The Juvenile was a very simple stage to come up a concept for. As someone who has had his fair share of dealing with children and babysitting, I know firsthand how chaotic the experience can get. The superiority complexes, the recklessness, the impishness – the only way I felt I could truly encapsulate the essence of a child/juvenile is by making it draw many inspirations from jesters. The key components of this design will be the pillowy exaggerated shoulders and hips and the headpiece. I thought of a way that the headpiece could change over the different stages and how it would change its shape to comment on what the initial impression of people of that stage are/would be. For this stage, the lobster claw has turned into more of a jester hat (mischevious with ram horns (stubborn) embracing it from the sides and the ends forming a sort of a tiara (spoiled), the entire head is reminiscent of crowns. The reason for that is the aforementioned superiority complexes. As for the pillowy bits coming out of the shell – it comments on how much more vulnerable children are to outside influences and how much easier it is to corrupt or harm them if they or their parents are not careful. To showcase the reckless nature of children, I decided to make it so that the anatomy would come across as quite top-heavy, as a result, the being is forced to spin around trying to keep its balance, but failing to maintain it for long periods of time. Adding sharp talons into the mix was another thing I considered, especially with how convenient it would be to have them form after rattlesnake fingertips, it could play into the idea of children not having a good understanding of their abilities and raw power, which normally results in injuries and scars.
Robertas Tijusas 