Quick Catch-up

Of Creatures

Manta Ray/Bat Creature

• Paused
• Need to rework the pose again as the perspective is still off
• Has a paper model (used for previous poses)
• On hold till a fitting pose has been found

Ostracod/Bull

• Paused
• Research is being done - figuring out patterns of bioluminescence on ostracods and abyssopelagic fish to make it most effective on the end creature

Werewolf

• Requires finalising and adding to the blog

Other

• I've been reading an encyclopaedia of mythical creatures and am marking ones I find interesting, in order to possibly sketch and draw them later
• Looked at OpenToonz; with enough motivation and decent tutorials, I might be able to utilise this animation software for a creature's walk cycle
• I hope to complete three skillshare courses once my current three creatures are finished
• I've been doing a lot of traditional sketches and silhouettes again, I've found that a red brushpen and fineliner have an excellent effect when paired together, and I have a few creature ideas developing from it. I'll post those when I have a few more pages done

Creature Design - The Giant

Overview

This creature stalled a lot during creation, but eventually came through as a gentle giant. Reminding myself of a favourite documentary helped immensely to finish this creature to a respectable, realistic standard, and it's now one of my favourites instead of something I regretted trying.

[Unnamed properly as of yet.]

Inspiration

Creatures:

• Bull
• American Buffalo
• Golden Takin
• Elephant
• Nudibranch
• Snail
• Nautilus
• Ammonite (Extinct)

Other:

• Sundew Plant

Considered:

• Hammerhead Shark
• Fu Dog (Fantasy)
• Dunkleosteus (Extinct)
• Diplocaulus (Extinct)

Belated Afterthoughts:

• Walrus
• Barnacled rocks

Process

The Giant started out as an attempt to revive the fu dog/diplocaulus creature I'd begun with at the start and abandoned due to lack of direction. Later on, I left this creature design again as I didn't know how to progress in it. Each time, I came back and persevered and eventually everything worked out.

Original idea, hammerhead shark/diplocaulus/fu dog. Though some of the shapes are interesting, nothing was inspiring enough to continue with.

 

Favoured sketches from previous page on the left. Added in the Golden Takin as a source of inspiration due to its domed head shape. Righthand sketches are where I included bulls and nautilus; this is why the horns are swirled, to give the spiral shell pattern on the side of the head.

Final lineart. Of the two coloured sketches, the left one is where this creature stalled again. The right one, with more depth and feeling, was when I came back to it. Continuing it as a bland, sharkskin-esque texture felt wrong - elephant skin was soon taken as an inspiration and the design propelled from there. This is why the righthand lineart has elephant trunk lines on its head, as I had completed the left image by then and was preparing the second lineart for the same.

During colouring, I had to invert the textured background as it was too overbearing on the colours I was choosing to use, and I couldn't see the edges very well against the sandy tones. The blue it happened to invert to gives these creatures a very cold, arctic feel, as though they are stalwart wanderers of the snowy plains, and this idea and visual may have influenced their colours subconsciously.

Final design.

Design Notes:

• They have no eyes. Their foraging depends entirely on amazingly strong senses of smell, touch, and hearing.
• The tentacles on their backs are covered in sticky, sap-like fluid, as are their tail-tips. The tails are used to lash out at prey/foliage, and deposit them on their backs, where they will be devoured. The back-tendrils have serrated edges and towards their base they excrete extremely viscous, strong stomach acid to dissolve whatever matter they have collected.
• Horns are not used in combat with each other. It is thought they aid in communication though, as these creatures often greet each other with side-on head-touches.
• Even if crippled by the predatory horses or other attackers, these creatures are still efficient hunters due to the long, swift reach of their tail. Herds will often stay with an injured/paralyzed member and feed them a share of collected food.
• It is thought they call in extremely low frequencies, as nothing audible is present to human ears. The cat-like Ribas will vacate treetops hours before these creatures will pass by; it is possible they can pick up on the low frequencies due to using some themselves, though not on the same scale.
• These giants are mild mannered creatures, despite being voracious omnivores. Captive animals can be trained into what they are allowed to eat. They are particularly useful for hauling timber, and some have even been trained to strip bark and branches from the logs also.

