Moving onto further cognitive disorder creature designs

 Now that I am content with the design of generalized anxiety disorder in both its wild and domesticated variants and with my goal of a minimum of three creatures produced by my January module deadline, I am beginning to move the established process onto the next set of creatures to form an efficient and repeatable process as possible so that in the next module creatures will be crafted as quickly and correctly as possible. 

Giving myself the January deadline a chance to showcase my specialties in concept art for a pro-social game I believe it best to allow for some clear range between the cognitive disorder creatures that I produce to give the most broad a vision to the project, by this I mean both the current social awareness of the disorders and the uniqueness of the designs. For example, due to its prevalence in society, generalized anxiety disorder is of well-known awareness in society and has a basic design that is not too distinct from realistic creatures sharing a lot of similarities to the reference points used whilst also not having symptoms as subjectively harmful as other disorders - which led to a less monstrous design in comparison to what could occur. Future creations would need to have a disorder that is less well-known or understood and another with more harmful symptoms or perceptions with more negative stigma attached to them. This would hopefully help me achieve the broad range to showcase my specialties more successfully. 

With this in mind, the disorders I am currently looking at to produce for this module delivery are; Excoriation disorder/ Dermatillomania, Kleptomania, and Schizophrenia. Other possibilities are Postnatal Depression, Body Dysmorphia, Autism, and one of the Bipolar variants if I struggle to come to a successful conclusion with my primary list. Though I feel my proposed list of disorders fits my planned differential range with Dermatillomania being very unknown socially, Kleptomania having a lot of stigma and misunderstandings surrounding it to the point of many not realising it as a cognitive disorder, and finally Schizophrenia being fairly acknowledged yet having some of the most subjectively harmful or 'monstrous' symptoms.

Utilising my progress on the dermatillomania cognitive disorder creature to display my current process for crafting these designs based on some of the mistakes of my previous creature combined with some methods found during the current research accumulated. Understanding that this particular disorder is categorised in the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) field of disorders, I am aware that there will need to be some observable aesthetic choice to the design that is repeatable to all other disorders in this field, a choice I can make during the iterations produced during the design process once a theme is found that fits the field by representing a common theme within the field. I began the process by noting the symptoms of the disorder and the stigmatized perceptions of the sufferers in two separate columns.

This separation was used to craft a more successful creature for the generalized anxiety disorder previously by offering wild and domesticated variants, in this creature that won't be the case but observing the separation will allow me to stick to one set of guidelines and not covering both which led me to some of the issues and mistakes during the previous process. In this case, I will be using the symptoms as they offer more in the way of design aspects and choices. After creating this table I moved on to speculative design possibilities and questions that could be answered during my iterative image-making process, many of which would be answered through research and idea development in the next stages.

This initial collation of ideas and questions is a great base for the process to develop forward, I have some points to begin collecting reference imagery as well as some questions to both sketch ideas of to help decide on the more successful solution as well as further research to find the direction the creature design should go in. 

Initially collecting reference images of both reptiles shedding skin as well as close-up photos of chameleon heads for observational drawings to be made - the first step in the previously mentioned David Colman method for creature design encompassing separate real-world animals. 

When sourcing images of reptiles shedding their skin, I opted more for the above sort of images where the head was poking out of the shedded skin as I felt it offered a design that was more hideous, as if the creature was being swallowed by its own skin, or wearing it still as an outfit to hide its scars - this way of thinking is what led me to question how deep the shedding occurs on the body, imagining a gross muscular head protruding from the jaws or a skull stretched out from the mouth. There was also a range of different reptiles with a variety of scale textures available upon searching, a more spikey skin would represent the sufferer's need to shed with it being seen as an imperfection or irregularity to the desired smooth skin.

Upon discovery during the research process, there are more than one species of chameleon. Despite not necessarily aiming for a chameleon head as the end design, the eye with its unique range of vision was the initial starting point, it does offer more options during the design process with the mane at the rear of the head varying in size as well as some chameleons having horns around the nostrils - though they may also be seen as irregularities or be shedded through some other means akin to antlers on some bovines.

Some initial observational drawings of chameleons and beaks etc.

Offering myself the option of having a beak on the creature during the idea conceptualisation process earlier, something that offer an otherworldly appearance to the creature as well as further representation toward the symptoms, the question of what sort of beak would suit the creature occurred. Further research led to the discovery that the shape, form, and size of a beak were predetermined by the function and purpose it served for each bird. 

From this, I also began looking into the different types of scalpels and surgical blades for their own purpose/function. Hoping to understand a design that would suit the needs of the creature and its surgical removal of imperfections and irregularities on its skin.

Whilst these designs of surgical scalpels may not inform my design decisions for the beak so as to not ignore the research into bird beaks and their habit of self-pruning, the talons and bladed tail can incorporate these scalpel designs based on their function.