When we got the task to create our own hybrid I started thinking about the elements that could influence it and also thought about hybrids that already existed.
I really love water, I especially feel free and calm when I sit in front of the ocean and just watch the waves going back and forth. That's when I decided that my main element will be water. More specifically the Ocean. But I decided to create a hybrid that comes from the deep sea as this part of the ocean is barely known and there is still so much to discover. This will also give me more freedom when creating my hybrid because you never know what's really down there.
I started thinking how I could combine a human with something from the deep sea. I was just playing around with some ideas and thought I could create a silicone piece and apply it to the shoulder and in it add some corals. But for that idea to work I first need to check of there are actually corals that deep down. I am not entirely sure because in those depths the water is quite full of sulfur and it could maybe be poisonous for corals but I will definitely get information about that. Then I could also make the skin very slimy and add some special contact lenses to make my hybrid look blind. I thought that would be a good idea as the creatures living in the deep sea don't need to have proper vision as there is no light down there. So the eyes are not adapted to sunlight. Another idea would be to add gills. But then again that's probably something a lot of people will do if they choose something living in water. And I want to create something more different. I also thought about creating a wound on my hybrids body that shows black blood coming out of it which I could link to octopuses ink. But here again I would need to check what kind of octopuses live in the deep sea. Those are all just some random ideas but hopefully after watching some good documentaries about the deep sea and deep sea creatures I will have a clearer vision for my hybrid design.
For my research I watched documentaries about deep sea creatures for hours on you tube. And I found a really good one which also helped me to clarify some of my questions I had when brainstorming my first ideas but it actually also helped me choose the animal I want to use for my hybrid. The documentary is called "Creatures Of The Deep Ocean - Documentary" but unfortunately I just noticed that it was deleted on YouTube -.- That's a bit annoying as I wanted to add it into this post but I found some other short videos about my chosen animal.
When watching this documentary I learned about the Vampyroteuthis infernalis which is more commonly known as Vampire squid or Vampire squid from hell. I never heard about it before and it is really mesmerizing and just so beautiful!
But first let me show you this beautiful creature.
can be found in the tropical deep sea regions world wide
is around 30cm long
female longer than male
is either a squid nor a octopus but fundamental structures are similar ->comes from a line of Cephalopoda which would later divide into 10 limbed squid and 8 limbed octopuses
are living fossils
can have a range of colours from black to red( deep red) depending on light
have big blue or red eyes, depending on light again
to big fins on top of their head that actually look like big ears
eat 'marine snow' which is dead (fish)body parts coming from the surface, fish poop ->don't eat living animals
have only suckers on the end of their arms, have 8 arms which are connecting by webbing
turn inside out when threatened
use bioluminescent mucus do draw away attention of enemy so they can flee
have also bioluminescent on their body and two big round circles which look like their eyes( but are not)
A bit of background story to my vampire squid human hybrid.
Because it is the deep sea I was thinking that a human vampire squid hybrid could be found in a lost city underwater. Because if we think about we don't really know what is down there so a lot would be possible. As an example you could use Atlantis. I watched some documentaries about Atlantis to see of the location would fit with the natural habitat of the vampire squid but unfortunately the exact location wasn't found yet. But there are some speculation. So that's why I decided to make my own underwater city which would fit with the natural habitat. And there my human vampire quid people live.
When I thought about hybrids one of the first things that came in my mind were mythical creatures and deities and gods from different cultures. The first thing I was thinking about were the Egyptian gods where a lot of the gods are all half human half animal, making it a hybrid. Of course there are also gods which consist of different animals only. But I will make a list and show a few from each.
I have to say after I watched the little mermaid as a kid I was really worried as my grandmum's name is also Ursula and I thought she was the evil witch from the little mermaid^^ Qilin (China) source head of a dragon, the antlers of a deer, the scales of a fish, the hooves of an ox, and the tail of a lion; there is also a Japanese version Yali (Hindu) source head of a lion, the tusks of an elephant, the body of a cat, and the tail of a serpent Skvader(Sweden) source
body of a hare and wings and tail of a wood grouse (female one) Narasimha source source
There are not only hybrids in the nature or transportation but we also have hybrid creatures in TV and Film.
