Creature Design - Burnt Cat and Peter Han

Creature Design #6

Overview
There are no cats in Bloodborne - my view was that perhaps they were viewed with superstition (like during witch-hunts) and were rounded up and burnt. Thus, this creature would be one that escaped and/or survived the flames, though disfigured.

Peter Han is an artist who primarily uses brush-pens with great skill, though he also uses watercolours. He advocates dynamic sketching, understanding the form of the creature you're trying to design.

Research

• The Sketchbook of Peter Han, a book I recently received from his Kickstarter campaign
• Peter Han's drawings on facebook
• Sphynx, manx, and burnt cats on Google Images

Process

Pencil sketches to get out initial ideas - burnt, disfigured, hunched, melted. Then I drew cats from images on Google - hairless sphynx cats, a manx cat, and a decayed, dead cat from an article I saved. Pencil, then thin brush-pen, and then watercolour. I only have a few colours so it limited my palette and forced me to consider each colour carefully.

Further watercolour sketches - cats burnt in a wildfire, and two more sphynxes to show their range of movement. I then combined all the elements I liked from previous images into a final watercolour creature design - hairless, burnt and bleeding, with huge paws and a partially disfigured face.

Reflection

• Useful to break away from digital into a forcibly limited colour palette (12 pans in a field sketch set)
• Personally find it useful to draw things traditionally first; it gives me a better sense of the proportions
• Traditional art (especially pen/paint) makes each line count, as it cannot be erased
• Useful to break away from digital and experiment with other mediums
• Eventually the process would speed up as the pencil would become unnecessary

Creature Design - Crow Fox and Aaron Blaise

Creature Design #5

Overview
A final version of the fox mentioned in a previous blog post.

Aaron Blaise (Art of Aaron Blaise) often uses photo textures in his speedpaints to create extremely realistic effects, and it's something I'd never tried. He also has a mastery of light-sources and pose.

Research

• Aaron Blaise videos and tutorials
• Fox images (from a prior blog post)

Process

Initial designs to find a pose. Using images as reference and inspiration. The colour swatch is from a technique by Mike Corriero and took the basic colours from a Bloodborne screenshot.

Initial image I started with for this technique.

After various photo textures were applied - I cropped small areas of fur from Google Images of foxes, and laid them over my image on an overlay layer. I then drew over them to add more details, stray hairs, and lighting.

The fox would be as the first image, stationed near crows (or roaming the area looking for crows) and would be quite weak in that form. When it kills a crow (they're a simple enemy that players often run past and leave alive), it mutates into the feather-strewn second form on the right and becomes a lot more dangerous. At this point it would stalk the player through the level at high speed and ambush them from behind.

Reflection

• Very fast method to gain base detail to draw over
• Probably requires own textures/photographs, but I didn't have access to those for foxes
• Not something to rely on - need knowledge of how to create the texture in the first place in order to use it correctly
• Interesting to try out - might test again in the future

Creature Design - "Unicorn" Warhorse and The Skillful Huntsman

Creature Design #4

Overview
Horses are only seen in Bloodborne when they're already dead - I wanted to explore a living horse, perhaps owned by a Hunter, that knew how to fight off enemies and could have survived in the hellish nightmare.

The Skillful Huntsman is a book by Scott Robertson and three of his top students, exploring designs for an obscure Grimm's fairytale. I used Khang Le, one of the students, as a base for this design process, as he used brush-pens for silhouettes, which I felt most confident with.

Research

• The Skillful Huntsman book.
• Horse images - specifically Clydesdales, Fjord horses, Shire horses, and Przewalski's horse (an ancient, stocky breed). I also looked up race horses to get a feel for the anatomy, but primarily I knew I wanted something stockier.
• Medieval horse armour and its placement.
• Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse (researched when I was looking up Yatagarasu).
• Dracopedia: The Bestiary - unicorn section - the artist designed a unicorn according to legends rather than typical fantasy rules.

Process

I knew I wanted unicorn imagery - something beautiful twisted into the macabre. Thus, all my sketches focused around something 

Initial silhouettes. Looking for shape/feel. Ranges from a skinny, wasting horse, to a much stockier breed, to something of bison-like stature. Also looking at what 'horn' fits - one affixed to armour, or a blade or spear shaft lodged in the horse's skull.

