God of the River

Hi everyone! The team RIVER GODS presents to you our animatic, God of the River, based on the short story by Anya Ow.

Over the course of 14 weeks, the team (@kevinyang.art @glugluglucose @jiuruip @xin_jin_concept_design and I) designed the world of the River God, under the guidance of @fernandoodle and Jin Kim. (see instagram).

The primary task I focused on was the art direction of the River God itself.
We wanted to design a godly mythical creature that conveys a feeling of awe but also apathy.
For the silhouette, we wanted to make something unique by adding a more grounded inspiration using elements from real life animals, but we also did not want to stray too far from the traditional concept of an eastern idea of a godly creature.
The story explicitly stated a few elements that the creature had, like golden eyes, a snake-like snout, horns, and a mane.
So using that as a starting point, we looked at a lot of animals on earth that have these elements. And since it is a river god, we looked at a lot of aquatic inspirations like the mosasaur, the sea dragon, and the betta fish.
The river god accepts sacrifices through the form of decapitated heads, so we also thought it would be interesting to include that element visually on the creature itself, in the form of hanging heads and even jewelry.

Once again we are Team river gods, thank you all for experiencing this journey with us!