I’m going to wrap up the critter redesign with his back. I wanted to figure out how all of that anatomy would work – how he would curl up and then roll along. As I had mentioned, I decided to give him small legs on his back like that of a caterpillar.
The idea I had for the back legs was that they would be sharp to take on all types of terrain and even assist it with climbing near vertical surfaces when rolling.
One note I should mention on the redesign is the exclusion of the critter’s needle-darts. This was from the first movie (I don’t think it was used in future movies?) where the critter would curl up slightly and porcupine-like needles would shoot out from its fur to hit a victim. The victim would then succumb to what I believe was a powerful tranquilizer in it. I didn’t include this for 2 reasons. First off, and more importantly, I didn’t see it fitting into the creature’s design. The critter is supposed to be a major killing/eating machine. The darts just seemed too passive. It didn’t fit. The second reason is that with my inclusion of the back legs, it would have been too much stuff on this little guy. I could have just hid them in the hair, but still I had the first reason of it not fitting in to what I think of what the critter is.
So there you have it – my redesign of the critter. I had a lot of fun working on this and I have a few more creature redesigns that I have swirling around my head. Stay tuned to see what is redesigned next.
And if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.
Click here for part five of designing a new Critter – Direction Found
Click here for part four of designing a new Critter – Finding a Direction – Part 2
Click here for part three of designing a new Critter – Finding a Direction – Part 1
Click here for part two of designing a new Critter – Huntin’ Down Reference
Click here for part one of designing a new Critter – My Kind of Critter
Josh Hagen 