Marvel’s newest incarnation of the alien symbiote venom is Anti-Venom. Proportionately he is supposed to be built bulkier than Spidey but not as hulking as Venom. After a couple tweaks to the design sketches I decided on an amalgam of the comic pages and promo art with the design feel. Initially, going over the design drawings and penciled comic pages I had to determine the texture of his body. Venom and Carnage always seem to have a more liquid like surface to them, especially Carnage. Anti-Venom however seems to have a more thorny aspect to his surface texture. I used the flow of muscle striations to create a continuity over the body surface and then built a network of veins, pockmarks and growths from which random patches of spiky thorns burst through.

As I went through the reference I took most of my interpretation from the 3/4 view promo show of the character. The shape and configuration of the thorns on his head combined with the interesting line work around the eyes really grabbed me. He has sort of a “Grinchy-ness” in this shot that I really liked. This is important because he’s also the first incarnation that actually has his eyes showing, not covered by the Spidey type eye shields.

In terms of the body , I wanted to really push the monster aspect of the character. Part of this was to hunch him slightly through the shoulders to give him a more animal posture. Another thing which I did to accent the monstrous feel of the character was to avoid symmetry in his surface anomalies such as the spiky protrusions and striations. This helps to convey the impression that he his perhaps constantly morphing . Add to this the massive snarled clawed hands, and there’s no mistaking this guy for a hero.

In terms of articulation we discussed a fair amount of movement points. Once the rough proportions were approved, I cut him up and measured for optimal joint diameters. At this point I always begin reinterpreting some of the anatomy to work with the articulation points. It’s a concession to the toy aspect of the project that is necessary in order to make it look good as well as function. The trickiest to execute is always the hip area which we decided on the floating ball joint, which seems to be a popular way to create a large range of movement in that area. The down side is the mechanical break it creates in the pelvis/ thigh transition. To smooth this somewhat, I sculpted all the hip flexor muscles on the ball and had the thigh and hamstring muscles finish at what would be an insertion point for the overlapping muscle group where possible. I also didn’t cut a mechanical shape around the top of the thigh socket, but had the shape flow around the muscle groups to soften the impact of the fitting position on the eye. Wherever possible, I used the thorny textures to distract from the fitting areas, such as at the elbows and shoulders.

The other points are pretty standard; neck and shoulder ball joints, elbow, knee and ankle hinges, wrist and waist turns. The lower jaw is pinned into the palate of the upper half on the head and trapped against the neck ball joint. This way the lower joint can be molded separately (for production purposes) in a softer plastic for flexibility so as not to impede range of movement of the head.

The base is a spiral of symbiotic material exploding out of a post-battle debris field. Here I wanted a variety of differentiated textures and masses. I used a combination of simulated crushed concrete, piles of bricks and dirt as well as some machined pieces of pipe , canister and a piece of girder using clay, plaster and styrene plastic. This way there would be a contrast between the more flowing organic elements of the figure and the geometric base elements.

With the decoration he is pretty basic (black and white) so we used gradation of color in the body as well as a wash to pick up the textures. With this backdrop the red eyes and spider insignia really pop well. The base is more natural earth tones, again as a means to create contrast with the figure.

More pictures of Anti-Venom in progress can be found here!

Next, finishing up Battlestar Galactica Series 4!