his case works and it's also done in a funny way. It was great how serious or solemn most of us were about our entries compared to duddlebug's.

Consider also the fact that we can't post more than one image. I had the original sketch, which is closer to what you suggest should be the COW, yet i didn't post that, i posted something i thought could compete against these dudes' work.

however, I probably agree with you somehow by saying this... I think in a lot of the entries, little or not enough is shown of the creatures, and the focus should be on them and not the pretty whole picture. But you have to understand that this is a forum for artists by artists and from what i have seen so far the best eye candy will always win the COW.

[SimoSK8]

I think we all gotto stay open minded about all'a'dis'..
Remember?.. it's art!!:)

[Aly Fell]

I'm sorry Yodaah, I don't aggree. Duddlebugs picture is as much a 'concept' as Ian McCaig's work for Star Wars. Because the final image is fun and presented as an 'illustration' does not make it less a piece of creative conceptualisation as any other here. I don't quite get your point I have to admit, and don't mean this in a 'what-choo-taking-about' kind of way... I just don't see why you can judge this pic as less of a 'concept' than any other. Concept Art is a huge pantheon of approaches, and they can all be concept if the brief is followed and a result that fills the requirements is produced. Just my 'alf-pennys' worth. :)

Edit: BTW, I'd forgotten you have to give a reason for voting... I think this was a very strong COW all round, but I voted for Jonny's because it made me laugh out loud, was realised well and came at the subject from a different angle. This COW has inspired me to maybe have a go as well...

[possessed]

Fun little discussion going on here..
Keep in mind that non-cows vote here too, they might not even read the concept and just look for a pretty picture.
Everyone has a different taste and different things they look for when judging a piece. Personally I try thinking about if the creature could actually exist and if the looks match the written concept. I also prefer realistic work over cartoony but that's just a personal taste.
One more thing I find important is the concept as a whole. I see a lot of comments like: 'woa pretty lighting' , 'groce' or 'hilarious' but that kinda thing is mostly just generated at a certain part of the concept.
I've been thinking of a fun way to judge C.O.W for maybe one time only but I don't know if it can be done. It might be fun if somebody from the field (art director or lead conceptual designer) judged the matched criteria (topic could be more described in a 'evil supply creature' kind of way)
So no voting for that round , just a single person who selects a winner and two runners-up.
OR, try getting that points system across we spoke of a while go.

EDIT: thanks to all who took the time to C&C my piece. It usually takes a while before I myself can see the countless flaws within my own pieces.

[brokk]

Back to the comments.

JakkaS: original design and I like it, and I think it works. I don't have much to crit on this... maybe more action? The creature's pose looks kinda stiff, maybe if it were swimming or something that shows a little action / dynamic, to catch the viewers attention to the image more.

young paddy1: Cool idea, the image has the same issue as mine I think, too much shadowy parts. Maybe fixing that with some slight lighting, to show a little of the creature at some parts, comming from an exploring vessel or similar.

0kelvin: lol, massive, I knew this creature was big, but after reading the part in the description (the part where it says "Don't even try to come up with something larger, this is the absolute limit for believable size." was hilarious) and checking the graphs I realized the full size.
Similar crit than the one for Oregano, if the size relation was percieved more immediately, I think the image would have more impact. I know that the creature is so massive that it would dwarf anything next to it to the point of making it look like a tiny dot, but still. Maybe that could be resolved in working at an enourmous resolution (but not impractical... say... 1200 x 1500 px? or something like that) so you could at least hint a little of the squids, and then use the graphs to zoom in more.
About the creature itself, it looks too much like an ordinary shrimp I think. Some more unique or strange elements to set it appart from the known shrimp look, while retaining shrimpish elements (shrimpish... now I'm making up words...) could have been more beneficial.
Cheers.

princeofhappiness: Something about the composition is not working for me. I could be wrong, but I feel like the attention is at the center, while reading the description makes me wanna see where he is eating and the red latern, forcing my view to the right. I would suggest flipping this image over horizontaly and see what happens. Also try knocking back that saturation/brightness in the body, and accent it more on the lantern/front tentacles feeding, which would be a more appropiate focus point I think.
Anyways, cool idea : )

sephone: very cool creature design! And good idea. I'm really liking the spiney, armored back back, teeth, and general design. Crit is that the creature could use some more saturated (but not extremely saturated) colors on certain parts of the body, where you want to draw more attention. Perhaps some brighter and more saturated reds and oranges around the eye / air sack area. I'd also flip the image over horizontally and seeing what results that brings. Compositionally the reading is starting at the tale right now, where it would be more appropiate if it started at the head, or if the head area had something that really called the attention to it.

BlkCelebration: its a cool idea and original, but there's too much saturated colors, and they are both competing with each other since they are complimentary I think, red and cyan. I really like those fishes swimming around the glowing hump, and the ones in the tentacles. Thats where I think the strongest saturations could be kept, and desaturate the areas further away from those, gradually. The reds would be a better choice to desaturate so they don't compete with the cyans.

