Research and Design - Sabina Piasecka - CONSTANTLY UPDATED!!!

The Character Voo'thrag
Design Sheet

CHARACTER PROFILE SHEET

Name: Monster inhabiting the planet - Voo'thrag

Gender: Male/Female

CHARACTER ROLE

Another monster inhabiting the planet. It lives in the jungle and these species are surrounding our player. This specific monster is not aggressive towards our player, unless in a group of 2 or more. If the player meets this monster alone, the monster will not approach the player but stay behind following him around but if the player will meet another one of these species on his way while this monster is following him, they might attack him in a group. The role of the monster is to have a bit of difference from the casual aggressive monsters and so the player can have a bit more fun playing experience having a diversity of different monsters in the jungle.

Voo'thrag will give experience also when killed. They also are enemies to the Yruuk kind however they do not attack each other openly unless there is a group of both of them.

PHYSICAL Profile

Physical Advantages:

Fast, Slim, Sharp hidden teeth

Physical Disabilities:

Lack of strength when alone

Attire:

No attire

Unique Physical skills:

Can run very fast making it difficult for the player to shoot.

Major life events:

None

SOCIOLOGICAL Profile

Born:

Planet of Moa, Caves dug in the ground

Upbringing:

In the wild jungle, hunting for smaller animals but also eating plants, learning how to dig caves in order to survive.

Accent or Dialect:

Makes quiet sounds like a mouse.

Past profession:

None

Major life events:

None

How does your character make a living/survive now?

Hunting, Digging caves and hiding in the ruins, keeping together in groups usually.

PSYCHOLOGICAL Profile

Personality traits:

Intelligent, Quiet, Curious, Reserved

Treasured items:

None

Personal interests

Hiding, Hunting in groups, Reproduction

Mannerisms

None

Sense of Humour:

None

Major life events:

None

Gameplay abilities

Stays in hiding, does not attack the player unless in a group of 2 or more or unless the player attacks it, can be deadly if in a group. Can be also useful to a player as when the player will be attacked by different species the Voo'thrag that is following the player will attack the aggressive monster.

CHARACTER SYNOPSIS

Voo'thrags are curious monsters that had lived in the deserts thousands of years ago but had moved inside the jungle and the ruins after the desert conditions have turned much more harsh due to planets aligning in the solar system that had changed the environment slightly.

These are very intelligent creatures that do not attack their prey once they spot them, but follow them around and observe their behaviour. They only do that when they see someone who is more intelligent than them, as they know they might end up hurt or even dead. However when there are more of them than one together, the whole pack gets aggressive towards the player and pursue him, as they are team creatures that work better together.

Research

Movies

Before I started my design I have had a lot of shapes in my mind, so I started doing some small research before continuing. As me and my group had agreed that the monsters in the game are supposed to be quite primitive looking, simple creatures but be enough to create a clear image of an enemy to the player, I started looking at some classic designs of aliens, mainly the movie "Alien" itself.

This is a distinctive, unique design by H.R Ginger that we will all usually recognize the movie it comes from. Mainly the head shape is what creates the iconic look of an Alien from the "Alien" franchise. The design itself is quite simple as it is still a two legged monster with two arms and a head, so we can see that even the simplest designs can have a huge impact on the audience.

 The Alien has different growth stages, so I have looked at the "Facehugger" stage where the alien is basically a scorpion/crab like creature that attacks people jumping on their faces.

However an Alien is supposed to be quite scary and make a clear visible line between being an enemy to a human and just being another living creature in the jungle, as my creature is going to be.

Besides the classic movie Alien, I have also had a look at other very popular movies including Star Wars, and the character of Jar Jar Binks, an Alien of Gungam species of the Star Wars world. Although Jar Jar is designed to be a very friendly character, he is still quite iconic and easy to remember. The most visible characteristic that makes him appear like a friendly character would be probably his eyes.

 

Star Wars movies have multiple creatures existing on the numerous planets that were developed for the movies. Except for the intelligent races, there are hundreds of other creatures that we can witness when watching the movies. I am aiming to design creatures that are also inhabitants of a planet, not particularly aliens that have an aim to destroy the world. Here are some of the inspiring examples from Star Wars -

I find the Star Wars creatures very heavily inspiring. Many of them have been developed by an amazing designer Terry Whitlatch. She has studied animal anatomy and zoology and was able to create such beautiful creatures that are not necessarily picked up as monsters - just inhabitants of the particular planet that fit into this ecosystem. She is a huge inspiration for me as I am looking to create something close by studying certain animals in order to achieve similar results.

