I began researching insects through more popular media taking influence from the mundane, weird, unique and grotesque such as the creature Cell from the anime DragonBall Z, James and the Giant Peach who's cast includes many insects to a simple snail (not strictly an insect, however it contains insect qualities resembling insects).
My initial sketches were just drawing out various insects to get the basic shapes and features of an insect. It allowed me to play with exoskeletons and joints.
These are my initial sketches of drafts, using a simple silhouette idea from a previous session in Photoshop in class. The character on the left is a mixture of an ape/human and a spider, similar to the spider monkey in Spy Kids, whilst the character on the right is a mixture between a snail and a fly.
After deciding on a concept I drew this draft of the final creature, it's a little messy but then this is just a draft, to get the feel of what this character will be like.
With my draft in place I began to develop the individual aspects of the character, starting with the head. I knew I wanted him to be a hunchback in nature so I positioned it accordingly. The main influence for the head, I decided, would be a fly; so I started with compound eyes, but the mouth was something I wasn't too sure on.
I had the initial thought that the mouth would be this piece of skin that pulls apart when it opens into this type of vacuum, but I liked the idea of a type of filter mouth that is still like a vacuum except all detritus is filtered out at this point. I gave him 2 antennae that droop down rather than stand on end, not only for design purposes but they make it easier for him to use them, hanging low rather than being up high.
I now needed to design his arms and consequently his hands. I used typical exoskeleton designs as a start but then I drew influence from other sources such as the video game Spore, designing the hands into suction cups. But I needed something a bit more relevant to my characters basis - a snail, so I designed tentacle like arms and hands. I liked them but it felt like I was moving a little too close to the tentacle monster project we did a few weeks back. So I decided against it instead opting for the exoskeleton arm but keeping the tentacle hand.
My reasoning behind this was that the exoskeleton contained this 3 part gooey channel that exposed 3 fingers forming the hand at the wrist. Now for the eyes.
For my character I had no clear idea on what the eyes would be like as they are so varied among insects. In this case I drew different designs drawn from insects such as fly's, praying manta, spiders and even a human eye. In the end I chose the human eye for one particular reason, insects (from our perspective) are creepy especially their eyes, thus seeing one with a human eye would make one even creepier as it is out of place among this hulking creature.
Again I continued with design the character bit by bit, I particularly liked the cube-like shell but the more circular one was chosen in favour of it as it provided more comfort in aesthetics and design. For the feet/foot I didn't really know how to design it and in the end I chose the only design I liked for the character and one that could hold his bulk: the tree stump foot.
And here are my final 2 sketches for my character.
He is a Gastrodyte, taken from the words Troglodyte - someone who lived in a cave/is reclusive and Gastropod - the genus family from which the Snail is a part of.
His kind prefer the cold, dank, dark of the underground, however they are a very social people who are humbled to the point of reclusiveness, as they realise and understand how they appear to others and do not wish to cause discomfort to their galactic community.
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