Yodaah: I know you say a few posts above that in concept design the background is either not present in the case of many designs or unimportant, but the topic for this is deep sea creature. From the image alone I cannot tell that this creature dwells in the deep sea, I would actually think that its a flyer type creature. I think that if you include more elements so the viewer can relate to the image without relying on the text, the image has a better impact and the idea is transmitted more clearly. You could include a dark-water background with some rocks way back or something like that. Also, if this was for a game or a movie, I would need to see the creature's colors, unless its a fully pinkish-red somewhat desaturated. If that's the case, then I think you could add a little more hue variation, and some more shadows, since the lighting looks kinda strong.
While in games and movies and such there are monochromatic concepts and many times they don't have a background, the only indication for this round (appart from the general COW indications for every round) is "huge deep sea creature". Every element you can include in your image that transmits that idea, in a way that works, is more for the better : )

RES: I love the face and head! And those flotting egg/orbs look cool too. But the body can't be seen that clearly. The crit would be that, that I'd like to see a bit more of the body, so I get a better idea of the whole creature design.

Fozzybar: lol, they found one on the coast of Argentina, huh? I haven't heard of that news here yet ; P
I'm loving the perspective on this creature, and how the image is painted. The frontal claws look too much like a beetle or insect's claws, I think it could have added more uniqueness to the creature to alter them somewhat so they don't resemble an insect's appendages that much, but still look dangerous and scary. I don't understand the bright halo around it too much, I can see its a bioluminiscent device, but there's no mention of it in your description. It looks like its placed at a weird angle too, though the lighting it casts looks really cool, and I like the warm/cool contrast.
The creature idea is very cool, and I like the fact that its a cryptid : )

tuchten: it looks like a really interesting idea and the description really keeps the interest but you cut it off so suddenly! I would have liked to know more about this, like, why did we forever cry because of it? Did it destroy cities, ships? How? Why does the creature look like that, why does it have that form, those appendages? What I'm saying is this looks like something interesting and original and I would have liked to see you tell more about it and develop it more.
I like the presentation idea of dark water version versus size comparsion version, but I dont think relying only on something that looks like inversing it in photoshop is the best way. Maybe using the inverse function but also adding colors, shadows, etc.

Form: Wow, the idea is awesome. Nice and scary description. I like the image, and I dont have much crits, only add some more bright/saturated colors on the creature. Some parts look a bit sketchy, like the arm and hands, but the attention is not placed there so its not a big issue, but still, I would have liked to see that defined a bit more. Good job.

scumgrinder: original and interesting idea, the image could use more contrast in color between the creature and background. Also some more shading on the creature's body to define the form more, and darkening the areas around the purple lights so they really pop out. Cool stuff : )

eliWolff: I couldn't see your entry, just a red "x" : S

Phew, done.
Take the things I say with a grain of salt and use your own criteria though : P

Congrats to everyone who participated and good round, hope to see you all continuing to push yourselves and participating if you want, and thank you guys all who voted for me and commented, thank you very much for your kind words : )

EDIT 3: haha Foz, I knew you were too lazy to type my nickname correctly, as if it was an awkward nickname to type or something ; P lol
Thank you the vote and comments, you're right, the lower part of the image isnt balanced in tones/colors... I tryied to work that out but didn't know how : S
Panda and dusty thanks for the comments too, panda you're right, its lacking in perspective, next time I'll try to consider the perspective more.

Again, thank all of you guys for your comments. See you in round 25 ; )

[scumgrinder]

ahah everybody keeps calling my stuff "cool" which is starting to sound more and more like an euphemism for half assed. I would appreciate pointers like broken spirit just did. THAT IS ALL, DUDES

[Lake]

hey Brokenspirit... great crits comin' out of you!

[brokk]

Thanks panda : )

[BrainBug]

@Yodaah: There was a discussion about that also in the "COW summer break" thread
How there should also be a seperate poll for the concept story etc.

@Fozzy: will this still get implemented?

[tuchten]

broken spirit: about the crit you gave me. i agree with you. Well spoken, as you can see from the time i posted it it was a last minute entry. The concept is young and undeveloped.

however, try inverting it yourselfe. I have worked ALOT with it, not just inverted it.

guys- home

[Fozzybar]

Yodaah's quote:
"And since this is a concept art forum, in my opinion this whole COW thread would really be of great help, if it could be representative, when people really would keep the task in mind when voting and not vote like maybe my granny, when she sees a painting at the flea market and crying out :"Oh what a beautiful picture!". But I think that a lot of you who have voted tend to do it that way, but in my eyes this does not make any sense."

Right!



nightfend's quote:
"But, COW is a strange beast, and often the illustration ability and creativity of the entries is as important as anything else."

Right!



br0ken spirit's quote:
"If there is something I've learned from COW is that making realistic entries and rendering to death is not the only means to make a good concept. There is also originality, presentation, humor, thoughtfullness of the design, uniqueness, and just, well... just something that really catches your atention and appeals in a positive way, while communicating a solid design."

