The Monju Creation
You can watch the movie online:
https://www.monjuhunters.com
This is the creature design I've made for our short movie 'Monju Hunters of Sōfugan Island'. The film is a co-production with my buddy Karim Eich. We finished the project in fall 2016 after 1,5 years of hard work. It's my master's thesis at Bauhaus University Weimar.
As we were only two individuals who worked on that movie, it was necessary to switch between many different tasks and work on different film related projects at the same time. The design of the monju covered nearly the whole period of the movie creation. At the beginning I started with more alien form language, later I came back to a more grounded and earth-like design. I switched between 2d and 3d to try a few things.
Screengrab from our movie
Early design in a more alien like direction
Mutated dolphin sketch
Early ideation sketches
The final direction was very whale like
The acid-proof skin of the Monju
A sign which can be seen in the marked scenes
I've created a skeleton as a base for the final Monju
The skeleton was also helpful for the hologram
The final textured Monju model