Aroognac: The Spider Empress

For this project, I wanted to attempt an aesthetic and creature I haven't worked with before, wanting to challenge myself and try some new methods and pipelines, and end up with a powerful looking sculpt. I started by doing some research into the type of creature I wanted to make, but had a pretty strong idea that I wanted to do a spider type Animal.

After I decided on making a spider, I started gathering some references and style inspiration, wanting to make more of a fantasy horror creature, yet still have a strong realistic feel. 

After working on the main sculpt, I originally had the plan to sculpt a large cave system scene, with various webbing scattered throughout the tunnels, and a few egg sacks and cocooned body's around the main nest, and my spider to be emerging from the shadows. While I still like the idea of this vision, I felt it took too much attention away from my core focus of this project, as I am a creature sculptor, I wanted to show off more of my sculpting ability at Its current state, yet still present my work in an aesthetically appealing way, rather than just a simple stand. So, keeping with the cave theme, I decided to sculpt a cave entrance type scene, and have my spider prominently positioned at the entrance, as if it had just emerged from the dark tunnels.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the sculpt turned out, I think while there are areas I would have done differently with the knowledge I have developed since starting the project, I do like that I achieved my goal of trying out a new aesthetic, and made a pretty cool looking spider.