Right!



scumgrinder's quote:
"But you have to understand that this is a forum for artists by artists and from what i have seen so far the best eye candy will always win the COW."

Right!



possessed's quote:
"Keep in mind that non-cows vote here too, they might not even read the concept and just look for a pretty picture."

Right!



All points are valid and known since COW exists...can we change this?

NO!

Can we live with it?

YES!

communities work like societies...if people have the possibilities to avoid work but still reach their goal, they will do it...you can't change this if you don't change the rules...we can't change the rules, so people will continue voting like this...

I bet more than 60% of all voters don't read the concepts at all...

C'est la vie :)

[Fozzybar]

scumgrinder

ok, especially for you my crits :)

Biggest crit: Color scheme! I think you would have get a few votes more if you had chosen a blue/cyan color scheme...

lil' crits: i think the shape of your creature is interesting, also the little lights, but it needs more details...currently there is nothing else than the little pink dots, which would be interesting for your eyes to rest...no area, where the viewer would look and say "wow, there is something weird/interesting/cool going on"...it's too flat considering the design, if you know what i mean...

Another thing is, i don't know, what's going on at the surrounding...there are bright lights....hmmm, ok this could be other animals with bioluminescent light, but then again why is there something like a human figure on the top left? You won't encounter both in the same depth...

The tentacles look interesting in their shape, but you faded them out, just at the point were it could be developped much more for an unique shape or interesting function...

[Fozzybar]

@Yodaah: There was a discussion about that also in the "COW summer break" thread
How there should also be a seperate poll for the concept story etc.

@Fozzy: will this still get implemented?
well, i pm'ed Pontemonti about this subject, but he seems to be quite busy right now...i don't want to bug him with this...we need a special function which must be coded, so we'll stick with the current version...

[Fozzybar]

btw thanx to all for the votes and crits...not only for mine....special thanx to panda, Dusty and brßken spirit for jumping in as the Mighty Crit Cows ;)

[princeofhappiness]

Thanks for the crits guys! I will try to better my stuff as the weeks go by.

Standing ovation for all of you! :yayca:

[Datameister]

I refuse to vote. The amount of talent, dedication, creativity, and experience manifested in these entries is unbelievable. I couldn't possibly decide on one to fairly vote on. Although, the pirate muncher did the best job of grabbing my attention and holding it long enough to truly soak in every single detail.

OUTSTANDING JOB, ALL OF YOU.

[Lake]

fozzybar hey thanks... that makes me feel all warm and fozzy inside...




ok, bad pun, I'll stop now.

[leckronium]

I voted for bRØk3n_sPiRiT (copy and paste name....).

I'll have to say this is the best looking bunch of entries as a whole, that I've seen, since I started COW. It was a tough decision but I know bRØk3n_sPiRiT (copy and paste name....) has been at this for a while and it's good to see such an effective entry this time. There were a lot more renderings which were executed better but this one, I felt, really suggested the scale and depth at which this thing resides. Many of the others looked very cool but didn't make much sense regarding features such as size of the eyes compared to the size of the body for example. Something that size is naturally going to have lopsided proportions and you may not even see the eyes at all. This turned me away from considering so many entries for my vote.

Duddlebug - As much as the illustrator in me wanted to vote for you, I had to stick with the overall purpose of this site and contest in particular, which is concept art. Even being in the illustration, the size of the creature doesn't seem as big, or live as deep, as I expected it to be. But still, it's a great, creative illustration and always fun to look at. :D

[brokk]

lol, I shoulda' picked a less obnoxious nickname to type when I signed... : P
For the record, its fine to call me br0ken spirit or broken spirit or whatever, you dont have to copy and paste the whole nick.

I'm still surprised that the design of my creature had any success, and here's why: originally I wanted to do something very complicated, but I didnt know what. I thought about doing a huge sea serpent, or something full of barbs and whatnot, I wanted to make a very rendered and detailed illustration as much as I could, full of colors and lights and all that, to try and push myself more.
I let the week days pass and I didnt have an entry, and I saw I wasn't going to have the time to try and do the painting I wanted. So I thought, what is the least compromising thing I can do, for this design? Answer, a sphere with some texture on it, and thats it. And I wasnt even really successful at that, in my view, because the lower part of the picture is failing to convince me, due to the lack of a more interesting color/tone arrangement, instead of just a lot of dark shadow. I also wanted to make something less monochromatic, but venturing to much into other hues was breaking the mood I was going for.
So in essence, it was just that... a huge ass creature with a dark surrounding, and some bioluminiscent lights to get attention to that spot. I think that because I originally had other intentions, this entry isnt what I wanted to do, so I ended up not liking it because of that. Still, while I was doing it I tried to keep some coherency and interest in the concept even if its not what I originally wanted to do, and I guess its working, in a different way, but not necessarily all that terrible I guess, since you guys seem to like it.
Yeah, I have been at cow for a while... its an awesome activity and I love doing it, and I hope to be around much longer and keep learning from this, and if you guys like it I hope you stick around too : )

[leckronium]

bRØk3n_sPiRiT - It's not that bad as long as I can find your name nearby to cut and paste. I was just making an effort to poke fun at Fozzy. :teeth:

You actually lucked out by doing what you did. I didn't read it as a sphere but as an umbrella shaped creature that could possibly falsify its huge appearance when looking at it from the top. Since you only rendered the top it makes it seem that way. Plus, the creature with it's lights only on top, would only illuminate that part and hide it's true appearance. Even though you didn't render any of this it instantly sparked my imagination to fill in what you left out and it worked to your advantage. Sometimes simple is better.

