With my portfolio freshly updated, it's offical:
I'M LOOKING FOR WORK!✨
I'm Kika, a concept artist specializing in creature design.
Prev: Volta (Guild Wars 2), Rare (Everwild), Procreate, 3DTotal
✉️k.lexova
@hotmail
.com
not to give this guy any more attention but this attitude is so widespread and honestly the bane of my existence as a creature designer
the amount of times I've had to throw out interesting, awesome designs because anything not mammal = "unrelatable"
THIS is not a face I can relate to, sympathize for, or even have a dialogue with. This screams at me to kill it with fire. Even IF I didn't want to kill this thing, I want to be in orbit, far away from this creature. It's horrific, and only a contrarian can argue against that.
do you ever think about how our industry's dismissal of creature design as a legitimate discipline directly mirrors our general attitude towards animals/nature
I think about it a lot
Gharials (or gavials) are ancient, fish-eating crocodilians native to India. They are sadly critically endangered, with only about 200 gharials remaining in the wild. The Prague Zoo runs one of the breeding programs fighting for the survival of these beautifully unique animals.
SUPER excited to post this little guy!
A few years back, I was asked to design a sidekick creature for the main characters of an animation pitch.
We ended up deciding on this adorable little bioluminescent salamander with a hidden third eye 👁️
And not to go too deep on this, but this attitude is just...repugnant and dangerous. It has measurable and severe impacts on biodiversity and which species get protection.
Imagine discounting like 90% of all life on earth because "not relatable"
In practice, this can mean making conscious decisions to include non-mammalian creatures in your design options.
Clients may not pick them, but if you really believe and show that all animal groups are equal in your work, it can have an impact on how those around you think.
I firmly believe that creature artists have a duty to push less charismatic animals into the spotlight and perhaps slowly change public perception of what's cute/likeable & worth protecting.
It's not just instinct, a huge chunk of it is cultural and it *can* be influenced!
Howdy
#VisibleWomen
!
I'm Kika, a concept artist & creature designer with a vast love of the natural world.
I'm also an avid wildlife recorder, forager, and moth trapper 🌿🍄🦋
✨Currently available for work!✨
This is exactly what caused my burnout of 2+ years.
Don't hire artists for their expertise if you're just going to discount that expertise at every turn.
This quote from Phil Tippet is 100% true. As soon as I feel like I’m just a hired wrist I will mentally detach from the project and the mediocrity will gush.
The kicker is that despite being hired for our ability / taste / knowledge, our opinion is often the least valid.
Some early ideas for Kritter! We were aiming for cute and spunky creatures that looked like they could be from another planet 👽
Which one is your favorite?
Hey there
#CreatingWithASD
!
I’m Kika, a neurodivergent creature/concept artist in the games industry. My special interest in biology helps me design some pretty rad critters 🔥
Wombat anatomy study for a personal project. 🐨
Not a lot of resources out there so I had to do a bunch of guesswork - if anyone here is a wombat/marsupial expert, I'd love some feedback!
Gharials spend a lot of time underwater, emerging only to bask on riverbanks. Their weaker leg muscles make it difficult for them to walk upright on land like other crocodilians.
Artstation, like many other companies, is banking on folks seeing the words "carbon offsetting" and some little tree icons and not investigating past that.
Excited to share these - I recently had the pleasure of giving a creature design talk to
@ashleykenawell
's class at MCG Youth in Pittsburgh (thank you Ashley)!
Thread on individual creatures and process below🧵:
And since proper credit has been the talk of Twitter lately, arguably the best comprehensive ref book you can own for (vertebrate) creature design is Eliot Goldfinger's "Animal Anatomy for Artists":
@meganroseruiz
I wish someone had warned me.
Two years and I'm still waiting for the spark to come back. I remember the elation getting my first gig. After all the hard work and mental anguish I thought I'd finally made it.
Instead I'm having to start from zero.
With my portfolio freshly updated, it's offical:
I'M LOOKING FOR WORK!✨
I'm Kika, a concept artist specializing in creature design.
Prev: Volta (Guild Wars 2), Rare (Everwild), Procreate, 3DTotal
✉️k.lexova
@hotmail
.com
oh my goddddd
researchers built a smartwatch heart beat monitor that uses a slime mold for its operation. the slime mold has to be fed and cared for, so the users in the trial... developed an emotional attachment to it 😭😭
Ever seen a moth ear before?
That hole in the side of the abdomen is the tympanal organ, which moths use to hear bat echolocation and avoid getting eaten! 🦇
As for the *why*, it would seem the ancestors of Archosaurs lost the claws at some point in time.
Then when digits were became more useful again millions of years later, enough time had passed evolutionarily that the claws couldn't just "come back".
(Thanks
@ArtofFabricious
!)
Up into the canopy we go this
#weirdwednesday
to meet nature’s powder puffs! The puffbirds are a family of tropical,arboreal birds found throughout South America and Mexico. A large head, comparatively small body, and tendency to puff up have resulted in their amazing name. (1/3)
@SouthApe
Similar issue with farmers and wolves here in the EU. Instead of putting a modicum of actual effort into protecting their livestock, they take the easy way out by demonising wolves. It's beyond pathetic.
Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by! I'm Kika, a creature artist with a gigantic love for all animals. My dream is to one day live on a farm with a bunch of pet goats 🐐
#artistsontwitter
My awesome sis raised so much money the first time around that she's doing *another* bake sale for Ukraine this weekend!
Super happy with how this poster came out 💙💛 Слава Україні!
these things are a sign of a declining society
you have mental illness if you desire to provide for and nurture a creature that brings no value in return to your household
hundreds of years ago people would have never simply because they had self respect
Due to time constraints, I’m posting this weekend’s
#sketches
today instead of the usual
#weirdwednesday
- we hope to return to your regularly scheduled programming shortly 🐇 ⠀
Late to the party, but here’s my first
#artvsartist
! I love designing critters more than anything, and spend all the rest of my time learning about real-life animals. Ungulates rule!