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Description
This is my contest entry for the RIFT Colossus Contest [[link] ], choosing the Life planar theme.

It took me a while to come up with an colossus idea for this contest, since I wanted it to fit the setting within the game. I decided to go with a giant deer with it’s antlers full of plants. Since all of the planes in the game are bent towards the evil side of each element, I decided to make all the plants thorns, briars, and other wickedly-looking plants. The Life plane is all full of plants, so I imagine this colossus as being large enough and strong enough to just bulldoze his way through anything, with remnants of the places he’s been stuck in his antlers. The Life plane also has a strong theme of “survival of the fittest” in it’s most extreme form, so I decided to give this colossus predatory teeth (it looks a lot more intimidating this way, too).

While I was drawing this colossus, I found that antlers full of thorns and plants looked too busy, and it was too hard to tell what was plants and what was antlers. It was then I realized that instead of making thorn-covered vines interwoven through it’s antlers, I could just make the antlers themselves giant thorn-covered plants. This made the antlers less complex, and gave the colossus a more hybrid look between plant and animal.

Running with the half-plant and half-animal theme, I decided to steer away from making the colossus just an ordinary giant deer and instead focused on making the colossus more fantastical, such as giving the colossus tree-like legs. I recalled the common fantasy cliche of “the spirit of the forest” being a graceful white deer with flowers growing in it’s footsteps, and decided to give my colossus a similar ability (but a more evil version of it) - instead of flowers growing in it’s footsteps, brambles and briars grow wherever he steps.

Made in Adobe Photoshop CS

Description
This is my contest entry for the RIFT Colossus Contest [[link] ], choosing the Life planar theme.

It took me a while to come up with an colossus idea for this contest, since I wanted it to fit the setting within the game. I decided to go with a giant deer with it’s antlers full of plants. Since all of the planes in the game are bent towards the evil side of each element, I decided to make all the plants thorns, briars, and other wickedly-looking plants. The Life plane is all full of plants, so I imagine this colossus as being large enough and strong enough to just bulldoze his way through anything, with remnants of the places he’s been stuck in his antlers. The Life plane also has a strong theme of “survival of the fittest” in it’s most extreme form, so I decided to give this colossus predatory teeth (it looks a lot more intimidating this way, too).

While I was drawing this colossus, I found that antlers full of thorns and plants looked too busy, and it was too hard to tell what was plants and what was antlers. It was then I realized that instead of making thorn-covered vines interwoven through it’s antlers, I could just make the antlers themselves giant thorn-covered plants. This made the antlers less complex, and gave the colossus a more hybrid look between plant and animal.

Running with the half-plant and half-animal theme, I decided to steer away from making the colossus just an ordinary giant deer and instead focused on making the colossus more fantastical, such as giving the colossus tree-like legs. I recalled the common fantasy cliche of “the spirit of the forest” being a graceful white deer with flowers growing in it’s footsteps, and decided to give my colossus a similar ability (but a more evil version of it) - instead of flowers growing in it’s footsteps, brambles and briars grow wherever he steps.

Made in Adobe Photoshop CS