Painting the Interdimensional Traveler - ZBrush Creature Design: Creating Dynamic Concept Imagery for Film and Games - page 319

this movement. Simply having big muscles or odd and interesting textures and body parts is nothing. Good
creature designers are masters at creating believable speculative anatomy that ties all these elements together
and gives them the realism that sells the concept. This is what appeals to me as a concept artist. Sometimes
the idea for a character is inspired by images of real creatures, like insects or animals. Other times I try not
to look at reference images and just design without any reference. This character was done like this. The
only two thoughts I had in starting was I wanted him to be insect-like and I wanted him to have some sort of
flap/valve organs to show an unconventional respiratory system ( Figure 5-92 ) .
Figure 5-92: The flaps in the exoskeleton serve as a design feature and imply a kind of alien respiratory
system.
I started with a base mesh in Maya ( Figure 5-93 ) and then sent it in to ZBrush to begin sculpting. I usually
start with base meshes rather than using ZSpheres, but I really don't have one set way of working that I
follow for every piece. After a little bit of work, I finally have a basic design for the silhouettes and overall