Geode

A crystal guy. Possibly some kind of golem or elemental. I wasn't sure how well I could create a crystalline texture in this detail-sparse style. I had to use hover-limbs to get it in the end, but I think it worked. I've a major soft spot for crystal-people thanks to the Shard from Vor. This is blockier (necessarily) and more like a "traditional" crystal golem than the sophisticated look of the Shard, but I did borrow shamelessly steal the head design.

What didn't work is the pose. So boring. So very, very boring. I was hoping I could get "forceful dignity" but it's really just... boring. The floating limbs are easy to repose at least if I decide he merits importance or expanding into a theme.

And the hands. Couldn't get any kind of fingers/claws going so I went with the abstracted hands. Irregular diamonds rather than circles because they worked better with the crystal theme. Surprised I've gotten away with it. I tried to put more detail on the feet too before deciding that they looked better as simply blank polys. The colouring might help here too, since the dark extremities suggest there may be invisible detail.

Ok, on a positive note I like how the spherical face/eye is embedded into the head with a minimum of fuss. And the faceted chest/shoulder - that's the only part that really looks crystaline, but its existence makes you interpret the other angular parts in a similar way. Sells the whole thing.

Colouring was a bitch. I planned to do something shiny or glittery, with detail shines, but it wasn't coming out right. The graduated colouring was a good plan. I'm not sure this is the best implementation of it, but it worked well enough for now. If I took another whack at it I might make the mid-tones more saturated and bring the lighter two shades closer to white.

I don't anticipate him being expanded into a theme. He might be a relation to the earthen Cyclops. Especially if I did one or two Cyclops with specifically crystal parts rather than just rocks. Crystals also mean wanky ancient science-magic so it could be a lost-city thing, or just a random weird thing. Oozing with possibilities. Veritably suppurating.

Wow, where'd that negativity come from? To counteract it I'll actually mock up a transition Cyclops. That last one I did was pretty spiky after all.

There. Not perfect but it shows that it's not a terrible idea. Also managed to almost re-layer the drawing in the process. So that's nice.

Tempted to re-hue to body to blue or green, but I wanted the crystals to contrast rather than blend in.

Cragspine

I am annoyed right now. In making those hue-shifts, I managed to save and close the .psd file after I'd flattened most of it.Meaning I lost my layer distinctions.

Annoying.

Still, if I ever came back to that step I'd probably want to redo it from scratch, so no call for getting hot and bothered.

Obviously this is another Cyclops. Original colour scheme is ruddy and earthen like the others, but the blue and green versions look so nice and vivid. Also more obviously creatures with rocky bits rather than earth elementals. Damnit I don't want to abuse hue shifts for variants but sometimes it's unfair to make me choose between them.

His designated features are the stony crown and back. Hence the name Cragspine (oh hey look, I've given up on annoying novelty titles for my posts). His feet are earthen rather than rocky and serve to connect him (visually) with his environment. I've already used the word crag for another Cyclops so I'll probably biddle one or the other. Placeholder name. I can cope.

I did a few things differently here: I'm relying on colouring to add detail rather than the linework, most visible on the feet. I'm happier with the light patches of hide too. I feel that I could go back to the other Cyclops and use a few of these tricks to really improve their look.

Criticisms: The rocky back is probably over-detailed (colour not linework). Those fists are anatomically questionable. I think the head might be in the wrong place relative to the pecs and shoulders. That jaw looks like a 3/4 view of a straight jaw, rather than an uneven jawline.

No Straws

I may have gone overboard on the highlighting here. I needed to draw more attention to the hands and so I highlighted the fingers and created a transition from fleshy to rocky. To match the others he needed belly and face highlights too. And eyeshine. Altogether that's a lot of shader detail.

I think he looks ok. The hands are passable, and he's obviously reaching forward, which implies a lot more depth than my usual flat poses.

I think the focus is definitely the hands here - not the solid rocky back. He's a something-grasper. Scree? Crag? Rubble? Cragpaw seems good. OK, so maybe he isn't a grasper.

Cragpaw. Not great, but snappy.

I also discovered a neat trick while playing with this guy - invert the area and then wang the hue slider 180 degrees. You get the same colours, but swapping which ones are the shadows and which are in the light. That could be useful.

His feet are more developed than gravelhide and boulderfist's. The random rock-shapes from gravelhide seem to have turned into something that imply actual foot-shapes. I feel no great need to go back and revise those two to match. Boulderfist's feet in particular needed to be left bare so his arms stood out against them.

In the works is more witchy-stuff. I've an idea for cauldrons, and a kind of green man. Do the woodsmen belong with the forest witches? Maybe!

Salt of the earth

More monsters. Conceivably I could expand these into a set, but I don't want to speak too soon. They do have a nice reproducible look though.

The teeth and rocky hide is a bit detailed, but I think I've come to terms with that. Maybe they're related to the rockworm?

As before, being burly monsters they have so much flat space that I need to so some kind of... not exactly shading but, texture? Detail? Interest? Something.

If I do do more of these I can differentiate them with the rocky areas. The one on the right, obviously, would be a boulderfist. Because he has big bouldery fists. The one on the left has a particularly stony appearance so he can be a gravelhide. If I do a big-mouthed one he can be a rockjaw. A lordly one with a crown of spikes will be stonebrow.

They weren't originally clyclopses, just earth elemental-looking things. They had brow ridges instead of eyes, but I needed a good collective name for them so I gave them single eyes and decided that these cyclopses are earth/rock creatures. If I come up with a good name I'll call them something else, but the one-eye thing can stay. I reckon the eyes are semi-precious stone, like jade or quartz.

I wonder if the mouths need more depth.