Scary Monsters and Stylized Characters

THE RUNNING MAN BRIEF

For my honors project, I created a brief to come up with dark fantasy/cyberpunk concepts for a creature design re-imagining of the stalker characters from the 1987 movie The Running Man. Below is the brief I created for myself as well as some reference and exploratory mood boards.  

Note: This project will last me all year, I have about 2 more characters to do after dynamo and then I will likely take one through the process of making it a game-ready asset. I will hopefully be able to do some environment paintings of where these creatures will ambush the protagonist. 

I have included in this Rookies page where I am up to currently. 

Buzz Saw

This creature is based on the dark fantasy creature of a vampire but it was derived more from the horsefly than the bat. The idea is that it would ambush the character in a huge dark state-owned livestock pen where it can choose to subsist on the animals to replenish its life. 

These renders show off Buzzsaw when in a relaxed state and in an open pose where you can see his cyberpunk bionic wings and proboscis that is retrofitted with buzz saw blades.  He uses his proboscis to feed on his victim's blood in the same method as a horsefly.

The left is a Zbrush then Photoshop workflow while the other is rendered in Keyshot.

Character sheets of the closed and open states.

Early sketches working out how the mouthpiece could work, as well as some character direction and early concepts.

Wing options

I decided that the wings would be a great place to push some cyber elements. This was to get around the problem of needing to give him the super massive wings that he would realistically need in order to fly. 

Early buzzsaw concepts with retractable buzzsaw in the face. 

The Creative Process.

Dynamo WIP

Dynamo is based on a ghoul but with all the electric glory of his character from the running man. He will inhabit a giant Orwellian-style electrical main switchboard/server room. The room is overrun with a mess of thick cables that resemble a disorderly spiderweb. Dynamo will swing from cable to cable like a monkey and is capable of electrocuting its prey as well as connecting itself to the circuitry of the room enabling him to electrify surfaces, lock doors, track its prey through security cameras and set off a system that floods the room with conductive ionized gas. He uses the gas to arch his electricity long distances and detect the electric fields given off by the movement of the runners, like a radar or the Ampullae of Lorenzini of a shark.

To fit this purpose his anatomy is mainly made up of primate and electric eel. His primate is a blend of gibbon and chimpanzee to balance strength and agility while swinging. The eel side manifests mainly in its electric abilities, neck and electroreceptor organs that make up the vertical pattern down its body.

Progression of the concept sculpt.

Exploring some ways I can add cyberpunk elements into the design. I ended up with E mainly but I took the taser teeth from F.

Early Concept Bust Sculpts

The Chaser Demon

Have you ever felt like something is behind you snapping at your heels? I used to get it all the time when I was walking up the dark hallway in my family home. That was the inspiration of this scupt. I thought it would be fun to design what I hate to see when looking back over my shoulder.

This creature is an odd blend between shoe bill stork, human and goat. I gave it Jaboa mouse-like legs so it can hop out of shadows in pursuit of its victims. I added a tail to balance out its weight.

Below is an alternate piece where I placed it in a scene that is reminiscent of a tomb or dungeon. 

Two renders of the original finished bust. The one on the left presented more like an oil painting, whereas on the right , I was going from more of an expressive image with moody lighting.

Finalised bust and poly painted concept
Below is the process of creating my demon creature. You can see I pushed the bust I sculpted from the week I did horror creatures. There are some really rough explorations of what the rest of the body will be.  

Creature Concept Exploration  bust sculpts 

Horror Style busts

Alien busts

I loved doing these, I always try to integrate animal DNA into the creature. It greatly informs my design choices and helps me understand a bit more about the environment the creature would inhabit. The first is a humanoid/turkey mix with a wattle covering most of the face and a pretty healthy snood. The second alien is based on the scaly foot snail that lives in volcanos and has iron on its body to help manage the extreme temperatures. The final alien is more akin to your humanoid alien. I was just playing with how I could make it seem close to human but still alien.

Insectoid

Playing around creating fun creatures using insectoid shape language and anatomy.  The highlights for me are the mosquito deer on the right of the first image and the insectoid on the left of the second that is reminiscent of mantis and phragmotic-headed ants like the turtle ant that use their heads to block the entrances to their burrows.  

Fantasy

My favorite without a doubt would be the rat dragon, I would love to push it further. I do like the tree troll with its odd blend of chimpanzee and alligator which strangely gives off a dog-like vibe. The goblin was a fun exercise in taking my humanoid alien from the previous week and turning it into a concept for a completely different genre.

Sea Monkey

This was the first week, so I could decide on a random subject matter. I liked the idea of water primates. The first page and the orangutan/parrot fish concept on the left of the second page would be the most successful designs. 

Staff Party

These are some fun stylized character concepts for a passion project. 

You have probably seen characters like this about the city late on a Friday night.

The Head Bouncer.

The judge jury and executioner of all of your night's plans, the only thing bigger than this unit, is the power trip he is on. Ready at any moment to unleash gratuitous violence and manhandle people in the name of responsible service of alcohol and keeping the peace.   

This is the process of the creation process from sketch to poly painted sculpt, I did the Hi-Vis jacket in Marvelous Designer.

Oldmate The Tradie

This guy has been on the sauce since Smoko. Everyone knows nobody gets back on the tools after lunch on Friday. 

This shows some variations for Oldmate as well as some extra items he might be sporting after a few cleansing ales. 

Etfay the Eshay

Not who you would want to see in a dark alley at night. Maybe he is just using that boxcutter to open flat-pack furniture. But I doubt it.

The slider shows the concept sculpt, the portrait I did to work out the character and some really rough sketches I did before I took it into Zbrush.

Cheers for making it to the end :)