Opinicorvus Design Conceptualization
My design was initially built off a D&D character idea I had of a pompous, dramatic Aarakocra thief with a fixation on stealing jewels to build up funds for an empire.
I started out with the thief idea and the concept of making them a griffin instead of a full Aarakocra, conceptualizing that they would break into a vault and steal jewels with skills related to their anatomy such as mimicry like real crows, long lion claws for lock picking and flight capabilities. They were also conceptualised to wear a cowl over their head and their wings would drape to look like a cloak.
I ended up deciding to go with a different idea as we were encouraged to choose a more dynamic creature over mostly human anatomy, and I felt that I should try pushing myself more out of my comfort zone.
For the second concept, I took more inspiration from the Opinicus legend; being a mythical creature seen on the streets of Britain at night scavenging for food. I considered example ideas I was given, like including steampunk qualities to the design such as mechanical wings or legs. I then looked into some horror creature designs from video games such as Nemesis from Resident Evil and Cheshire from Bayonetta, which generated the idea of the creature’s body having material and feather patches stitched on to give it an animatronic appearance.
I further compounded the idea with some research into the steampunk sub-category and its many societal issues, along with the many pushbacks against these struggles. Hence, I created the idea of an Opinicus automaton was created to hunt the rich at night. In addition, I also had considered giving them owl-like eyes instead to further connote a nocturnal hunter.
I decided to scrap this concept as well due to the fact that this concept is mostly inorganic, and the point of the assignment is to teach us anatomy of living creatures and how to apply it to a 3D model, hence the over usage of machinery in the design would be against what I need to learn in this module.
Finally, I ultimately decided to use the steampunk idea as the basis for my final character concept’s setting. I took the Victorian Era setting and the definition that a scavenger animal eats carrion and dead plant material to create an alternate reality type setting where the world had collapsed back in the Victorian Era, and the Opinicorvus was a species that evolved after the apocalypse.