Joe Sparrow / Illustrator - Animator - Designer / 07758224292 / joe@joe-sparrow.com

Thursday 31 December 2009

fmp development

trying to adopt a bit more of that Woodring/Kusama craziness without making it a ripoff of either.


I'm thinking the setting may well be in an IT room or a place with a bunch of computers. They were going to be dream-fish of some sort but I like the idea of them feeding of electricity more.


I initially gave them really super geometric bodies in an attempt to make them look "electronic" and abstract (à la Tron or something), but I think the general consensus was that they were kind of impersonal and bland.


The outcome of that is that I'm trying to make them a little more "cartoony", just enough to make them fun to design, but still making them look alive, or like something that could be alive on another plane of existence. The process has had the side effect of making them look kind of like muppets, which I'm keen to keep an eye on.


All these designs are based on me trying to develop some creatures right at the base of the food chain. They're modelled off real-life creatures called Diatoms (photographed below - what a cool name, huh?) which live in the sea and are essentially these really weird single-celled phytoplankton.

All pretty and regular, too.

Throughout the project I've been struggling to come up with ideas for bigger creatures, but I've been researching into what sorts of creatures occur in real-life aquatic food chains (which these creatures will be modelled off), so I've got a bit more inspiration now.

I'm also conscious I didn't make any attempt at a Christmas post, because I felt particularly shitty, so I'm hereby retroactively wishing all my readers a very merry Christmas and I hope you all have a happy new year, or at least a bearable one. if not, I hope this video cheers you up:


My brother and his friend made it in Gmod.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

love the new designs, they're great