My only critique would be to maybe define more of what we can't see. You don't necessarily have to render it but just shift the value enough around the contour of the body and give us a silhouette to look at. If the creature was shaped like an umbrella, this would work for a shadow behind the umbrella head and the tail could produce its own light or be in contact with the light from the head. Now because it's a sphere that would work differently. I wouldn't know exactly what to think of it since I can't see it. But in the end, what you did worked. Keep it up :^^:

/pokes Fozzy
//poke, poke

[duddlebug]

As much as the illustrator in me wanted to vote for you, I had to stick with the overall purpose of this site and contest in particular, which is concept art

Thanks... I'm really glad you liked the CONCEPT.

But it isn't an illustration. It is a CONCEPT.

I spent about two hours on this piece. It was produced to look good at this resolution and is actually very rough (i'll post some a WiP and close ups in my sketchbook tonight). And there is no real background. Only enough to explain what the Pirate Muncher does. Which is often the remit of a concept artist. You could work out most of what a pirate muncher does without needing to read the words.

I'm actually a little fed up that after six years in the games industry as a concept artist, i'm being told that i don't produce concept art. Next time Disney or Universal or Warner Brothers ask me for a colour image with narrative i'll have to tell them that i only do 'concept art' and that they can visit this thread for a definition.

And you're right about it not being deep enough... but how BiG do you want it?? :wink:

[Fozzybar]

It's not that bad as long as I can find your name nearby to cut and paste. I was just making an effort to poke fun at Fozzy. :teeth:
/pokes Fozzy
//poke, poke

hehe, i noticed that you were teasing me...i admit i copied & pasted b.s.'s nick a few times, but with the html coding on the nickname, sometimes it pasted weird coding also, so i am typing it now as the simple form br0ken spirit...i can use bs also :)

btw lEcKr0nIuM where is your entry? ;P

[Fozzybar]

Hey...don't think too closeminded when talking about concept art...eg concept art could be just a color gradient if it shows the atmosphere which is needed for a special project...or random lines which create emotions...so does a more finished illustration, it's still concept art, BECAUSE: It is a visualization of a written concept...that's it...

So the basic requirements for this activity are a description/concept of your idea and an artwork which fullfills the quality standards and sticks to the rules, that's it...the style is totally up to the artist himself...

[Diego]

I've voted for Broken because i think he sticks more to the concept and the feeling of hugeness you asked for the concept.

possessed's quote:
"Keep in mind that non-cows vote here too, they might not even read the concept and just look for a pretty picture."

maybe. The first entry that i like was duddlebug's, it's great, very funny and great colors, but i was thinking about the concept first when i voted-

my 2 cents.
-Non-cow

[Zaknafain]

I like RES concept the most.
The rendering is ok, the concept is cool (perhaps not very "original" but it would look cool as 3D model in a computer game).

[JeffZNY]

I've been laughing so hard at this whole debate. The wannabe-concept artists telling the actual professional concept artist that his work is not concept art...riiiiiiiiight. anyway, keep on pimpin' duddlebug.

[Yodaah]

Hi guys,

I was trying to respond to all of your replies, because basically with the most part of what was written, I don't agree at all. I've also seen that some of you really twisted my words and didn'stick to what I wrote exactly, which makes a discussion quite difficult. I was sitting here in an internet café and it nearly took me 2 hours to write down all these arguments concerning your replies. When I finally had finished the text and wanted to post post it the fucking computer asked me to log in again and afterwords there was a blank page as a reply. So for now I'm really fed up with this and won't write down the whole stuff for a second time. The problem is that if I don't reply to all your specific answers I won't even have the chance to change anything and contrary to Fozzy I think that one can change something, so I might try it again tomorrow.

cheers!

[Yodaah]

I've been laughing so hard at this whole debate. The wannabe-concept artists telling the actual professional concept artist that his work is not concept art...riiiiiiiiight. anyway, keep on pimpin' duddlebug.


wannabe concept artist ? What do you know?
scratch my scrot!

[scumgrinder]

That sucks when it happens, i post in another forum and after writing a really long reply it gave me that. I wanted to punch whoever made the expiring cookies in the cock.

