Myths Reimagined - Devi (Georgian Mythology)

Hello everyone :slight_smile:

First of all, thank you to FlippedNormals for this challenge. It helps the community and artists grow, push themselves, and reach new horizons.

Secondly, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish this one, because I’ll be challenging myself with something entirely new: creating a full design from scratch without any prior concept art. I feel like this is a great opportunity to push myself and improve in my hobby.

That being said, I’ve started working on one of the Georgian mythological creatures, adapted to the required futuristic setting, called the Devi, a creature I was obsessed with in my childhood, just like many other mythologies (my favourites are Slavic, Greek, Egyptian ones, but this time around during ideation I wanted to give world and event something entirely new, which was not made before as of my knowledge now).

Devi is an evil spirit in Georgian mythology and folklore. Devis are zoomorphic creatures with horns and multiple heads (sometimes up to one hundred :D). Their strength increases with the number of heads they possess. When a head is severed, a new one immediately grows in its place. They are often depicted as underground dwellers, ancient and powerful, embodying oppression, chaos, and raw force.

I’m not yet sure which direction I’ll take, but as some of you know, I love sharing daily progress updates from my studies in art (for 3rd year now), so this forum will become part of that journey over the next month or so.

Good luck everyone :slight_smile:

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Day 1: Did a quick body sculpt to catch vibe and silhouette of where I want to go.

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Day 2: Shaping concept idea further. Recently acquired 2D skills come handy as well (its incalculably fast for me to design idea in 2D, rather in 3D). However as 3D progresses, I dont particularly like legs, I want something else for him. Since hes underground dweller, some kind of robotic legs? metallic worm? Thoughts aloud, will figure it out tomorrow.

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Day 3: Tried various options, but decided to go with robotic crawling legs (wanted spider/centipede vibes), plus it makes character more unusual and dynamic. One of my community members (Jensonian, thanks) mentioned yesterday that silhouette looks like tube attached to a weapon comes from his “wastes canal” :smiley: So it gave me idea also to intersect weapon with it + air compressor system, creating organic circulation and merging body with mech even more. Another member mentioned to add maybe googles and extra screens (thanks Filip2112), which I’ll be also trying but a bit later.

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Day 4: Silhouette was clearly lacking weight, so fixed that. Starting breaking down forms. I’m still unsure about weapon arm, I want him to have something blade kind, plasma/firearm weapon doesnt really make sense in tunnels. Maybe some kind of a hole-digging mechanism? Will think more about it later, but I want to make silhouette more triangulate, rather than squarish/bubble he looks rn. For now I want to finish blockout and move to modelling.

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Day 5: Transitioning from ZBrush to Blender (or other modelling software for that matter) always feels unnatural for me at first (probably because I learned ZBrush as my 1st 3D software 3 years ago and sculpting workflow comes for me much more familiar), but when its about efficiency and time, whats most practical gets green light. Anyways, jumped to blender and start working on low/mid poly based on design ideas and main shapes I have for now.

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Day 6: Continued with modelling blockouts into a clean low/mid poly shapes. Removed blade thing from weapon (didnt clicked for me), reduced living arm in size to break symmetry further and so anatomical design would have more sense with a bit of extra story.

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Day 7: Continued with refinement of low/mid poly plus trying to break up silhouette of legs and introduce more negative space. Not sure if thats work rn, because I want to implement some kind of hydraulic system, but we will see, I don’t want to stuck on it for too long for now.

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Day 8: Figuring out silhouette for legs that would satisfy function I was looking for took a while, but feels like I came closer. Weapon arm still looks weird tho, I’ll work on it tomorrow.

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Really like that you are willing to change things up as you go. Some really cool choices!

Thanks! Yeah, took me 3 years to learn this skill, but now gladly I’m at point when I don’t rush in excitement anymore to finish character as fast as possible to see result because of rush :smiley: taking my time until I’m satisfied

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Day 9: Decided to go with drill. Beside of giving more brutal/evil/underground vibes to this character, it was also one of my grandfather instruments I was playing most during childhood (4-5 yo) so figuring out its functional design might come out easier too.

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Day 10: Back to ZBrush, want to quickly test out ideas which grown up on me during modelling, also want to change heads to appear more different, having different horns and mask on one isnt enough I think.

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Day 11: Decided to rework legs (again). Last ones were creating way too many parallel lines and negative shapes appeared weird, so will be trying something else. Also pushing ideas further with what I can add to story part.

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Day 12: Testing materials, forms, overlappings. Helm on 2nd head kinda fits, so I might leave it with little adjustments to make it more tech. Back to modelling tomorrow. Time is short so need to start organizing meshes.

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Day 13: I think I found working design for legs at last, however with it I feel like overall design is way too “clean” now and needs more chaotic/overlapping stuff, will figure it out tomorrow.

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Day 14: Added extra pipes, connections, etc, trying to break up lines and order a bit. Want to work a bit on head area and body tomorrow, I don’t want metal to appear like he just wears them, I want it to be embedded into his overgrown bloating body to create sense that hes been in that metal for decades or centuries.

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Day 15: Changed neck area (got inspiration from Hobbit’s underground goblin king), will work on that direction further. Adjusted couple other details. Tomorrow going to start mesh/hp/lp organizations while doing some adjustments and adding minor details.

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Day 16: Started HP/LP organization and retopology/optimization process.

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Day 17: Continued with organizational processes. Also caught myself on a thought that leg platforms look too vertical thus creating parallel lines. Will think of how to break them down tomorrow.

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