When I was first looking into this more I found it bit hard to find what I was actually looking for as mostly you only get hybrid genre in TV and Film. Which is as you can probably guess a mixture between at least two different film genre. As example we could use Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow from 1999. It is a combination of Horror, Drama and Mystery( it has also a few moments of Romance). As you can see the film doesn't only belong to one genre anymore but is a combination which makes it a hybrid film. But nowadays films consist of more than one genre most of the time.
Now, because it was hard to fund something about hybrid creatures in film and TV I was going through the films I know and tried to find hybrids in there.
The film that came into my mind first was
Avatar.
In Avatar we have the human/ alien hybrids or to be more specific the human/Na'vi hybrids. The appearance is still very similar to humans but they also have inhuman elements.
Human elements:
Body statue, arms,legs, face looks quite humans
Other elements:
blue skin, animal like ears, animal like teeth and behavior, tail, bigger in size( way taller than normal humans, longer and bigger arms,legs,hands and feet).
When I watched Avatar for the first time years ago I thought the Na'vi behave a bit cat like in ways of how they move and also their facial expression.
The film is from 2009 and was directed by James Cameron. Some of the MUA that worked on that film were Linda DeVetta, Richie Alonso, Michele Barber, Tegan Taylor and many more. You can find the full list here.
Hellboy is a film from 2004 and way directed by Guillermo del Toro and is an adaption from the Hellboy comic books by Mike Mignola. This time I could find way more special effects MUA working on the film. A few of them are Steve Wang, Diana Choi, Georgina Abanto, Rick Baker, Jason Barnett, Jake Garber and many more. I will definitely look more into those special effects make-up artist later to see on which films they worked as well and to maybe find out how they all started.
Those two images show the same actor but on the left side you can how completely different he looks as Hellboy with a lot of prosthetic's and make-up. Hellboy is portraying a demon but you can still find a lot of human elements in him. First of all how his body is built. It looks very human and has the typical muscles in abdomen area and looks just a bit like a body builder. His face looks despite the huge changes through prosthetic's still human. He also has facial hair. And his ears look very human- normal as well.
Abe Sapien
Is a hybrid brtween the scientist Langdon Everett Caul and a jellyfish like deity. After doing a ritual in the Oannes Society he transformed into an icthyo sapien.
I really like the image above as it shoes the transformation from the actor to Abe Sapien. This was just a practice to see how the SFX make-up would look on the actor. This is important as you can then see if there are any changes that have to be done.
Another film (or series of films) where you can find hybrids is
X-Men
2000-2017, Directed by Bryan Singer, Matthew Vaughn, James Mangold, Brett Ratner, Gavin Hood.
Ann McLaren was the prosthetic artist and Christopher Allen Nelson the special effects Make-up artist.
X-Men shows a lot of different mutants which you can also count to hybrids.
But before I go more into the characters of X-Men I will explain what mutants are.
Mutation is a natural process which happens all the time. In fact we wouldn't be here if mutation hadn't happened. And it is also something that keeps us alive as through changes in the DNA we can get immune to some very fatal diseases for instance there we people that were immune to the plaque. As they were mostly the only survivors, more and more plaque resisted people were made.
But now to mutation.
What is mutation?
Mutation are changes in DNA but are not always bad. If the change doesn't happen in a gene that is important it will probably go unnoticed. Most of the time mutation gets fixed my enzymes that go up and down the DNA helix and check for any errors and normally fix them. If they are not able to a mutation happens.
There are different types of mutations.
Genemutation ( a single gene is affected) which can be divided into
Point mutation through
Substitution
-> a base is being exchanged for a different one which then won't fit with the RNA string. Either the enzymes will fix the wrong base on the DNA string or the opposite on the RNA string can be exchanged.
Example:
normally it would be c->g
c gets switched out with a
a->g ->does not match,
now enzyme could fix it and it will be c->g again or it stays as a->g or g will be swapped with t which will result in a->t ->matches again.
Deletion
-> a base is being deleted and it will mess up the originally order, number of base is wrong
(a section is being deleted or lost)
(screenshot)
(screenshot)
Insertion
-> an extra base is being inserted, number of base is wrong, order will not match anymore
(screenshot)
Duplication
-> duplication of a base codon
Example: AAG AAG GAG
TTC TTC CTC
->I actually wanted to find a chart where all of the genemutaion sub types are shown together but that was a bit hard.Somehow there is always something missing,so I will just put up a couple of different charts.
