Making of:

Minor Project
By Torran Rodgers - 14/01/2022
Early Project Proposals
Narrative Development
Non-human resources
The Premise:
An alien explorer goes to his organisation and applies for a new
partner.

The Logline:
Due to his kind nature and friendship with his current mission
partner, he is unable to keep them safe. Because of this he is seeking
for them both to be reassigned to different teams.
Narrative Development
Non-human resources
Step Outline:
We start in space seeing the mothership and listening to the radio
We see Ranger 1 sitting in an interview situation where the interviewer (Behind the character) Starts the
interview reviewing their request.
We cut to situations as they are being described by Ranger 1.
Ranger 2 is shown telling his side of the story in a non-linier way, we see them in the same interview room at
separate times giving examples of positive situations.
These situations are also bad in the perspective of Ranger 1, as Ranger 2 boasts his social skills, we see him
accidently launch Ranger 1 into Space
These situations escalate, often to comedic magnitude.
A Mission robot is brought into testify and its response is so bad it breaks its coding
The robot reveals survival possibilities within a mission with ranger 2 alone and When Ranger 1 is with them.
Ranger 1 gives a moving monologue on how he cannot keep Ranger 2 safe.
The interviewer reports that Ranger 2 has been assigned to “Tom ------”
Ranger 1 gets very worried quoting his nickname as “Build a bomb tom”
Ranger 2 Bursts into the interview with ranger 1 proudly carrying his first hand-made bomb before destroying
the wall sucking them out into space.
Non-human Resources - Script
Early Drawings - Non - Human resources
Early Drawings - Non - Human resources
Minor Project Direction Change
Upon reviewing my idea and the types of projects I am
available to do for this project. I will be swapping to a more
creature design based project. This change came about
through discussion with my tutors and gaining a better
understanding of building a portfolio of the career direction
I want post graduation.

Many elements of my first project where just disguised

creature design project anyway so with this I can focus on a
creature design project
Minor: Creature Feature
After Discussion about how the designs would be
presented, a first person journal of a stranded xeno-
biologist is the method I have decided. The Journal will be
a design document for a fly through of the alien planet
showing the creatures moving around, existing in there
own ecosystem on this strange planet.

The main focus of the project will be to design multiple

creature before the end of minor. leading into making
them in major as well as animating them.
Creature Feature : BIO
Character:
William is an eccentric Genius in all forms, his encyclopaedic knowledge of creatures and their evolutionary chains
made him a standout xenobiologist when training for the fleet. However due to his poor social skills he was unable to
ask for a reassignment, leaving him in a position on a non-exploratory ship. This has made him sluggish and monotone
in nature, however, explodes out of this shell when dealing with creatures. As such he finds himself over excitable and
brash when dealing with the unknown, even when being self-restrained by addiment professionalism. Due to his
intelligence, he can be seen by his peers as quite cold and logical even with his great love of all creatures.
Creature Feature : Plan
An Plan was made on how the story of the document would go, I split the story up into entries each on in first person
talking about what had just happened to our protagonist William McManus.

Each entry was a few sentences long and I made a bullet point plan of what was needed to go along with it. This would
be useful as I knew everything I needed to make to go into the journal.
Creature Feature : Early thumbnails

Initial shape research in silhouette

Zbrush Tests
Testing to see if thumbnailing would be useful in zbrush, to
mixed results

It can be incorporated but is no

substitute for thumbnailing
Creature one
Creature one was
thumbnailed and rendered
in photo shop following
the idea i had for the
creature in the story.
Creature one
Designing how the form was adorned was the next
step, followed by colour and pattern.
Creature one - Final
Creature Two
Creature two was
thumbnailed and rendered
in photo shop. Before I
used Zbrush to see the
shape in 3D and test it gain
for the Design process
Creature Two
In Zbrush I made Marquette's
to see how the creature could
look similar to designing in
photoshop however I didn't
like how these came out very
dino like, so I did a redesign.
Creature Two

I Assessed what I
liked and didn't like
and allowed that to
inform a redesign
that followed the
creatures position
in the narrative
better.
Creature Two
The redesign followed closer the initial ideas of the
creature pushing it away from dinosaurs however still
keeping certain aspects of designs to crate an prehistory
feeling. using photo textures to detail the creature across
large areas
Creature Three
Creature 3 started on photoshop
with thumbnails as well as a
rendering of 3 designs I really
liked.
Creature Three
For creature 3 I
focused on real
creatures and how
they use there
anatomy to help
survive, I looked at
hunting fish for
inspiration for the
river dwelling
creature
Creature Three Because I used the
reference and designs
of real animals to
inspire how I decorated
the thumbnails of
creature 3. the Zbrush
sculpts came out
similar to each other as
I had a solid idea in
mind.
Creature Three
Using the Zbrush sculpt as a
multiply layer I was able to colour
and texture deeper the design,
ending with a design I'm happy
with, however its presented in a
way that could be better to portray
the style of the media its being
used for. a more realist style
render.
Creature Four
Creature 4 Started the same
as all the other creatures,
giving me a good
understanding of what the
creature could be before
adorning it.
Creature Four
Creature four was simpler to
design as I now had 2 creatures
that could be used as reference
when finishing the designs. And
I'm recreating those 2 into a
different size and stance.
Creature Four
upon completing creature 4 I realised that all 3
creature look very similar and create 2 and 4 have
strayed from the interesting designs found in the
Thumbnails, I should
consider this moving
forwards as in an
attempt to make them
look similar, I haven't
made them unique
enough to be
interesting.
Creature 3 and 4
Creature 3 and 4 next to each other for comparative
size.
Creature 5

Creature 5 is set to be a
competing evolution on the
planet as such even from the
thumbnails and renderings.
Its meant to look more alien
then the other creatures.
Creature 5
Creature 5 was
completely designed
in photoshop using
brushes and photo-
bashing, after the
rendering of the
thumbnails I moved
on to dressing and
colouring the
creature to fit the
threating elements of
its story.
Creature 5
I took my favourite aspects of the creature and
finalised the design of creature 5.
Creature 6
Creature 6 is a larger
apelike version of
creature 5. because of
this the only design
heavy stage was the
thumbnailing and
rendering of the
creature, before the
creature 5 design is
attached to the form
Creature 6

Creature 6's final

design finalised
within photoshop
using photo textures
and texture brushes
Creature 5 and 6
Creature 5 and 6 next to each other for scale
Creature 7
Creature was
thumbnailed in
photoshop however
I didn't find these
particularly useful
and as such used a
different method to
generate designs.
Creature 7
Drawing random
shapes in my
sketchbook and
using a camera
with a mirror
filter I generated
a verity of super
interesting faces.
Creature 7
From these faces I picked 3 to develop bust drawing
from. trying to pull the design through the shoulders
and starting of the arms
Creature 7
These busts lead to
designs of 2
creature that I
liked before
picking the one
that would match
the effect I wanted
the design to have
in the story
Creature 7
Creature 7's final design is suited
for its role in the story a large
giant like creature seen at the
end, used to confuse and
question what the planet is and
making the zoologist and the
audience a bit confused
The End