For this demo I showed how to create VDM (vector displacement map) to use in creating your concept. From there I used a older male scanned head, along with a VDM brush I created, to start playing with design and silhouette. Using pieces from my VDM brush, I looked for interesting shapes and built upon an idea for my creature. Concentrating on having the eye flow around the design and giving areas of rest, I slowly created the base form, before filling out the secondary details. After making sure I was happy with the direction, I then added parts to help design and story. I then filled in the high level details before bringing in alphas to flesh out the creature. After sculpting, I went into poly-paint using a darker grey/warm/purple tone to create the base color more in thoughts of alien, and slowly brought out details that I wanted to pop, along with adding forms and values. Bringing in transparency through PolyPaint, I went with more of an underwater feel to him. Finally, I did a quick example of merged visible to rework some of the design to get variants to the concept.
