After having completed my 3D Modelling For Games class in April 2020, I wanted to transfer those skills from the traditional human figures that we practiced to a more abstract form. During my experience with these human figures, I found that my drawing of hands was not up to my standards, and thus took this practice effort as a challenge for myself to sculpt as many hands as possible.

When starting a new design, I normally pick a verb that I want to accentuate through the design. In this case, given my intent to emphasize the hand sculpting, I decided my verb to be “Grabbing”. With this keyword in place, I felt adding more than the traditional 2 arms to the monster would be a dynamic addition that aligned with my goals for the project. This is what led to the arms that extended out of the back of the creature.

When it came to designing the face, I couldn’t really decide on how to truly make this creature unnerving and unique. So I took a step away from the project to try and gather inspiration. I came across a documentary on carnivorous dragonflies and their lifecycles. It turns out that these dragonfly larvae have a grappling hand that extends from around their chest to bring food back to the mouth (Figure 2). I felt this was a really cool way that the dragonfly would eat and an idea that I could easily translate to this design where the monster has an arm that extends from its chest and acts as the bottom jaw.

To this point, I had been attempting to imagine how the monster behaves in the world. I felt that it would eat with its jaw arm while grappling people with the remaining arms. I was visualizing this creature with the mannerisms and behaviors of a spider or octopus. Following that process, I then thought about how this creature would move around, which is when I felt that the legs had to go. The monster already had two arms that could easily reach the ground and, going with the motif of a “giant spider creature”, I felt that it was appropriate to remove the feet entirely, ending up as stubs (Figure 4).

What I learned

Hands still are a challenging endeavor in any artistic medium, but this assignment allowed me to become slightly more confident in my work. Practicing the elements of sculpting and modeling was a very informative process, even more so when working with a creature that does not share many of the same traits as a normal humanoid.

The design process for this monster was a lot of fun and something I hope to replicate in future projects. Going into the design with some inspiration, though abstract, gave me guidance with what I felt the monster should look like when it was completed.