[leckronium]

duddlebug - I didn't mean to make it sound like you weren't a concept artist. I was simply trying to explain why I voted for bRØk3n_sPiRiT. Sorry for any misunderstandings. When I look at your piece though, you have a pirate ship, a person rowing in a boat, a group of pirates, and treasure other than the actual creature itself. This becomes very narrative which, to me, leans towards illustration. These extra features have become as dominant if not more dominant than the actual creature itself. At first glance, seeing this out of context, I would say that it's an illustration for a childrens book about pirates and their adventures. But again, that's my opinion. Maybe I'm the only one who sees it like this. I'm not saying, in any way, that I do not like it. I'm more of an illustrator myself, went to school for illustration, and graduated with a degree in illustration. If you're really fed up with being a concept artist in the games industry for six years ;) , you'd make one hell of an illustrator.

Fozzy - I'll try to get back in the contests if I can. I've picked up some freelance work along with round 3 of Thunderdome so I am going to be busy for a while. I don't work as fast as I'd like to.

[JeffZNY]

*scratch* *scratch*

[scumgrinder]

I've been laughing so hard at this whole debate. The wannabe-concept artists telling the actual professional concept artist that his work is not concept art...riiiiiiiiight. anyway, keep on pimpin' duddlebug.
that was very unnecessary

[Yodaah]

*scratch* *scratch*


No, I said my scrot.

[Dusty]

I'm actually a little fed up that after six years in the games industry as a concept artist, i'm being told that i don't produce concept art. Next time Disney or Universal or Warner Brothers ask me for a colour image with narrative i'll have to tell them that i only do 'concept art' and that they can visit this thread for a definition.


Aww come on dude, don't get too bent out of shape. Its all crit, right? And as someone who's been a professional for 6 years you should have a tougher skin about peoples' opinions. Take it all with a grain of salt and just take every entry as a lesson. Crit is crit...you don't have to apply the crit to your future pieces if you think they are wrong. That's why you are the artist.

People were just pointing out that it was very illustrative...which it is. That doesn't NOT make it concept art, it just makes it very illustrative concept art. People (myself included) are probably just jealous because they don't have the time to tell a damn near complete story with their concepts. You shouldn't be offended by that.

Besides...you are WINNING! Quit yer bitching. :p

-Dusty

[JeffZNY]

what was unnecessary? duddlebug is a professional concept artist, and he's on here defending his entry against claims that it is not concept art...i find that silly and humorous. if i had said "aspiring concept artists" rather than "wannabe concept artists," would that have been okay? a little thin-skinned here, me thinks...but I apologize to anyone I ticked off. consider your scrot scratched.

EDIT: in reply to what scum said below...Uh, if he is a professional concept artist, then yes, no one is in a better position than he to decide what is and what is not concept art. no one said anything about being unflawed...in fact, I didn't really like his entry that much and voted for brokenspirit, but that is beside the point. most importantly, you are making a mountain out of a mole hill here. for the record, referring to someone as a wannabe concept artist when they in fact want to be a concept artist is pretty tepid stuff. nevertheless, i already apologized and scratched yodah's scrotum for him, so that is that.

further EDIT: now in reply to yodah...I think Yodah's post really speaks for itself, so I don't have much to add. Just to clarify a couple things...I'm 23, so not sure what you were getting at there, but if you're gonna start putting down every artist under 24 on CA you're in for a long afternoon. But most significantly, you misread my post, which kinda makes your tangent on reading text properly a bit awkward and ironic... the pronoun "he" was referring to the antecedent "duddlebug," and thus I said nothing whatsoever about you or your entry. sorry you got yourself all riled up.

[scumgrinder]

what was unnecessary? duddlebug is a professional concept artist, and he's on here defending his entry against claims that it is not concept art...i find that silly and humorous. if i had said "aspiring concept artists" rather than "wannabe concept artists," would that have been okay? a little thin-skinned here, me thinks...but I apologize to anyone I ticked off.

i just think someone else made that point of duddlebug being a professional concept artist (i think even he mentioned it) without putting Yodaah down. I voted for duddlebug, i liked his illustration the best, but just because he is a professional... does that mean he is unflawed and shouldn't be questioned? Awesome logic. You throwing the whole wannabe- concept artist into the mix doesn't help at all. That's fishing for flames

[leckronium]

This whole thing has gone way out of control. I'm tired of hearing professional this or professional that. Honestly, I don't give a fuck if your professional or not. I couldn't care less what your resume says. I'm not here to kiss professional ass, which most of you seem to be. If you can't take a crit you shouldn't be on these forums posting work. If you can't take somebody else disagreeing with the professional's ass your kissing you shouldn't be on the forums either.

Fuckin A people, enough already....

[BlkCelebration]

Voted for br0kenspirit this time. His piece had the same effect as last week's. I kept lookin back at it. Eventhough there was a great showing this time, I felt his piece had the "huge" and "deep-sea" aspects of the concept down just right.
The creature looked like it might exsist..

