THE GOBSNATCHER
For a hypothetical upcoming Guillermo del Toro film, titled Preposterous, I was tasked with designing, sculpting, and texturing a biomechanical monster. The sci-fi horror film requires a design that evokes terror and disgust, as well as sympathy for the creature wrought of forces both natural and artificial.
01
The first direction for the emu, Biomech Wreck (top right), features a mostly intact bird, with a leg presuamably lost in combat replaced with a metal prosthetic with cruel blades. On the other leg, it's largest claw has been replaced with another metallic substitute, leaving a painful scar where the bone was removed. An amplifier hangs from its chest, increasing volume and lowering the pitch of their calls, to the point that the vibrations can cause organ damage and even failure in targets, even through solid walls. The cassowary's casque has been hollowed out and filled with electronic components, including a device that allows a human to pilot the creature like a drone, controlling its actions completely. In order to prevent bites, and prevent an escaped asset surviving in the wild, its beak has been screwed shut.
The third and final option for the cassowary (bottom right) emphasizes the theme of unnaturalness, being mechanical parts grafted into the corpse of an already expired cassowary. It's hind legs have been replaced with fully mechanical ones, reducing risk of injury and eliminating the possibility of fatigue. Though the bird's real eyes have long stopped functioning, they stare blankly out from the cage around its head, pleading for release. The sensors at the base of its casque again resemble a crying face. Beneath the skin of the creature, a high-tech mesh protects the asset from damage, like kevlar, though the decaying skin has torn and the rotting organs now hang beneath the beast in a transparent sac. The hollow bones (which also serve respiratory function in birds) have been converted into a heat management system for the implanted machines, especially in the case of its intentionally broken wings, whose bones now serve as an air intake pipe.
The first concept (right) relies on an advanced hologram projector to create convincing audiovisual illusions to lure people closer, replacing the lure of the original fish. The elasticity of its stomach has been increased, now sitting below it like a disgusting, veiny bag, wrapped in metallic reinforcements that prevent precocious victims from tearing their way out. Their escape is further prevented by a replacement of the throat valve with an iris-style metal door. To acquire their targets in the first place, the fish has also been equipped with an extra set of jaws, inspired by the extreme pharyngeal jaws of an eel, that drag prey down to the throat. In order to keep the aquatic creature alive, it is constantly hydrated by a set of tubes connecting to a water tank that has been clamped into the frogfish's flesh.
Dehydrated Delirium, the second direction (left), is more active. The fish has had mechanical legs connected to its spinal cord, allowing it to reposition or even pursue targets, while the organic body dangles below it. Being trapped without water, its skin continually cracks and flakes off in the dry air. It has been granted large prosthetic teeth that increase lethality when striking. Its lure has been replaced with a fan that creates images as it spins, acting like a screen. To stop humans using their large brains to see through this ruse, the fan also helps to distribute nitrous oxide gas, causing reduction of inhibitions and hallucinations that will disorient a human and hopefully lure it closer. That failing, they may simply die from hypoxia if left in an enclosed space with it.
Guillermo del Toro consistently puts emphasis on monsters in various roles in his films. For Preposterous, the monster needs to serve as both a compelling antagonist that strikes fear into the characters and audience, but also inspire pity in viewers. The film's premise revolves around humanity's responsibility to the natural world, and how humanity has shirked that responsibility in pursuit of selfish ambitions.
I figured that the most direct way to create a horrifying cyborg would be to design one that was created as a weapon, since gone rogue, symbolizing humanity's prioritization of conflict over preservation. I pursued two different concepts within this idea, the first of which was a cassowary. Cassowaries are known to be one of the world's most dangerous birds, due to their size, speed, and wicked talons. The birds can grow anywhere from five to over six feet tall, and run over thirty miles per hour, and sport claws that can be over 6 inches in length. Australia famously fought a war against emus, a relative of the cassowary, and lost, in part due to the outright durability of the ratites. Also featuring infrasonic calls that can literally rattle bone, I thought the cassowary was a prime subject for a morally corrupt weapons company to experiment with in order to create a biomechanical weapon.
Concept Sketches
An animal that is much more impressive than it looks is the frogfish. In real life, they are not large, though surely in a world where they could be implanted with cybernetic enhacements, they could be genetically modified to grow larger. In any case, they are known to swallow prey larger than themselves, so they would not need to loom over a human in order to dispatch them. Frogfish rank amongst the highest success rates of any predator, due in large part to their excellent camouflage, which they can even change to suit a new environment, swapping both their color and texture to blend in. Their large mouths can open, suck in prey, and close again all in less time than it takes for a human to blink. They also feature a valve in their throats that prevents their live prey from escaping whilst it suffocates in their distending stomach. Their hunting strategy, being a type of anglerfish, involves dangling a scent and chemical lure in front of themselves to draw in unsuspecting victims.
