Stranger Things / Demogorgon Creature Design Contest
An eyeless spider-like creature covered in corrosive slime, and it smells like a decaying corpse can mess with its prey's sense of smell. It tracks down its prey with a sharp sense towards echo, movement and thermal, infecting them with venom hormones that will turn them into its kind.
Stranger Things / Demogorgon Creature Design Contest
Update - 1 Jan 2022
# Final Demogorgon Design
Below is the complete design creature poster with ratio comparison and detail highlights. Thanks to the Rookies contest for providing the best opportunity for me to kick start my first horror creature design. It was an exciting yet incredible experience for me, and I hope to explore it further in the future!
Update - 21 Dec 2021
# References
To start with, I've prepared two sets of reference images, including one set for the original creature design in the Stranger Things TV series and one set for the new creature design reference. While studying the references, I found that the original creature design conveyed a creepy yet familiar sense to the viewers, and I would like to maintain that design consideration in the new creature design as well.
To better explore and visualize the creature design, I've collected some images, including illustrations and sculpting pieces done by the other artists as supportive visual references and for anatomy study purposes.
# Design Sketches 01
The main idea that appeared in my mind is to create a design twist on the original Demogorgon by applying some insect or reptile characteristics. I started with some loose design sketches to explore different limb designs. The mouth design has retained the characteristics of the original Demogorgon design, with a main reference to the Rafflesia plant and insect mouth.
The stem-like/torn-like slender tongue was the alternative option to enhance the design concept as well. The first design sketches were beyond my expectations, as the characteristics of a spider are not given much emphasis, and the silhouette for most of the sketches resembles more of a "frog" or a "grasshopper".
After finishing the first set of rough creature designs with value lighting, I decided to show it to a peer and lecture about it in order to get some critical feedback that could help me improve the current creature design. According to the feedback I received, I should try to explore more creature designs with different archetypes as the current design looks similar to the origin.
# Creature Design (ver.2)
Below is the second version of the Demogorgon design that I've come up with this week based on the given feedback. In this version of the design, each of the Demogorgon has at least six limbs with some design alternatives, such as the tail, venom sting, and so on. Based on the latest feedback I've received and my own consideration, I decided to go for the 2C archetype design with the combination of Rafflesia mouth design as it conveys the best visual out of the rest of the designs.
# Painting & Texturing Process
(Below is the image process view. Please slide the slider below the image to see my painting and texturing process of the conformed Demogorgon design.)
While refining the design sketch, I tried to keep the design related to the theme by avoiding fantastic details that would make the creature design overly dominant. On the other hand, I wanted to ensure the overall silhouette design had good visual hierarchy and stage posing so it wouldn't look confusing (especially the legs).
After completing the establishment of the value base coloring, the visual details such as the teeth, bones, stings, and so on were gradually added on. Lastly, I photobashed the skin texture details in Photoshop and did the final visual polishing.
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