Images created by Project Burner
This week I am going to be showcasing some first drafts of concept art. These are very early sketches on scrap paper, and I plan on making nicer versions in the sketchbook to refine the concepts. I have had a concept in mind for quite some time, a snakelike organism with wings and a spiked pendulum like tail. The picture in my mind is actually pretty vivid, and includes the energy hawks method of propulsion. The wings of the creature are made of shimmering energy flowing on a bone scaffold. The center of the creature has a head one one end, then a heavy weighted tail on the other. The creature hovers in the air by flapping its wings, able to stay in relatively the same position without moving forward, similar to how a humming bird can hover. Earth hummingbirds are spectacular animals, with rapidly beating wings and an incredible metabolism, but Energy Hawks will not have to deal with that environment. I am thinking that their home planet has a thicker, more oxygen rich atmosphere, although maybe not as O2, but as some other less reactive molecule like a sulfur or nitrogen oxide. I also think the atmosphere is constantly pulsing with electric currents, to help explain how the energy hawk can have the charged matter which compose the creature's wings. That is going a bit deep into alien biology and Exo-Planet world building, but I do want to point out the Energy Hawk's odd form of locomotion.
The picture in my mind for the method of propulsion is actually pretty vivid. The hawk spins around, winding in its tail while using its wings to remain in the same spatial position. The hawk then unwinds the tail, continuing to rotate in the same direction, before closing its wings and lunging forward. Hopefully the combination of the diagram and explanation is enough to convey the proposed mechanism, but I plan on later refining the images as I make a clay or even CG model, although attempts at the latter are proving to be a little more challenging than I had anticipated.
I am moving into the content phase of the Project Burner production cycle, so this is just the beginning of the creatures and monsters which I plan on introducing to the game.