The second take, The Plague (left), features a metal mask with an icepick-like extension over the beak, resembling the grim mask of a plague doctor. It also features a series of metal patches that seal the animal's head inside with no way to feed or free itself. Fullers in the mask also resemble tear streaks to emphasize the misery of the cruel fate of the creature. On its back, tubes of sludge are the only source of nutrition the bird can obtain, while its mechanical parts are recharged through the large cable to the rear. Haven evidently broken free of containment, the cable now drags behind the bioweapon, hearkening back to old tail-dragging depictions of the cassowary's dinosaur ancestors.
02
Modeling
After presenting my pitches, the frogfish was the selected creature. Now I would need a high-detail version of the design, created with a whole extra dimension, bringing the total to three. Which is a complicated way to say I had a rare opportunity to bust out a 3D software. Initially, ZBrush seemed the obvious choice, but with the possibility of rigging the creature, I was dissatisfied with my control over the topology, which led to issues sculpting.
I still put effort into this version though so I'm gonna make you look at it anyway.
I started anew in Cinema 4D, which I have much more experience in. I knew that box modeling would give me more workable topology and give me a more solid base to sculpt on.
03
With a base created, I was able to move on to a detailed sculpt of the fish's body. After the base model was created, I took it back into ZBrush to utilize its superior tools and retopologizing. The eyes, teeth, and mechanical implants would be modeled separately, as Cinema 4D's modeling tools make creating simple, edged objects like that much easier than in the freeform context of ZBrush.
Sculpting
04
Augmentation
With a base to add on to, I then got to work creating the artificial enhancements given to the fish. To help them feel more integrated, I also made adjustments to the creature, like pinched skin where the metal is being forced into the animal's flesh and bone to find a foothold.
The metallic elements felt too sparing in this iteration. The augmentations would need to take up more visual real estate to help read as a creature that was now part machine. It also detracts from its ability to look dangerous, as dainty components make it look fragile.
In the second attempt, pipes more thoroughly cover the back half of the fish, and crowd into its spiracles, stretching the breathing hole to the limit as they pump water backwards through its respiratory tract. The metallic jaws are larger and more robust, with two rows of teeth, one for crushing, one for grappling. The throat valve has also been revisited, looking cleaner and more functional. Even the projector was remodeled for stronger topology and shape.
04
Texturing
Having all the 3D assets completed, the next step was to create textures. I took this as an opportunity to begin to learn Substance Painter. Thankfully the robust program made it easy to project detailed normals onto a downresed model to save on time and resources. Texturing had always been the hole in my 3D knowledge that I wanted to patch over, but never had time to until this project. Now Substance Painter may have spoiled me, but it has made the prospect of texturing future sculpts much less daunting, and I will be utilizing this new knowledge in the near future.
The first pass at the texture was neither fishy nor intimidating enough, and resembled nothing more in the world than an evil SpongeBob. The next version would need to more convincingly emulate the bumpy, wet texture of a frogfish, as well as bear a more sensible color scheme.
I have rebuilt him. Stronger. Wetter. Bumpier.
Also has more scars and scratches, as well as more detail in the pattern, including spots near the eyes meant to resemble big fat anime tears to garner more sympathy.
The artificial additions would also need textures of course, but they were much simpler to create, with Substance Painter's smart materials creating excellent detail once the normals were baked in, even before manually adjusting the grime and color.
05
Now that all the separate assets were created, I could then put them together to finally show off the creature in its entirety.
ASSEMBLY + RIGGING
All the parts in place, one note that I and my client had throughout the project is that the fish was hard to sympathize with, but I knew that if I could close the jaw, the cuter side of the frogfish could shine through. Unfortunately, fish jaws are incredibly complex, so the job became more intensive than I expected. Even still, I was able to create a suitable rig and pull the jaws into a close position, really emphasizing that dead fish chic that is all the rage right now.
captivating.
06
The finishing touch was an environment to place the fish in, the brief requested a lab scene. I felt with a model with so many bumps, nodules, scratches and glossiness, having too much detail in the scene would surely make the screen too crowded. So, seeing that I only needed simple models (and quickly, as the deadline came hurtling towards me), I went to Meshy AI to create the models and textures for me. It also seemed fitting within the themes of the Preposterous film that the manmade environment in which the frogfish was experimented on and imprisoned in to be represented by an example of a technology that is similarly environmentally destructive and irresponsible in the real world
I prompted the AI to create various background equipment, then while it consumed a small lake generating, I continued to work on the lighting in the main Cinema file. I kept the lighting on them all very dim, they only needed to be visible enough to create a sense of atmosphere, not necessarily be decipherable to any level of detail.
SETDRESSING
FINAL
As an extra bonus, for the final presentation, I worked with Kelly Warner to create a backing track, modified with Suno's AI music covering tools to create a soundscape that evokes the idea of a perilous deep sea trawl, mixed with that theme of humans progressing at any cost I mentioned when using Meshy.
Trust not your eyes, for behind even the most benign of scenes may be concealing...
THE GOBSNATCHER!
