Final Submission
Supporting Material
Action Sketch
(click for full size image)
After playing around with lots of different ideas, I decided to do a Sawshark design.
I merged the long, flat snout of Common Sawsharks with the rounded, vertical tooth wheel of the ancient Spiral Sawshark, to get a long, flat, vertical, rounded saw appendage that evokes a chainsaw look -- which is not only a great basis for steel typing, but it's also a great excuse for visual badassery! And since the spiral sawshark was a prehistoric creature, I decided to mix in some dinosaur-inspired physiology to create an imposing Water/Steel beast.
At the beginning of the art thread, I really hated this typing and concept because it was so frustrating to design. But after getting hooked on a Sawshark theme, I really enjoyed working on this design. I only wish I would have had more time to do more sketches and other fun stuff.
I like many other designs in the this thread, and I am excited to see what we choose!
Supporting Material
Action Sketch
(click for full size image)
After playing around with lots of different ideas, I decided to do a Sawshark design.
I merged the long, flat snout of Common Sawsharks with the rounded, vertical tooth wheel of the ancient Spiral Sawshark, to get a long, flat, vertical, rounded saw appendage that evokes a chainsaw look -- which is not only a great basis for steel typing, but it's also a great excuse for visual badassery! And since the spiral sawshark was a prehistoric creature, I decided to mix in some dinosaur-inspired physiology to create an imposing Water/Steel beast.
Going into this CAP, I knew I wanted to make an animal-based design (as opposed to humanoid), and hopefully give it a badass edge. I've done plenty of cutemons in the past, and really haven't done a full-on badass in a while. But I wanted to avoid doing a fish design, mostly because I just did that on CAP 17 (twice, in fact, on the same design!) and I just couldn't get excited about doing another one. The idea of a sawshark seemed really interesting to me, and a great way to do a water/steel badass -- but I just couldn't get past the idea of doing "yet another fish".
But then I stumbled across some spiral sawshark pictures, and started reading about how paleontologists debate as to what these creatures looked like, since they only have these mysterious circular saw teeth in the fossil record. And that started my imagination going about various dinosaur sawshark hybrid ("chainsawsharkasaurus"?) designs that could be much more than "yet another fish".
I decided to go with a hunched, horizontal pose, partly because I wanted the shark body theme to be obvious, but also because it is a menacing, scheming pose. I was trying to channel scenes of the stalking Velociraptors and TRexes from Jurassic Park, if any movie buffs out there know what I'm talking about.
I tried to juxtaposition long flowing body curves with squared corners and cubic patterns in the design elements. Hopefully it mixes the visual "feel" of water (curves) with steel (edges) in the right way. That's what I was going for anyway.
I really wanted to do the design with brownish/reddish coloring, since the common sawshark is brownish and I was excited about bringing a rusted metal look to the design. But I feared CAP voters wouldn't get it, and would give me the dreaded "It looks like a Ground type" comments or whatever. On top of that, most sharks are gray or blueish, which are dead-on perfect for Steel and Water anyway. So, I checked my quirky coloring tastes at the door and went with gray and blue. In the end, I had a lot of fun doing the brushed stainless steel look for the metal, so it's all good.
But then I stumbled across some spiral sawshark pictures, and started reading about how paleontologists debate as to what these creatures looked like, since they only have these mysterious circular saw teeth in the fossil record. And that started my imagination going about various dinosaur sawshark hybrid ("chainsawsharkasaurus"?) designs that could be much more than "yet another fish".
I decided to go with a hunched, horizontal pose, partly because I wanted the shark body theme to be obvious, but also because it is a menacing, scheming pose. I was trying to channel scenes of the stalking Velociraptors and TRexes from Jurassic Park, if any movie buffs out there know what I'm talking about.
I tried to juxtaposition long flowing body curves with squared corners and cubic patterns in the design elements. Hopefully it mixes the visual "feel" of water (curves) with steel (edges) in the right way. That's what I was going for anyway.
I really wanted to do the design with brownish/reddish coloring, since the common sawshark is brownish and I was excited about bringing a rusted metal look to the design. But I feared CAP voters wouldn't get it, and would give me the dreaded "It looks like a Ground type" comments or whatever. On top of that, most sharks are gray or blueish, which are dead-on perfect for Steel and Water anyway. So, I checked my quirky coloring tastes at the door and went with gray and blue. In the end, I had a lot of fun doing the brushed stainless steel look for the metal, so it's all good.
At the beginning of the art thread, I really hated this typing and concept because it was so frustrating to design. But after getting hooked on a Sawshark theme, I really enjoyed working on this design. I only wish I would have had more time to do more sketches and other fun stuff.
I like many other designs in the this thread, and I am excited to see what we choose!
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