There is also Chromosome mutation which divides into
Deletion:
This mutation results from the breakage of a chromosome in which the genetic material becomes lost during cell division. The genetic material can break off from anywhere on the chromosome. (http://biology.about.com/od/genetics/ss/chromosome-mutation.htm)
Inversion:
In an inversion, the broken chromosome segment is reversed and inserted back into the chromosome. If the inversion encompasses the centromere of the chromosome, it is called a pericentric inversion. If it involves the long or short arm of the chromosome and does not include the centromere, it is called a paracentric inversion. (http://biology.about.com/od/genetics/ss/chromosome-mutation.htm)
Translocation:
The joining of a fragmented chromosome to a non-homologous chromosome is a translocation. The piece of chromosome detaches from one chromosome and moves to a new position on another chromosome. (http://biology.about.com/od/genetics/ss/chromosome-mutation.htm)
This type of chromosome is produced by the improper division of the centromere. Isochromosomes contain either two short arms or two long arms. A typical chromosome contains one short arm and one long arm. (http://biology.about.com/od/genetics/ss/chromosome-mutation.htm)
1. Deletion
2. Duplication
3. Inversion
1. Insertion
2. Translocation
But we also differentiate between numerical chromosome mutations and structural chromosome mutations.
Numerical:
->also known as genommutation
-> missing a chromosom or has too many ->monosomy ,trisomy
Example: Down syndrome - Trisomy 21, instead of two pairs of 21 chromosomes it has 3 pairs
Turner Syndrome, example for monosomy, only one sex chromosome -> x
Structural:
-> structure of chromosomes is altered ( deletion, duplication, translocation, etc)
Okay now let's finally go back to X-Men. Through changes in their DNA all of the X-Men went through special mutations which makes them also hybrids. Hybrids also made through mutation. Either from external influences weather, sunlight, toxins and chemicals or 'internal' influences through a mistake while replicating the DNA.
Well known mutants from X-Men:
Wolverine
Professor X
Storm
Mystique
Magneto
Nightcrawler
Quciksilver
Iceman
Beast
Banshee
Angel
and many many more.
I will add some images with other mutants as well
But it is not only X-Men. Generally you can count a lot of Marvel characters as hybrids.
Fun Fact:
after reaching adulthood humans weren't normally able to digest milk until they 'invented'(I pretty sure that's the wrong word for it^^or is it discovered??) drinking cows mild which is very similar to human milk. More and more people adapted to drinking milk even as a adult and nowadays people think that's the norm and being lactose intolerant is abnormal and just an allergy when in fact the lactose intolerance is the norm as it means that those people still have the original DNA code. Lactose intolerance is especially common in Asia as they didn't adapt really to drinking cow milk and used soy milk instead.
Underworld
2003-2016, Directed by Len Wiseman, Patrick Tatopoulos, Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein.
Hybrid created through combination of Vampire and Lycan's (werewolf) bloodlines.
(source)
Not the best quality but it shows Micheal's transformation into a hybrid.
There are also many kinds of Hybrids in the Vampire Diaries. We have Vampire-Werewolf hybrids, Vampire-Witch hybrids, Werewolf- Witch hybrids
The Scorpion King
2002, directed by Chuck Russell and starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as the Scorpion King.
Dwayne Johnson- please let me swoon for a moment :D
It is probably easy to guess what the hybrid will be. Of course it is half human half scorpion.
Of course there are many more but I will stop here as I just wanted to show some examples of hybrids in film and TV and this post has gotten quite long.
It was quite interesting to find all those hybrids and to actually think more deeply about these films. It also shows how much research the whole film department has to do before creating all those characters as a lot of Biology is behind it. And you do want the characters to be realistic to a certain extend.
I just saw this trailer to the film 'Hybrid' and it doesn't look too bad.
It is a Swedish sci-fi thriller from 2014 and was directed by Billy O'Brien.
I can't say yet if it is any good because I haven't watched it yet but I will add some notes after I watched it
