Monday, July 25, 2011

Jungle Wolf : Early sketches and studies



Hi All,

The little guy above was an early sketch of a creature concept, I wanted to create an “Alien Jungle-wolf”. However, the silhouette of the image above is still wolf-like, and in order to achieve the ‘alien’ part of the brief, I wanted to push the design away from mammalian forms.

Creature Description: the Jungle Wolf is a cold-blooded carnivore, which lives in small packs of 5 – 10 individuals, a dominant pair and their pups. They are the most ruthless hunter in the region, taking on prey larger than themselves. They live in dense tropical jungles, and use ‘clicking’ sounds to communicate between individuals while hunting their prey.

Below are some wolf skull and facial studies I did early in the design process. As the silhouette is referencing a carnivorous quadruped, I did some sketches to improve my knowledge of this form:

I wanted the design to elicit a clear emotional response from the viewer – terror. Therefore it was decided that predatory fish should be referenced in the design, such as the piranha. Piranhas have a reputation for being dangerous and frenzied group attacks.

I really like the massive teeth of this guy and I decided to use this in the final sketch. The lack of mammalian facial features helps the design to appear alien because as humans, we instinctively look for facial features - or something familiar. So without that, I feel the creature is more terrifying from the audience’s point of view.

More to come!

Katie