Crusty sea bastards

Brine mutants! Miscellaneously hideous deformed salt-water mutants. Been trying to do these for ages, even got a complete set of three done previously but I junked them for being shit. The hunchbacked cloth-wrapped look was the breakthrough.

Still. Mixed feelings. I like a lot about these guys, but my node discipline is totally out the window on them. Way, way too much detail. I should really try to tune them down a bit, but it's hard to suss where to make the cuts. I could de-weather the clothes, take out all the nicks and tears. That wouldn't actually educe the node count so much, but they'd look a bit more appropriate. I'm hoping that with all their gribbly fishy bits and pose they don't need the robes to be ragged to give the right impression.

Feet. The feet are bullshit. No variation even. But, the problem is that sea creatures don't have feet, so what do sea-mutant feet look like? I could maybe do one with multiple crab-leg-type feet, but then what for the third? Tentacles look really messy and both they and the crab feet would be excessive detail on top of so many existing fiddly bits. But patchwork-looking mutants are all about fiddly bits! There's just no way to do barnacle patches economically. Those fish finny things I like so much are a lot of smooth lines and blank space, so they're probably cool. Ditto the tentacles on gamma. Maybe the shell-growths on gamma could be streamlined? Fewer layers, maybe remove the ridge lines and hope that the outline implies enough? Tricksy. I'm not confident.

Still. I'm happy to have finally gotten a workable base for the concept. With these guys I've almost got a complete "brine mutants" bestiary. Sea zombies, crab guys, cultists, the priest, tentacles, these guys and the fish-monster. Well, looking back over them the acolytes are really boring, so I'd want to tart those up. And maybe make the crab guys' pose less symmetrical, but that's less bothersome to me.

Hmm. I've been pushing on a lot so far, being resistant to multiple iterations. Maybe this is a good time to change modes and polish up a few for a themed set. Do I have enough? I will brainstorm other things I could add to the set:

• More zombies. Possibly of a different type. Bloated? Ghoul-type with weapons?
• Dedicated sea-necromancer? Fish-bone staff? Gravedigger?
  
• Townsfolk with minor mutations. Improvised weaponry; boathooks, cleavers, harpoons.
• Some kind of "hound" sea beast that is sicced on people? Need a good hook. Ooh - I might have an old sketch I can repurpose...
• Abominations? Mutants gone too far, extra-gribbly. Could be easy, might be too cheap. Don't want to over-weight the mutant mosters angle compared to the cult angle.
  
• Little creepy familiar/imp-type fish critters.
• Townsfolk with creepy little fish critters. maybe mothers cradling them like children? Too creepy? Too hard to standardise? Possibly so.

Hmm - more possibilities than I expected. I think I'll look into the townsfolk gone bad and the sea-hound first, with advanced zombies fermenting in the back of my head (ew).

Lots of words. Must make more pictures.