World Building Week 5: Halloween

This weeks theme is Halloween, i'm not entirely sure which direction i want to take, though i know that i want to do something more classic this time. I would like to start out by sketching a variety of designs for the different 'halloween monsters' such as the headless horseman, hell hounds, vampire etc but with my own twist and then decide which to take forward.

I would like to challenge myself to do a concept sketch, model sheet and then create a low poly model of the creature - with a 2D paintover instead of texturing.  However this will only be possible if i get enough time. I may have a new big client project starting up over the weekend so if that happens i will have to just stick to a concept sketch.

Here is my reference sheet so far:

Here are some descriptions for 3 of the creatures that i would like to explore during the sketch stage, using information from past interpretations, to help me to generate ideas and to keep coherent to the original creature:

• Headless Horseman: A headless fair usually riding a black horse carrying his head under one arm, wielding a whip made from a human spine. Sometimes he is the headless driver of a black carriage. Sometimes the horse is also headless. In the Brothers Grimm he is also depicted as a headless man in a long grey coat sitting on a great horse, with a horn to warn riders not to ride the next day as an accident will occur. In some occasions he has a pack of black hounds with tongues of fire.
• Hell Hounds: A supernatural dog often featuring black fur, glowing red or yellow eyes, super strength and speed, ghostly or phantom characteristic and sometimes the ability to talk or even fire based abilities / appearance. Can vary in size from being the same as a standard dog or as big as a large horse. Some interpretations are headless, float on a carpet of mist, spectral in form, in the form of a mule or horse. They seem to usually be associated with lost travelers either killing them or helping them back to the safe roads.
• Vampire: Mythological beings that must feed on the essence of living creatures (most often blood) in order to stay alive. They have been interpreted almost as normal humans but also as bloated rotting corpses, or animated dead. Common attributes consist of purple or dark skin, gaunt, bloated, fanged teeth, long hair and nails aswell as blood-drinking. Vampires also often have the ability to change form into a bat, firefly, large taloned bird or even snakes. Lastly vampire can also sometimes animate the dead and sometimes take beautiful or appealing forms during the day and change during the night. One depiction is: reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence from their victims. They are said to be created when a person's soul fails to leave the deceased's body

I've been given a new project from a client so unfortunately i'll have less time to spend on this, which means i'm going to have to only explore the first choice' Headless Horseman' 

Here is a sheet of silhouettes for the horse and the rider:

My favorites at the moment are G / J for the horse and N / O for the rider. I like the highwayman approach for the rider, i think the more armored designs are a little unnecessary and not very practical. Also removing the head of the horse  seems like an interesting idea, either leaving it as just a spine with a face on cloth or replacing the head with a pumpkin also.  although i'm pleased with most of the designs for the horse so this will be a tough choice.

Have been teaching myself how to UVW unwrap in maya all weekend and after texturing 5 objects today i really needed to do something creative so here's a sketch - i love Tom Scholes work so i tried to analyse how he works and implement it a bit here:

Two sketches using my silhouettes as reference. Think i should probably still add more to their designs but i'l probably just jump into painting tomorrow and see how it goes.

Quick pencil sketch adding a lambs head skewered onto the spine, and seeing what things i could hang from the saddle - though i never included these in the final artwork.

Final presentation artwork, really needs cleaning up and also i'm not sure how well this will display on the projector - my monitor doesnt seem to like dark values so this may look very dark.