Reflection

• Extremely useful creature to design; not only is it fairly different (especially with the addition of elephant skin as a texture, unused before), but it proves that designs that aren't working can always be turned into something good if you persevere and are willing to make changes.
• Belatedly realised walruses and barnacled rocks might have been useful to look at whilst colouring. A stronger visual library will fix this.
• Elephant-like skin is very tedious to draw (though maybe not quite on the same level as scales), but I really like the effect and will probably use create it again.
• Drawing a side-on creature and then one on a diagonal immediately afterwards was challenging, as some of the design were happy accidents (i.e. a Difference layer being used over the horns with colours that happened to make it much more appealing) that I then had to figure out and recreate. It was very useful to figure out the processes though.

Miscellaneous Sketches

Between my essay and my MA poster I didn't have enough time to focus solely on finished pieces, thus I have gathered a lot of spare sketches and ideas that don't always apply to other creatures in this mini-project. I also have some other creatures to finalise and then add in separate blog posts shortly.

Sketches

Digital sketches based on R.J. Palmer's first skillshare video. Technique is to build shapes first, like a ribcage, and then design a creature based on that, using knowledge of various creatures (his tend to be dinosaurs). Some of mine bled into later creature designs.

Idle sketch of woodlouse armour and fu dogs. From very early on in the project.

Brush pen. Following the idea of a creature that hides as a boulder, with rabbit-like fern ears and other plant-like protrusions that are actually external gills so it could survive underwater. Bottom sketches are of amphipods, something I'd just seen an article on and decided to copy.

Watercolour of said rock/rabbit in its environment. Used a reference. Despite the simplicity, I really like the effect, so I might try basic background details on my next creatures.

Double page spread of ideas for a bull creature with mantis arms that act as a shield, based on the design of an amphipod's armour.

Digital follow-up to the above. The headshots evolved into a more dragon-like creature, however. Both ideas (the head and the body) might come into play in other, later creatures, but at the moment I'm out of ideas for how to progress with either.

Further sketches based on the previous two ideas, breaking off into different creatures.

Break from the previous bull/mantis. Looking for shapes.

Quick sketches from screenshots from my favourite animal documentary, "Return of the Giant Killers: Africa's Lion Kings". I really like the idea of predators taking down huge prey unused to being attacked, and hope to include it in a later idea. Animals included are lions, elephants, pelicans, and buffalo.

Looking at head shapes.

Continuing from the top of the previous image. Digital sketches testing a body style for the creature. It doesn't work out so I left it for now.

Silhouettes of collected animal imagery, looking for shapes and inspiration. The pencil sketches explore ideas of tusks and teeth in different ways.

More silhouettes of creatures, only some from imagery. Chimps/gorilla were inspired by rewatching "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", as I realised I'd never drawn them. The silhouettes to the right of the four apes are using ape head shapes, but upside down.

Coloured brush pens, as a break from black. Found out some have a dry brush effect when used quickly, so I explored different shapes and textures, and what I could read from the end result. I really like some of them as headshots for monsters.

First attempt at Mudbox in almost two years. Tried to recreate Ribas, my sabre-toothed cat creature. Only got one tooth half-done, as I couldn't figure out how to aptly recreate it and get them to a fine point. Also, it was on a high level of detail but the front muzzle, where the teeth should go, was very under-poly. I think I messed up early on and it carried over to the higher detail. Despite ultimately being a failed piece, I did learn a lot (definitely need an orthographic of what I'm trying to sculpt, for instance) and I will probably spend another few days trying again.

Reflection

• Coming back to traditional art between digital pieces was liberating, and often gave new insight into a design.
• Exploring headshots is a good technique to make a creature more unique, as gazes focus on the face most, and the body can be built to match.
• Creature silhouettes were useful to break down shapes.
• Watercolour was difficult to produce due to limited colour range, but once I realised I didn't have to copy the reference exactly, it became its own piece and I really like how it turned out.
• I'd like to try clay modelling. The failed Mudbox attempt became annoying due to my lack of experience with the program, and the mistakes I made early on really impacted my ability to finish the piece properly to a degree I was happy with. Clay would be more forgiving, and would give a physical maquette I could use in illustrations, for lighting and pose purposes, like James Gurney uses.