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Description
There's a subject that comes up often while discussing Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two - where are the Navigators? With the trypophobia nightmare from David Lynch's 1984 film adaptation remaining the only Spacing Guild Navigator seen on the silver screen, I chose to take the time to create a 3D-model of my own conception of this classic posthuman.

This creature design sculpt developed in my discussion with a friend Tim Morris who was also inspired to do his take on the Guild Navigator , which I encourage you to go check out (and the whole gallery in general if you haven't already). I love it that we started out with similar ideas and took them into two completely different endpoints, using the same words as the guiding beacon.

My take incorporates most of what is canonically known from the novels: an expanded head with small facial features, including a "flap-like" nose, modified and reshaped organs, greatly elongated limbs with fan-like webbed hands and feet. With the rest I took my liberties, working in some old and new.

I do like the basic concept of the 1984 Guild Navigator a lot, even if the whole design is more than a bit extreme. I wanted to incorporate the general theme of atavistic fetal features, and even considered adding an embryonic tail. Herbert describes the Navigator Eadric as "a fish in a strange sea" and there are also other comparisons to fish, which first directed me towards frogfish, those strange bottom-dwelling anglerfishes that walk on hand-like fins.

As the descriptions of Guild Navigators are sparse in the Dune series, I had to spin a little bit of my own lore for this design. While expand the Navigator's brain regions associated with calculation and spatial abilities I discovered to my delight that it began to resemble an Oranda, a highly bred goldfish with a bubble-like hood. As a result of millennia of selective breeding or even genetic manipulation combined with effects of the spice the Navigators are akin to ornamental goldfish: warped beyond recognition and trapped for life in small confined containers that isolate them from baseline humanity.

Their fanlike hands and feet may even be present before they are mutated by spice. Perhaps polydactyly (extra digits) and syndactyly (webbed digits) are neutral traits linked to genes that make Guild members more ready to accept the gifts of the melange. On planets the extra digits could make life more difficult but while suspended in a zero G tank they can even be beneficial.

This weightless environment is also behind the severe atrophy of most muscles, which gives the Navigator the appearance of an emaciated drug addict. And an addict it is: the prolonged use of melange causes physical dependence with a fatal withdrawal, should the spice fail to flow. It is sometimes also suggested that the navigators no longer eat, though I was not able to find a direct source for this.

Is this how Frank Herbert originally envisioned the Guild Navigators? Almost certainly not, but he was very intentional in leaving things undescribed or only hinted at to leave room for the reader's imagination and speculation, to get you hooked to the story. For that reason I feel every time someone designs the Navigator anew inserting their own ideas and interpretations into the mix, they are taking Herbert's words exactly the way they were intended.

Description
There's a subject that comes up often while discussing Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two - where are the Navigators? With the trypophobia nightmare from David Lynch's 1984 film adaptation remaining the only Spacing Guild Navigator seen on the silver screen, I chose to take the time to create a 3D-model of my own conception of this classic posthuman.

This creature design sculpt developed in my discussion with a friend Tim Morris who was also inspired to do his take on the Guild Navigator , which I encourage you to go check out (and the whole gallery in general if you haven't already). I love it that we started out with similar ideas and took them into two completely different endpoints, using the same words as the guiding beacon.

My take incorporates most of what is canonically known from the novels: an expanded head with small facial features, including a "flap-like" nose, modified and reshaped organs, greatly elongated limbs with fan-like webbed hands and feet. With the rest I took my liberties, working in some old and new.

I do like the basic concept of the 1984 Guild Navigator a lot, even if the whole design is more than a bit extreme. I wanted to incorporate the general theme of atavistic fetal features, and even considered adding an embryonic tail. Herbert describes the Navigator Eadric as "a fish in a strange sea" and there are also other comparisons to fish, which first directed me towards frogfish, those strange bottom-dwelling anglerfishes that walk on hand-like fins.

As the descriptions of Guild Navigators are sparse in the Dune series, I had to spin a little bit of my own lore for this design. While expand the Navigator's brain regions associated with calculation and spatial abilities I discovered to my delight that it began to resemble an Oranda, a highly bred goldfish with a bubble-like hood. As a result of millennia of selective breeding or even genetic manipulation combined with effects of the spice the Navigators are akin to ornamental goldfish: warped beyond recognition and trapped for life in small confined containers that isolate them from baseline humanity.

Their fanlike hands and feet may even be present before they are mutated by spice. Perhaps polydactyly (extra digits) and syndactyly (webbed digits) are neutral traits linked to genes that make Guild members more ready to accept the gifts of the melange. On planets the extra digits could make life more difficult but while suspended in a zero G tank they can even be beneficial.

This weightless environment is also behind the severe atrophy of most muscles, which gives the Navigator the appearance of an emaciated drug addict. And an addict it is: the prolonged use of melange causes physical dependence with a fatal withdrawal, should the spice fail to flow. It is sometimes also suggested that the navigators no longer eat, though I was not able to find a direct source for this.

Is this how Frank Herbert originally envisioned the Guild Navigators? Almost certainly not, but he was very intentional in leaving things undescribed or only hinted at to leave room for the reader's imagination and speculation, to get you hooked to the story. For that reason I feel every time someone designs the Navigator anew inserting their own ideas and interpretations into the mix, they are taking Herbert's words exactly the way they were intended.