I'd also like to thank those who commented on mine (I think I've been guilty of oversaturating more than once, I shall attempt to correct this problem in future COWs) :^^;:

[Yodaah]

what was unnecessary? duddlebug is a professional concept artist, and he's on here defending his entry against claims that it is not concept art...i find that silly and humorous. if i had said "aspiring concept artists" rather than "wannabe concept artists," would that have been okay? a little thin-skinned here, me thinks...but I apologize to anyone I ticked off. consider your scrot scratched.


I just looked up your birth date, which somehow gives an explanation concerning your disability in reading a text properly. I never ever defended my entry in any way. In my text I didn't even mention my entry. I was talking about the COW thread in general and how it could be of great help. Don't enter in a serious discussion, when you twist words instead of sticking to proper arguments. Besides if you think that professionality of an artist is defined by having a job or not, then you really are not aware of what's going on and maybe should ask yourself what you could contribute to this forum.

Blubbering such short-minded sentences I really can't take you serious, because judging from your unqualified claims, your IQ seems to measure slightly above room temperature.

[scumgrinder]

uhhh dude... i think he meant duddlebug was defending his own entry

[Dusty]

I just looked up your birth date, which somehow gives an explanation concerning your disability in reading a text properly

This is just as irrelevant as a statement that you are a professional. The guy is 23 years old. There is nothing wrong with that age. Maybe you, and everyone else who is getting offended at this or that should just take a step back, get out of this thread, and move on to the Arctic Carnivore. This is degenerating into a flame thread, and that is just completely unconstructive and against why we are all here in the first place, in my opinion.

-Dusty

[Yodaah]

uhhh dude... i think he meant duddlebug was defending his own entry


:rolleyes: :) :teeth: :D uh-ooh, sorry, you're right. So JeffZNY, just cancel the first 2 sentences and go for the rest :P .

[JeffZNY]

i agree with dusty. my gladiator status says I am a provocator...maybe that is the source of the problem. in any event, i've edited my earlier post to respond to some of this. on to the arctic!

[Yodaah]

This is just as irrelevant as a statement that you are a professional. The guy is 23 years old. There is nothing wrong with that age. Maybe you, and everyone else who is getting offended at this or that should just take a step back, get out of this thread, and move on to the Arctic Carnivore. This is degenerating into a flame thread, and that is just completely unconstructive and against why we are all here in the first place, in my opinion.

-Dusty


Well Dusty, if you say this, then you just didn't understand the purpose of starting this discussion. Do you really think that I'd take my time to write all this text, if it wouldn't be important to me ?! I can't move on and doing the arctic carnivore if I don't even know if I should continue in participating in the COW. I think there are some things to be cleared, but I'll do that tomorrow, because as I mentioned, I have to rewrite it all again.

And Dusty... you also should try to read properly, I didn't take his age to explain my professionality. I just tried to find an explanation why this guy didn't read properly before judging. And man... if you look at what I've written before I don't think that it lacks of politeness. But he does, so... :uzi:

[Dusty]

And Dusty... you also should try to read properly, I didn't take his age to explain my professionality. I just tried to find an explanation why this guy didn't read properly before judging.


You need to stop mentioning this whole "you should read properly" thing, because its really getting frustrating watching you deal out little stabs at people when you clearly aren't grasping the points being made yourself. I knew exactly what you were saying. You were saying that his age of 23 explains why he's "not reading properly" and I am still telling you that is *just* as irrelevant as someone mentioning that one's opinion is more or less valid because of one's professionality.

Whether you are a professional or not means jack as far as opinion goes, and likewise his age is completely irrelevant in this discussion...especially if the guy is 23 YEARS OLD!. If the guy was 13, you might have a case, but he's certainly of age to have proper reading comprehension.

You are incredibly defensive, Yodaah. I think there has been enough information from people in this thread for you to move on to the Arctic Carnivore. You can still do things exactly like you did them this round and people will still vote for you for the same reasons they would with any other concept: "Does it appeal to me?". If so...they will vote for you. Move on, take all the crits with a grain of salt. This debate is tired.

-Dusty

[JeffZNY]

Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

[Yodaah]

quote:dusty: You need to stop mentioning this whole "you should read properly" thing, because its really getting frustrating watching you deal out little stabs at people when you clearly aren't grasping the points being made yourself. I knew exactly what you were saying. You were saying that his age of 23 explains why he's "not reading properly" and I am still telling you that is *just* as irrelevant as someone mentioning that one's opinion is more or less valid because of one's professionality.

Whether you are a professional or not means jack as far as opinion goes, and likewise his age is completely irrelevant in this discussion...especially if the guy is 23 YEARS OLD!. If the guy was 13, you might have a case, but he's certainly of age to have proper reading comprehension.

You are incredibly defensive, Yodaah. I think there has been enough information from people in this thread for you to move on to the Arctic Carnivore. You can still do things exactly like you did them this round and people will still vote for you for the same reasons they would with any other concept: "Does it appeal to me?". If so...they will vote for you. Move on, take all the crits with a grain of salt. This debate is tired.

