For this week’s Alphabeasts entry, I decided to stick with Valve’s games, albeit a slightly older one. From the Half Life series, there are these little creatures called “headcrabs”, which I thought would be fun.
Headcrabs like to throw themselves at you, and can be pretty annoying. With the trusty crowbar they aren’t too hard to beat (BA DUM CHEE!), but when they attach themselves to a victim they make the person a zombie. Those are a little harder to destroy, and have a tendency to scare the crap out of you when you are least expecting it. They are also a bit creepy, because the way they are built suggests that the person’s head is still under there. Subtle, but nice.
I thought it would be fun to play with the textures and shadows of a creature like this. In the game, the zombie versions are covered in blood and gore, and with ink work it can be a trick to use crosshatch lines that show both texture and shadowing at the same time.
Here it is, and as always let me know what you think: H is for Headcrab (click on it for a larger version).
