50 Creature Designs That Will Melt Your Heart (Literally)

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CHALLENGE: Design a character based on the prompt “Cute but deadly”. Any medium, traditional and digital, 2D and 3D are allowed.

Prizes provided by @digitalbobert, and @stanprokopenko

To participate in monthly Proko Challenges follow @prokotv on Instagram

Bobby Chiu judges the art for November’s #prokochallenge! Now you’ll get to see some of the work that was submitted and hear Bobby’s critiques!

The Judge

@digitalbobert is an illustrator, concept artist, animator, and instructor. Bobby got his first big break designing characters for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Since then, Bobby has won numerous awards for his creative work, including an Emmy for co-creating the animated tv show "Niko and the Sword of Light". He co-founded Imaginism Studios, Lightbox Expo, and Schoolism.com and is a co-owner of Magma Studio.

Find Bobby on Instagram, YouTube, Schoolism, Imaginism and Light Box Expo

1st Place

Bobby says: "This is something I want to learn more about, it wasn't just the idea, it wasn't just the style, the technical aspects to this have a really wonderful illustrative style. But the story was the thing that really got to me. It's like why does this thing have skeletal hands? Why does it have a string of hands around itself, like collecting hands, like what's the story there. It just brings me right in. And the face is adorable. So congratulations, you did an amazing job"

Evaboneva - @evaboneva

Prize - 1 Schoolism course of winner’s choice, a portfolio review from Jeremy Cranford (Sr. Art Outsource Manager at Blizzard Entertainment), the Proko Figure, Portrait, and Anatomy courses, three Proko model packs, and their art featured on the Proko YouTube Channel.

2nd Place

Bobby says: "This is fantastic, I love it. You know I'm not always about very representational, very realistic art. I very much appreciate all facets of art including a more illustrative style and this is a wonderful example of that. The biggest thing that stands out to me is the story. It automatically is taken as cute right when look at it. I'm like "what's this cute thing so cute" and I look a little bit further and see the brain, and the veins that attach to the eyeballs. I go "Oh that's a little bit weird". And then I see the skeleton of a rodent, and then I understand. I understand this image as this blob absorbed the rat and devoured it... dissolved it. And that's kinda creepy, but it's also kinda cute. The other thing I really love about this is this person didn't stop there, because you put some fun posters in the background. Mask required poster, you have this person sick on a poster, you have a little tag of graffiti on the wall, you have some stuff that's laid down on the ground there. I love that and I appreciate that because it rewards the viewer with something else to look at if they decide to pay more attention to your piece. Way to go, nice job"

Claudio Salas Balcazar - @claudiosalas_art

Prize - 2 Proko courses, 2 model packs of winner’s choice, and their art featured on the Proko YouTube Channel.

3rd Place

Bobby says: "Awesome, Inna didn't just do one painting. This person did three paintings. Wow, and what a wonderful story it tells. And by the way beautifully done, beautifully designed, the colors, everything, just lovely. The very first one, it's stalking, this creature is stalking something. The second one cuts straight to the end, it's kinda like Pulp Fiction, smiling at you with apparently blood all over them. And then the final one you see what it was, it's just jam. Wonderful, even though it isn't deadly in this sense, it's deadly for a jar of jam I guess. Yeah I love it, I love the whole entire feel of it. Very nicely done."

Inna Stefanova - @stefahen

Prize - 1 Proko course, 1 model pack of winner’s choice and their art featured on the Proko YouTube Channel.