More silhouettes, alongside research. This is more of a throwback to Feng Zhu's methods, though it was advocated in commentary by Khang Le and the other artists in the book. Testing if the main should be barbed wire or spikes instead of fur.

The final design was selected from the traditional sketches - I find they're much quicker to complete, as I work small, and the brush-pen is much easier to block in with than with a digital brush. Initially I was going to have the horse with an almost buzzcut mane and a short tail, but to give the allusion that it had been surviving alone without human contact, I swapped to a more rough, knotty mane instead.

The armour is battered and bloodstained - on the chestplate piece, there is skull imagery. The shoulder pieces have blades, to act like the spikes on chariot wheels and cut through enemies. Its back feet also have spikes, for added damage when it kicks. There are no spikes on the front feet as horses can catch their front legs with their back hooves when running.

All the armour is present, as there is no way for the horse to have gotten loose from it alone. The only thing broken is the reins, so that players could not question why the horse can't be used as transport. Additionally, broken, dangling reins gives the horse a whip-like weapon.

His posture is to imply dignity, but also threat. One hoof is raised like a dog that's seen its prey. His overall silhouette is stocky, to give a sense of power and strength, the latter being added to by the unicorn-like spike protruding from the headpiece.

Final image. Background features faint grass to hint at the horse's normally benign nature, and low-hanging clouds/fog. I tested my Intuos' pen tilt function to aid drawing the fur - it's extremely useful.

Reflection

• Small, brush-pen silhouettes allow for quick designs
• Visual library came into play for vague knowledge of applicable horse breeds
• Slight points of detail in the background make the whole image more interesting
• Research, and drawing with reference images on the page, is a very valid method of design
• Simple designs often work better than more complex ones (i.e. the barbed wire mane)
• Don't ignore points of challenge - the saddle and most of the armour was almost left out as it seemed difficult to figure out, and I thought it might detract from the overall shape. In the end it proved to solidify the themes of strength instead
• Silhouettes are solid starting points for designs

Creature Design - Maned Werewolf and Terryl Whitlatch

Creature Design #3

Overview

The creature is based on a small brush-pen silhouette of a werewolf with thick neck fur and a hunched posture. I instantly liked it and knew I wanted to use that as the final pose, so it was useful for this artist's process (instead of wasting time figuring out a pose after the design).

Terryl Whitlatch is author to several creature design books, and comes from a background of animal anatomy. She's exceptional for creating realistic creatures, complete with bones and underlying muscle structure. It's not something I had attempted with a creature design.

Research

• Terryl Whitlatch's book, "Animals: Real and Imagined". She does have other books but I don't currently own them.
• Human, dog, wolf and bear anatomical images on Google Images.

Process

Over a low opacity layer with the silhouette on it, I drew a skeleton with a lot of referencing to anatomical images. I wanted to be sure the structure was correct for how I envisioned the end creature, thus it has an overly long neck, a hunched spine, and is an amalgamation of human and wolf bones. The bear skull worked better overall for the strong jaw and square muzzle, making sure it's stronger than an average wolf creature.

Breaking the creature down to its bone structure made me think a lot more about how its parts should match together (i.e. the human arms and the wolf chest). It was a very interesting task, though highly time-consuming.

Musculature is not something I have really studied - this part of the process was very tedious and required a lot of references. I typically learn where muscles are by studying the actual creature in various poses - this was a long and boring technique for me, though probably beneficial.

The final creature. His size isn't really well displayed in the simple background, but I do like the different colours and shades of his fur.

I tried to keep a limited colour palette, though the final effect seems to be of age - a wary, old werewolf, streaked with grey, decked in the wings of crows to enhance the stature and rank his thick mane already gives him. His gait would be careful, clever, and silent, as would his attacks, though he might be weaker than smaller, younger werewolf enemies.

Reflection

• Very time-consuming process
• Requires a solid pose/idea from the start
• Still don't know which way to design it from - bones, muscles, body, or vice versa. Bones and muscle first give a solid foundation to draw on, but body first gives the final design and pose
• Useful for learning underlying structure - useless if sped through/guessed
• Probably not useful for typical design approaches unless anatomy is already known

Creature Design - Church Cat and DmC

[Mass update from over Christmas (broken into sections). I now have a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet which I am still learning to use properly, but it is much better for brushes as it can recognise the tilt of the pen.]