In the 2014 Godzilla movie, new monsters have been presented which I have also took an interest upon and felt inspired by them. They're called Muto's - Long legged gigantic insect-like creatures referred to as Kaiju (Monster in Japanese) sometimes.

 

 They're strong, and I liked their design which is clearly based on insects, and apparently also based on mythological creatures.

Besides Muto's, there is also ofcourse Godzilla itself, a gigantic dragon-lizard like creature. It has first appeared in 1954's Ishiro Honda movie "Godzilla". The name Godzilla was made using two words - Gorilla and Kujira (Whale in Japanese).

The design of Godzilla was slightly changing throughout the years but overall it had stayed the same.  As I have read, the initial idea of Godzilla was for it to be a gigantic amphibious reptile with scaly skin based around the idea of a mix of a dinosaur. Therefore, Godzilla became a mix of many different animals existing and extinct put together created by the art director Akira Watanabe. 

When looking at the images and designs of Godzilla we can easily see many different parts of animals that we know. The idea for Godzilla was to create a mighty and powerful creature, therefore the influence of the Dinosaurs in this design.

In Literature

Except for the popular movie characters, I also have had look at the popular Sci-Fi literature that could include monsters or aliens. For example, Frankenstein, even though it is not about creatures coming from another space, it has an interesting description of the monster itself - "His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!-Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath: his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriences only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips" -Quote from Shelley's Novel. It helps me imagine how would another person perceive a monster or a creature that could be scary as it is unknown to another person. However this literature is quite dark with horror elements, I also had a look at other works.

I have had a look on H.P. Lovecraft's work, who had a visible idea of a grotesque, classical horror monsters. In his book, "The Call of Cthulhu", he introduced the creature Cthulhu. Here are some of the best descriptions of the monster - "yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings." "represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind."

 

There is hundreds of different designs coming from different artists just using their imagination from the descriptions provided by H.P Lovecraft. I like this particular creature as it is a big mix of creatures on the world we already know - for example an octopus, bat, human and so on.

Below is my moodboard for all the films that I have been inspired by and had a look at.

Besides different movies, I had also a look at different inspiring styles of Art as well that I could use for my design and that I found inspiring. Here are some amazing artists that are true inspiration for design of creatures and some of their work.

One of my favourite artists - Ken Barthelmey who makes amazing surreal creature design.

I love how he had merged insect designs together with different kinds of animal design that had created something surreal but still realistic.

Quite similar artist with great concept arts for creatures would be Ben Mauro.

 

 

 His designs often include mechanical elements and technologies with his Alien designs, for example like this -

 

Which was also the inspiration for our group to do the design of the main character.

A painter - Way more dark - Horror, surreal art, but I decided to include him and have a look at his works as I consider him my favourite artist. Zdzislaw Beksinski, a polish surrealism painter. His paintings, coming out straight from horrors and nightmares, however I still found them beautiful and I am being inspired by how he had drawn human bodies.

Here are some of my other inspirations for the design styles, including texture art, Wildlife Photography and some ancient art as well.

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Museum Trip and Life Drawing

After I had a better idea of what creature I want, I have gone to the Natural History Museum and another museum when I was in Poland to look for some dinosaurs, skeletons, insects and models of animals and such which I could sketch and get a better idea for my designs. Below are some of the drawings I have made there.

The Design and Silhouettes

Below are some of my silhouettes, both digital and paper designs.

 

Below is also some of my concept art that I made imagining how the creature for our game could look like before.

I have picked a silhouette and started experimenting with it in different ways adding things to it and seeing how it would turn out. I also have done bunch of different designs imagining how the final version would look like and I am also including some older designs ideas for the monster.

Below is a slightly better silhouette that I decided to work on and added shades to get a clearer image of how Voo'thrag could look like.

 

I did not like the way the legs looked like, therefore I decided to experiment a little more with this silhouette which was my first iteration.

I have changed his legs, extended his arms and extended his skull.

Afterwards, I decided to do the model using Zspheres on Zbrush. Below is what I have gotten out of it.

 

It looked much better than the silhouettes, but I think I have gotten an overall idea of what else I could add. I thought that the Voo'thrag looks slightly too primitive, therefore I changed his arms a little bit  and extend the claws more, also added horns.

Then I decided to broaden the shoulders in different ways, to make the Voo'thrag look more interesting.

Finally, me and my group have decided for this to be the final model of the Voo'thrag

However the model was very quite high poly therefore I retopologized it in Zbrush and put it in Maya. It is still quite high poly but it will be changed for the game.