-Dusty

Man it's tiring to talk to you.
As I stated earlier: Voting for me or not is absolutely not the point. I only wanted people to rethink what should be judged in this thread. That's all. I did not start this discussion on a personal level. But it starts getting personal, when people comment on things I actually didn't mention. That's why I wanted them to read properly and not for defending myself. (Besides considering his age this was a joke! >:D It's obvious that at his age he should be able to read. I meant it ironically. Maybe you should go for the "room temperature"-joke now... :wink: )

[Dusty]

Man it's tiring to talk to you.

The feeling is mutual.
I'm done.

-Dusty

[duddlebug]

This is all getting a bit silly, innit?

Chill out guys....

I only mentioned i was a worked as a concept artist because Yodaah was telling me that a cartoon image can't be a concept (??)... and that my piece didn't fit this contest because it was too illustrative. But i call it a concept. So there. :wink:

I haven't done any bitching! I can take a crit! Try me! (And telling me it's not a concept isn't a crit!) No one's even talked about the fact that it isn't a 'deep' sea creature! I can't believe i'm getting away with that. Fozzy even pulled me up on that before the poll opened. I guess i got away with it.

Be nice to each other... jeez... this is supposed to be fun!

Group hug...? <3

EdiT: Anyone wanna hire an illustrator? :confident

[scumgrinder]

illustration or not, the creature was there and there was a concept, and i hope it wins. The rest is just nitpicking.

I just think there are ways to say things, especially considering Yodaah's already visible discomfort with the poll results. You made your point explaining that you work as a concept artist and that your entry was acceptable, and that was perfectly fine. I just thought after reading JeffZNY post that there was really no need for a comment worded like that. All things considered, it wasn't helping the discussion since his point had already been made by you and others.

What's wrong with being critical? Why just disregard someone's comments because someone is a wannabe concept designer and not a professional, funny comment coming from another aspiring concept artist.

[JeffZNY]

sigh...the point wasn't that someone's comment should be disregarded because they're not professional. it was that you can't tell a professional that his work is not an example of concept art when he works in the friggin' industry! i am pretty sure he knows what is and what is not a concept. it was a silly arguement for someone to be trying to make...if you don't agree, that's your perogotive. frankly, given the trash that followed, I feel less and less remorseful for anyone I might've offended. whatever though, dusty and duddle said it best, so end of discussion.

[scumgrinder]

wanna make out?

[Nutter]

Whoa lots of heated arguments here.

As a concept for the brief, Broken Spirit takes the cake.

But I'm a sucker for humorous concepts and Duddlebugs entry IS a concept, that was taken a little further.

DUSTY - Thanks for the crit, I will try to put more effort into my C.O.W in the future, It was the best I could to in my lunch hour at work. As for the description, I will also give it some more thought

cheers.

[JeffZNY]

lol

good luck next round scumgrinder...no hard feelings on my end

[scumgrinder]

I could get you on a subtlety but you said "sigh". Sigh is like "not tonight honey, I've got a headache".
I'll bring this up again sometime but entirely out of context. Months, maybe years from now, when you think it's all forgotten. Why? because i am awesome like that.

[brokk]

Sometimes there isnt time to read everything. I dont read every entry if there are too many, I did this week for the crits but usually I dont read every concept that is submmited, unless the text is somewhat short (I know... I need to shorted my own texts...).
Sometimes I look at the image and think its very cool but I dont read the text or not all the way if its too long. Though for voting I check both text and image, and I try to go over all the entries and see which one I want to vote more.

[0kelvin]

"Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for that part about letting just any old yokel vote."
~Unknown


0kelvin

[Fozzybar]

wow...juist turned my back for a few hours and COW seems to be exploding...i didn't read what's going on in the arctic carnivore thread yet but it seems that there is a mutiny going on :)

what irritates me most is scumgrinder...you asked badly for some crits for your entry ("ahah everybody keeps calling my stuff "cool" which is starting to sound more and more like an euphemism for half assed. I would appreciate pointers like broken spirit just did. THAT IS ALL, DUDES")....i posted detailed crits, but you even didn't react...so what's the point of giving crits if you don't reply to it...but maybe you overlooked it in the heat of the debate...

[scumgrinder]

thanks for the crits, sorry, i did read them and some made sense , some didn't. I don't know how many approaches there are when asking for criticism , especially since i am new here. I just noticed that there is a very defined distinction between hot, good, and cool and i was pointing that out. So going by this, cool is not as good as hot or good, so it might be half assed, hence my request for criticism. I wasn't being rude, i just forgot to acknowledge them.
so i'll do it now:

iggest crit: Color scheme! I think you would have get a few votes more if you had chosen a blue/cyan color scheme...alright, i did a few versions of the thing and i think this is closer to what i wanted to achieve... unfortunately for me, i discovered this forum and this particular cow til 8 or so hours befor the deadline... i might be wrong, i don't know, so there was a lot that wasn't finished. When i redid teh thing i realized that i ended up making the creature look like a thanksgiving turkey, but i wanted the loss of detail and the sunwashed colors and i couldn't achieve them in the picture i posted first.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a232/scumgrinder/el_viento_color.jpg

