I based the Hatchling on larvae. I had considered other inspirations but none of them stuck out like larvae. Looking at different kinds of it made me realize just how good of a base it is due to the vast variety of options available. The Hatchling stage would cover the first 2 years of a person’s life. I explored the development of children and the 3 points I decided to use in the look are: 1) the initial emotions that form in a child are fear, curiosity and anger; 2) they satisfy their curiosity by shaking things they are able to pick up; 3) they mimic the people and things surrounding them. I decided to reflect each aspect in the look through the means of colour, shape and key features. The initial emotions are quite gloomy, therefore the colour I chose is one that would reflect that – was thinking of either going for a dark navy blue, a black or a dark muddy green. The aspect of mimicry was a bit tricky, I went over a few ideas – one of which was planting faces across the body – it was the idea that I had planned to go along with, but after some thinking I realized a) it would be difficult to recreate it in 3D, especially if I’m planning on using fabric and b) what do the faces have to do with anything if the creature is drawn from the perspective of a being that has never seen a person? How would they know how people emote or even look like? It was a blur, I found myself being a bit stuck on that idea but soon came up with a solution – instead of faces, I would plant super reflective spheres across the body and they would reflect whatever the surrounding might be. This would work as a play on the vulnerability to influence of children and how most children form their personalities and traits based on the environment they are exposed to. The last aspect – shape – I based on the first instinct that a child forms – grabbing. The shape of the creature is reminiscent of a lobster claw and looking at the look from the front makes it look like the claw is opening up and closing again. Another key feature I wanted this design to have is rattlesnake tail fingers and some other rattling parts to butt at the idea of infant toys and how most of them rattle upon being shaken.
Robertas Tijusas 