Unreal Universe Monsters! Lets make some art together!

[Sly.]

I'm actually liking it a lot. Sweet sweet sweet!

Similar criticism here though, but I guess it's more the neck being too long. Try to move the head down a bit. Increase the shoulder width by a tiny bit and add some more muscle mass to the upper arms and chest and I think it's on a good way! Oh, one more thing might be necessary: Try to extend the skull's top (what looks like a rotated cap on the back of its head, that characteristic element) so it's a bit longer (just not too much), it could be a bit tiny bit too short right now I think.
This definitely screams "updated Krall" right now.

PS: The Nali Cow mouth looks good Kazeo! Same with the low poly renders. I hope you will get that sorted out, bummer about the import issue!

[KazeoHin-TechAE]

Hi, sorry for the absence..
Anyway, I started to draw some more variations, but that didn't really go anywhere, so I skipped directly to sculpting instead.

So here's the result after some sculpting (just don't look at the feet )





Criticism, Ideas and comments are of course welcome.

Wow! Really great work! I'm thinking it's already turning out better than the UT3 monstrosity. I can't wait to see more work.

[BigFatErik]

That Krall is looking pretty good!! But let's take a closer look at the Unreal monsters in the context of the Unreal universe, which may help us with Invasion.

1) Krall:



To me, the Krall were sort of a dopey race of weakling monsters that were conquered by the Skaarj Empire, but they were sadistic ******** who just went along willingly because they could inflict some pain on even weaker races like the Nali. I say this because of the way the Krall look and act - they were smaller than the Skaarj, and even slightly smaller than the humans. They were easily scared, and weren't very disciplined. They had a weak staff that fired off some nondescript energy blasts, probably the equivalent of "phasers set to stun".

However, it's also important to note that their appearance in Unreal 1 was probably not how we might see the Krall in their natural state. They have an important addition: metal implants all along their skin. This is significant because we can see other races get the "modification" treatment once they are inducted into the Skaarj Empire.

Gameplay-wise, this could mean that the low level Krall are in their natural state with just a cod piece, a chest belt, and a staff. Higher level Krall variants could get their shoulder spikes, and their metal Skaarj implants that give them more health or speed or whatever would fit for the gameplay.





2) Brutes:



The Liandri Archives wiki describes the brutes as "Killing Machines of the Skaarj", which could mean a couple things: either they are another conquered race that does some of the grunt enforcing work for the Skaarj, or they are genetically modified creatures bred for this type of stuff. Perhaps both, who knows. In any case, we can see three "tiers" of brutes: bandoleer brutes with no modifications, modded brutes with implants / armor shards connected by belts up around their chest, and armored brutes emblazoned with some sort of logo on their chest - probably a word in the Skaarj language.

Again, this could be significant for the ascending levels of Invasion, where the monsters get tougher and tougher. To bring it back around to the original point: we can see that the monsters have been "modified" from their (presumably) original natural state. The Krall have metal implants around their body, and so do the brutes.






3) Mercenaries:



Well there ya go, it pretty much says right in their name that this is a race that works for the Skaarj either voluntarily, or involuntarily. Then again, they could also be COMPETING against the Skaarj for the resources found on Na Pali, who knows. Personally, I assume they work with toxic waste material, considering theyre found in and around the toxic green goo (if I recall correctly), and theyre also quite technologically advanced considering they have access to a personal shield belt. Again, this relates back to the Krall because they are wearing technology, and not in their "natural" state. Increasing levels of technology could mean increasing difficulty levels as the player ascends through Invasion.





So yeah, the point I'm trying to make with this entire post is that the monsters could start out basically weak and naked, then get more and more technology added onto them which grants them more abilities and makes them more difficult to combat / avoid. The "naked" Krall (who just needs a cod piece tbh) could be found in level 2 or 3 or something, then the geared up Krall could be found in levels 4 or 5 or 6 +

[iLikeTheUDK]

There's this Polish dude who once made these sketches of some Unreal monsters.




You could really use them at least partially as concept art...
Back when the remake was still going on, I tried to get this guy to do concept art for it. Unfortunately it turns out he quit drawing about 10 years ago. Still doesn't make these any less awesome. Turns out he's a musician now, BTW. Go look up Maciej Kulesza on SoundCloud.

(Please tell me you've seen that, KazeoHin...)

[KazeoHin-TechAE]

Those sketches are super cool. I can't believe I've never seen them before.

Since Unreal Editor is STILL not letting me import models, I've decided to do a bit more work on my cow:



THIS COW IS GEARING FOR BATTLE!

[Metalfist]

Nice start on the Krall there!

Also those sketches look really cool. I've never seen those before either.
Those are really atmospheric/set the right mood, but don't really serve that well as concept art as a lot of detail is vague or black.

@Kazeo: Lol, beware the cows! Those bolted horns don't really make any sense :P

[papercoffee]

@Kazeo: Lol, beware the cows! Those bolted horns don't really make any sense :P

It's an device to make the cow terrifying...
"Oh my Gosh, this cow is soooo cuuute with its little armour and those tiny horns OMG IT'S ASSAILING US!!!! RUN!!!"

[zedmaster]

Mooooooooooo I want this! Great job!

[Hunterman]

Well there ya go, it pretty much says right in their name that this is a race that works for the Skaarj either voluntarily, or involuntarily. Then again, they could also be COMPETING against the Skaarj for the resources found on Na Pali, who knows. Personally, I assume they work with toxic waste material, considering theyre found in and around the toxic green goo (if I recall correctly), and theyre also quite technologically advanced considering they have access to a personal shield belt. Again, this relates back to the Krall because they are wearing technology, and not in their "natural" state. Increasing levels of technology could mean increasing difficulty levels as the player ascends through Invasion.

Actually, Mercenaries are competing with the Skaarj if the Scout in Harobed with Mercenary corpses around it was of any indication, we think they're there to scavenge technology to sell to whoever wants it for high expenses, the Skaarj there want to kick them off the planet, remember they weren't exclusive to just Toxic Waste material levels if RTN was of any indication, they will aggressively attack skaarj because they're not their employers so that logic is shot down.

[AndyN]

As usual, thanks for the input everyone. Here's the new, slightly updated one:

[rapfamily4]

As far as I'm concerned, its chest looks too much human. It would be nice designing a unique and more alien muscular anatomy for the Krall.

[papercoffee]

Yes... much better. The silhouette is directly recognisable as a Krall.
rapfamily mentioned a much to humane like muscular system... maybe he is right. But for the Skaarj did no one raise a complaint that it would look too human.
hmmm... maybe just erase the sixpack and it should be good.

[Wail]

As far as I'm concerned, its chest looks too much human. It would be nice designing a unique and more alien muscular anatomy for the Krall.

Agreed. Right now the body is almost giving off a centaur vibe to me because the torso musculature is too humanoid. Granted, you're going to have similar musculature since the gross forms are the same, but I think having that much definition just pushes it into uncanniness.
A good skin shader might make the overall form read fine & more 'alien' without changing the model at all.

[KazeoHin-TechAE]

So, I managed to find the issue with exporting/importing from FBX. and now... Mr. Cow is in the engine!






No eyes yet, still need to work out the method by which I will implement the eyes, I wanted to wait for the in-engine version before I went playing around with that sort of thing.

[AndyN]

Nice to see it move on to the next phase, KazeoHin. It looks really good. (a bit creepy without the eyes though )