lil' crits: i think the shape of your creature is interesting, also the little lights, but it needs more details...currently there is nothing else than the little pink dots, which would be interesting for your eyes to rest...no area, where the viewer would look and say "wow, there is something weird/interesting/cool going on"...it's too flat considering the design, if you know what i mean...I grew up with some books about animals that i really liked. I especially was in love with tomes 11 and 12 which were about sea creatures. I just remember looking at the pictures and how foreign they were, how different and how illogical they looked compared to say.. a dog. huge surfaces of skin in te case of rays, or whale sharks in pictures where you could hardly tell what the hell was going on. Pictures of plancton, some similar to insects some like nothing i had ever seen before, boring shapes, yet living creatures., i wanted to create that, just something huge and scary, but not because of it being aggressive but because it's foreign, strange.

Another thing is, i don't know, what's going on at the surrounding...there are bright lights....hmmm, ok this could be other animals with bioluminescent light, but then again why is there something like a human figure on the top left? You won't encounter both in the same depth...same thing about the surrounding, in the photos i remember , there were things closer to the photographer always either reflecting light from the flash or radiating their own light. the diver is there because like i already explained before the creature was surfacing

The tentacles look interesting in their shape, but you faded them out, just at the point were it could be developped much more for an unique shape or interesting function...
i guess i overdid the surfacing..

So the way i see it my entry failed in more than one way and i am ok with that, i should focus more in making sure that what i see is what other viewers will see, since most of us don't share the same experiences. I see flaws in my technique and i can't look back at stuff i did without feeling like i need to redo things or start from scratch, but i don't agree in some of the suggestions. if i want to achieve an underwater effect i will have to keep trying. if i want to use and old pinup poster type of palette like i tried for my arctic carnivore i will try and try till i get it, even if that means restarting the whole thing.

So thanks again for the criticism, it's been a long while since i got one for whatever the reason and i'm sorry i didn't acknowledge them before. ANd i am also sorry you find me irritating, I might give you an ulcer sooner or later.

[Yodaah]

Hi,

after having slept over it, I decided put an end to this discussion. I want to apologize to the people who might have felt disturbed and for taking words down to the level it went yesterday. Sorry, that was not my intention when initiating this whole debate. I now tend to see things the Fozzy-way in terms that I can't change anything or at least that this discussion isn't leading to anything. In some of the replies my words have been turned around or misinterpreted. I won't go further into that, I think I explained my position clearly in my first two posts. If taking my words literally, it should be obvious that I never wanted to tell people how to crit something and that I didn't tell duddlebug how to do his work (as JeffZNY tried to put it yesterday). My only intention was to take people to think it all over and maybe change some things in this contest in order to keep the focus just on the conceptual design of the creature, when voting. I still think that in common sense there is a difference between a concept design in general and the artwork duddlebug has posted. But since majority isn't interested in changing something it's okay for me.

Fully painted and detailed artwork has most chances to win the COW, so the focus is on the level of entertainment of the picture. Because of this fact the COW contest is not different from contests in other art forums that deal with art in general. I just wished to achieve this difference with the COW. If the main concern is not the conceptual design of the creature it makes the contest less interesting for me.

That's all folks!


scumgrinder: Thank you very much for your comprehension, I really appreciate.


cheers!
Yodaah

[Fozzybar]

yodaah....the regulars over here at COW, are voting as you wish how voting should work...but as we already mentioned, the majority does not...we can't make a poll for only COWies or whatever...so we have to live with this, but focus on giving c&c and learning from each other...

[scumgrinder]

your turn fozzy

[sephone]

Hey guys just wanted to say thanks to Dusty, Posessed, Panda and broken_spirit for there compliments and critiques. it was much appreciated. I hope I didn't forget anyone.
As for my reason to vote for Hurricane, for some reason hurricanes image stood out to me just slightly more from the rest. It was still very hard to choose. I wish I had more time to critique some work but I barley have time to checkout CA during the week.

[Fozzybar]

your turn fozzy
what? you mean the ulcer growing and growing on my head? :perv:

[scumgrinder]

acknowledge me!say ok, man you suck, or ok, i see what you mean, or another one of those lines people say to be polite when someone else apologizes

[look]

I voted for brokenspirit's . That one really spooked me.

[RES]

I’ve been really busy this week so I haven’t managed to write up on everyone’s work as I would have like. There been lots of really good work this week but as always there can be only one so it go too
br0kenspirit it really says deep sea to me and I like its face

[duddlebug]

Just wanted to say a big thanks to those who voted or critiqued me... And i'm dead chuffed to get a win. There were loads of cool entries this week so it was a surprise.... the discussion was interesting, (but i kinda wish it had come up on a different week!)

I had a lot of fun painting 'Ye Pirate Muncher'... but i might try more of a 'straightforward' concept next time... :^^:

Thanks again for the votes!