Adaptation B: Developing The Deviation

  The discussion with Alan today helped me find a direction with my project. Departing from a rat was a good start, and one of the key pieces of advice I walked away with was that when it comes ot my source creatures, I should take away what makes them characteristic, hopefully left with something weird. Rats without their fur are quite wrinkly and chickens without their feathers look bizarre and strange.

  One thing that was touched on in the discussion was lizards. I considered adding some lizard-like features and I was recommended to look at running lizards. Which move quite differently and at a very different pace from the normal kind. One species, the basilisk, has such a speed and such a surface area on its feet that it can run on water. Most of these lizards are quite small, thin and agile. And such a creature might be more familiar historically to South America than either rats or chickens, creatures that have a more familiar history in Europe and Asia. Which ties into a thought I had recently that it's far more likely "white rat with a rooster's head" is the legend's way of describing what this thing looks like. Being a by-eye interpretation, it's possible the creature looks nothing like a giant rat. Which gives some design flexibility; for one I am intrigued at giving it legs like these running lizards (which have been described as moving like a bicycle, could be interesting to animate)

Adapation B: More Concept Thumbnails

   Today I decided to get some concept work done and looked at fleshing up Colo Colo. Putting bodies over the skeletons I had drawn up. This also gave me room for experimentation with Colo Colo's form. Presently I am leaning towards 7 and 19, which for me feel more characterful. A peculiar outcome as these two were drawn with framework ,rather than full skeletons. 

  The tablet driver was playing up a little so I went to do some sketching. I decided to look at hands and feet, interested in somehow melding the anatomies of rat paws and chicken feet. But I also was curious to know what their paws actually looked like.

  When I did get around to some concept art for the hands and feet I realised something - Colo Colo is vampiric, It stinks the house it dwells in with the smell of rotting flesh, this thing is of the undead. So a healthy colour would look wring. In a previous level-three course I recall seeing some birds brought in, encased in glass, one of which was unfortunately suffering a little decay on its legs, which had turned slightly greenish. So maybe some discolouration would sell this thing as a disturbing, undead creature of the night. My preferences for the colouration are 24, 26, 33 and possibly 27.

Adaptation B: Colo Colo Concept Design

  With some idea down I decided to move on to concept images for a proper look into the creature. The main aim was to look into combining the traits posessed by the animals I was using as a base reference. Looking at rats and roosters to see what shapes could fit where.

  It was brought to my attention that the creature looked a little stiff. And it was suggested to look into understanding the skeleton as something to build on, as is the purpose of a skeleton. It has helped give some idea and I suppose the next step would be to 'flesh up' for a pose sheet. From my attempts to create a coherent structure, I think I have narrowed odwn on a design. One thing that was of particular interest was that I found that the spine of a rat tends to arch upwards between the base of the shoulder blade and the hip when it is on all four legs, likely what gives the distinctive rear arch many rodents possess.

  One thing I considered investigating was the skull. I looked at images of rat and chicken skulls, drawing them in order to understand what forms or intricacies the two may have shared that could be useful in a combinaiton of the two structures. Some leements are indeed shared, but at the same time there are notable structural differences. The chicken skull has a number of large gaps and thin bridges, likely an evolutionary feature to help reduce the creature's weight, while the rat skull by comparison was a lot more block-like, with a more solid snout and a larger encased area for the brain (which might explain why rat eyes somewhat bulge out of the head).

  With all this in mind I moved on to try and merge features of the two, although I wonder if the head I created from the attempt looks like a hawk's. In hindsight I also recall that like in humans and other animals, the nose of a rat is spongy cartilage, not bone, and thus continues forward from the nasal openings. This differs from the beak of a bird, where the nostrils are holes in the skull and any cartilage present is used to reduce the size of these holes.