Hey guys!
A quick, brief overview. I am massively into the Super Sentai series and want to create a villain that could exist in that kind of style. More in the thread!
PencilEquipped
Artstation
Final Pieces:
Dec 9, '18
Jan 15, '19
Hey everyone! So here's what I have in mind so far.
The first thing I wanted to do was create a creature inspired by the sentai flavor. Not a specific series or anything. If you're not familiar with Super Sentai, it's what Power Rangers was made from. Crazy monster designs that usually would be made into a costume and used to create a suit for an actor to wear.
The first thing I did was do some studies. I didn't show all of what I went through below, but it gives an idea. I gathered villains that I liked, and did some silhouette studies of them. I wanted to see what kind of design elements that was commonly used.
Next I needed a story for the character. And an ability. First I created a story for the fake series. I would call it something like "Isha Sentai Mediranger". Doctor Taskforce, Medic rangers. Something like that. The enemies in this show, would be led by the villain in question here. I am thinking they're a group called Nikannibals (Japanese word for meat, and then just cannibals smashed in there). This group are alien body harvesters. They travel planet to planet to steal bodies, or rather, the "malady energy" that living creatures emit when injured or dying. So the enemy of the week would sort of cause a new injury.
Villains need heroes that oppose them. In this case a group of doctors gain the ability to call upon some sort of energy source that changes them into a colorful team of heroes. Standard fair kind of stuff.
The leader of the Nikannibals, Blood Drive (or if it was in Japanese it'd probably be ハートイータ [Heart eater] or something like that.) He was mortally wounded trying to defend their leader before she was killed. Their chief scientist took some of their remains and used it to keep him alive. This procedure is what grants him his abilities.
His ability is probably called Bloodmorphisis. By consuming large quantities of blood (or a heart), he can transform his limb into a weapon. The choices are determined by the type of blood or heart he consumes. It could be a shield, a sickle, a sword, and all over the place. Whips, tendrils, maybe a bazooka. It's inspired by tokusatsu. Pretty much anything goes.
So to the design. I gathered some reference of various heart related things - life support, hearts, blood bags, syringes, defibrillators, etc. The first few paces are largely focused on silhouette and general ideas. I want to work more and more of the thematic elements as I go foward.
First Pass:
Second Pass:
3rd Pass:
I still want to do more exploration. The next step is to combine the elements that I like from the 3 options (plus, considering any comments people may leave!) and maybe doing some head exploration in a different medium like Zbrush or something to see what I come up with. When a design and idea is finalized I'll do some composition thumbnails. some more zbrush setup for lighting reference, and then finish it off.
Thanks to anyone who takes their time to check this out! It's a lot to read.
tldr, Power Ranger inspired monster who consumes blood and hearts to morph his limb into different weapons.
Love number 3! I like the mix of flesh with mechanical parts, makes it very interesting to look at! 
Thanks a lot for the comment! I like elements from 1 and 3 the most! I think I will largely use 3, with some of 1, and a pinch of 2 when I get back to work on it!
I like 1 )
Thanks! Hopefully the finished one I come up with has everyone enjoying it!
10 days later
Hello! Took a while to get a new update going on here. I've been working on it in my spare time. Now that vacation has arrived, I'll get to dive into this more. Hoping to get some feedback from people who have bothered to read this far.
First up. Just a semi-clean version of the design I like. I want to make some more changes, and also use this to create some color comps. For now, I tried to encorporate design elements into the armor, specifically things related to hearts, life support, blood, tubes, some kanji, vials, etc. I want to drive home the theme of heart and blood.
Next up are some head comps. I did.. hm, I think 24 of these. I did some quick sculpts in zbrush, and then painted over. I believe I did quick 8 sculpts, and then 3 variations of each. I then arranged them onto some sheets, choosing my favorite of eacha s the focus, as well as a quick front view. I am ultimately probably going to focus on asymmetry, but for now I just went with what was quickest. Design themes I want to include is flesh, blood, veins, tendrils, and some scaring. Also tubes and whatnot. Most of his entire head was replaced along with his arm, so there's not much left of what used to be there.
Thanks for looking! Feedback and opinions are desired!
Hello! Sorry about the delay of posting. I wasn't able to work on this guy until today. I did some sketches to refine the designs a bit further and to prep it for some simple sculpting. I made some notes on the actual image as well.
I am struggling a bit with how I want to approach the color of the armor. I know for certain that I want the fleshy part to be a crimson or maybe a slight purple, with a bit of blue and yellow here and there, but the armor is more challenging. I think about hospital equipment as a good source of inspiration, and they tend to be whites, grays, etc. I am thinking of going that route. I also wanted to add a few different colors to the various vials on his body to bring more color in. I am wondering if perhaps that is too much? Feedback very much desired!
I am adding this note here so I remember later. Some feedback from someone on a discord server mentioned the legs being something they're not a fan of. "Something other than the twisting plates would be welcome. Something that fits the torso plating." So I plan to do a few more sketches of those too.
Wow, this is great! You've got some good stuff here, look forward to the final!
Managed to get some more work done today.
For this one, I took some advice and redesigned the armor to make it read a bit better, and to have some better flow. I also knocked back a few areas too, as it was getting busy.
I did a front, side, and back view of the creature anatomy (I didn't flesh out the back view, so there wasn't much point in posting it.
keep your good work bro ! Really amezaed by number of designs you've developed 
I'm not a color specialist but maybe try making armor in shades of black and add some sort of light from all those blood conteiners ? Yoou know making all this flesh glow by the hyper energized blood while transforming his arm into wapon could look cool 
for me anyway
Black works for me better I think
Hey guys!
Another update! I've been building this guy a bit in Zbrush for some posing/lighting reference. I'll post that later if anyone wants to see. But aside from that I did a bunch of thumbnails for the composition and really hope to get some peoples opinions. Either of what they like, or potential in something they see, etc. I think I like 14 the most, but it changes when I look again. I am too close to it!
The main story I want to tell with the piece is him using his ability. So he JUST ate a heart or blood and his limb is changing/just changed. A few of these have him with dead or defeated sentai rangers, but I don't have a lot of time so I may not add too much of them (although I suspect they will be background elements).
1st or 14th or maybe 8th ?
Although others could be nice as well !
Good luck choosing.
