Tuesday, January 15, 2008

DIP (doodle in progress)

Wow three days in a row, I've been doodlin! It's past 4am and I should be sleeping so I can head down to Marin around noon for lunch, but I started doodlin this, and really wanted to make a quick painting pass on it as well. I also wanted to play around with possibilities for what the young of the creature looks like.

I'm thinking more reptilian now (I think I prefer terrestrial egg laying). I'm also thinking that this species also spends time caring for its young rather than leaving them to fend for themselves at birth...so the young are floating nearby, watching mom or dad hunt below the surface, also watching and learning how to swim. Up to a certain age, the young would be too buoyant to be able to dive and swim underwater (like a baby otter). The forearms are even less developed in the young, being proportionally shorter almost like those of a T-rex or raptor, and on land, would move around more on their hind legs til they reach a certain stage of their life when their forelegs have grown longer. This also means the young rely much more on a kicking action with their hind legs to swim...like a duck. The adult shows how helpful the webbed feet are in maneuvering underwater and making quick turns. If they need to swim in a relatively straight path and want to go faster speeds, they tuck in their legs to make themselves more streamlined and swim with a side to side motion (see a gator, croc or marine iguana), and make minor steering with its forelegs. Anyways, it's 4:30am...enough dorking out for now.


I'll probably make another better painting pass and clean up some linework once I get back up to Roseville Thursday evening..as I'm going down to SJ Weds for our BTR meeting....but I may just work on my animation for that project rather than painting....or I'll do both and alternate projects! So if any of my BTR groupmates are reading this...see you Wednesday! Everyone else, see most of you soon once the semester starts!

Monday, January 14, 2008

more creature doodl'in

So it's 3:40am, and I'm still up watching a Monk marathon and wound up doodling another version of the creature, and I'm starting to try to think of a name for it. It still feels a mix of an amphibian and a reptile...guess I could do some research and actually discover the differences in the classes, but leaning towards amphibian because its webbed feet would suggest a partially aquatic life, and I feel like it would have a thick/coarse skin rather than scales (I don't know if that's a real difference between classes, but it seems like it). I was watching "Before the Dinosaurs" a day or two ago on Discovery or Animal Planet and there were some big beefy amphibians that were like giant alligators...but were classified as amphibians...so...yea.

I've been thinking more about the creature's physiology. As I said before, it has webbed feet to help propel itself in water along with the use of its tail. The noticeable difference in muscle mass between the fore and rear legs would suggest much more reliance on power of the rear legs, and that it should be able to jump fairly large distances like a frog. It also has similar stubby toes to a frog and may be able to grip normally slippery surfaces with small suction cups on the toes. But I've also considered that it might have sets of small claws on the toes used for grip as well as digging and defensive/offensive purposes. I have not quite decided what kind of habitat it would exist in, and if it's an omnivore or a carnivore (definitely not an herbivore), or if it's a day or night hunter, among some other considerations.

By the way, I accept all critique/comments/suggestions on anything.... my draughtsmanship (or lack of), painting ability (or lack of), anatomy, etc, etc, etc. I'm just finally doing something to practice and have a little fun. I'm no painter...I just (do my best) to make stuff move.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

doodleoodleoodle

So I've been getting a little restless during break and itching to work on something. After numerous doodles which I deleted after a few minutes, I finally came up with something I at least kept and felt like doing a quick paint of...and this is it. Some wierd amphibious creature. I started playing around with background info on it in my head, but haven't nailed anything down, other than its amphibious nature because of its webbed feet. It could also be a reptile since it has some reptilian characteristics in its head, and its long tail can be used in swimming like an alligator or crocodile's. Other than that, nothing much... and if we don't have our BTR meeting soon, I may be restless enough to expand on this creature....we'll see. hah.

edit: I finally also updated my links somewhat...most likely will add more people and sites eventually.