Candy-Colored Alien Organisms are Every Trypophobe’s Nightmare

October 7, 2016, 10:00am

Time to trigger your trypophobia: At once unsettling and strangely appetizing, these cosmic candy-like plants, marmalade crystals, and exotic alien flowers spring from an experiment by digital artist David Brodeur. The Chicago-based artist renders a fictional ecosystem with unknown flora: glowing berry-like plants, candy-shaped orbs, and colorful sphere mists sprouting out of a darkness, exotic soil, and ocean waters. His works have names like Celestial, Poison, Alive, Smoke, and Ocean Series. They’re all connected via formations from phantasmagoric dreams, and the vibrant movement of the fluidly-organic objects.

Brodeur started to work on the project over a year ago. He decided to do a 365-day challenge with different themes every month, and post the results online. “This ended up being the most difficult part of the everyday project as each month I had to conceptualize a new theme,” Brodeur tells The Creators Project. In addition to the main theme, every month he took on a new design or technical challenge, such as a focus on color theory or composition. “Most of my concepts are not that complex at all. For example, my Poison Series all started because I was fascinated by the colors and textures of poisonous tree frogs. Some series I try to think of what objects would look like under a microscope and make that my theme for a month,” he adds.

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Brodeur’s latest is Ocean Series, which keeps with xenological colorings, objects that move from candy formations into futuristic astronomical forms.

This alien habitat is crafted with Photoshop, After Effects, Maxon Cinema 4D, and Wacom Intuos. “The bulk of my work is created using a 3D software called Maxon Cinema 4D. I usually combine this software with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects. I really use Cinema 4D to create 99% of my work and will only jump into Photoshop if I want to make a specific material to import into 3D. My compositing work inside of After Effects is really minimal as well as I try to get my final look in the 3D software,” Brodeur explains.