Creature Design #2

Overview

I wanted my creature design to add something new to Bloodborne, whilst keeping within the unwritten game rules/lore. The idea was a cat-like creature forcibly made by the Church, the highest authority in the game. Church enemies have mask-like faces, heavy robes, and vary in size and weaponry.

The design process used was based on concept art in the DmC: Devil May Cry artbook. Creatures like the Hunter, and Rage, had sketches that showed their whole bodies, and then sketches specifically for working out the design of each creature's face. It seemed interesting to do, as each headshot gave a different feel to the creature, and faces are typically focal points on any given thing, requiring a lot of thought.

Research

• Images from the DmC artbook. I have also played the game before, so I knew how a lot of the creatures came across in-game, which of the concept art applied.
• Images of Bloodborne Church enemies, and their lore (in the Collector's Edition Guide).

Process

Initial pen sketches. The largest image was actually fairly close to the final design, as I referred to it when I felt lost in design decisions. The smaller images explore poses. 

Applicable text reads:

"Church cats - they get rid of the rats in the walls. Rarely seen. Feared. Hunters have dogs, Church have cats. Slightly like Sphynx. Crested."

 

For painting I did basic sketches, put the basic colours underneath, and then detailed on a layer over the top of both. It was a fast and effective process.

The construction lines are based on something Feng Zhu often did, figuring out perspective and making sure the image was in proportion. It's a good technique to keep the image in line and get a sense for its size with the horizon line.

Decisions had to be made about the creature's final design. The front-facing images didn't have the same sense of imperiousness I wanted the creature to display; I wanted the cat to be arrogant, an apex hunter that knew of its skill, a creature spoilt and worshipped by its creators.

The image in the coat gave a strong visual link to normal Bloodborne Church enemies, but again didn't give the right impression. Even if it attacked by being on all fours, there was no sense for it to be on its hind legs if it didn't mean something.

Thus, I chose the bottom image as a base for the final design, as I liked the idea of the spiky mane and the visible, cat-like spine. I envision it having a slow, languid pace until it spots the player, upon which it breaks into a cheetah-like run. Additionally, the side-on pose displays the change in anatomy, from human-esque to cat. The visual link to the Church enemies, instead of the cloak, is now in details; skin colour, empty black eyes, and a church bell swinging from its short tail:

Final design. Experimented with the layout - the limbs furthest away are faded, to give an instant sense of depth in the image. Also, the lighting is visible in the background, even though it's simple.

Reflection

• Working out a design with sketchy, coloured headshots gives a great sense of character, of how the creature would come across - multiple designs together show just how a small difference might tweak it better than the original plan
• Not using neat lineart, just colours, for detailing the sketches made the process a lot more fluid and changeable
• The design changed unexpectedly - reference images were needed to make the final decision, making sure the creature was unique but still linked
• Limited colour palette was useful - final creature looks strong, icy and unassailable, due to the cold colours used
• Background on final image made it appear a lot more realistic - I will keep trying new things on how to present the final layout
• Headshots are extremely useful for fleshing out a design's personality quickly, without bothering redoing the whole body

Creature Design - Yatagarasu and Feng Zhu

For each of my Bloodborne creatures I wanted to try out a different design process. I looked through all of my sketches and picked a lot of designs I felt I could take further. For each one I get to I will combine it with an artist I follow, so that I can try out their design processes. Hopefully by doing this I can find what the differences between processes do to affect the final outcome.

Quick amalgamation of preferred design ideas. I will pick a fitting creature for each artist's design process (for instance an artist whose process uses multiple headshots would require a creature design with more potential for an interesting face shape).

Creature Design #1

Overview
My first choice was the three-legged crow design I had been toying with, seen on the bottom of the above image. My initial sketches suggested it was some sort of boss, possibly blind, and that villagers sacrificed prisoners to it, presumably for good fortune. I had a loose idea of it being based on Yatagarasu, a crow creature I knew was from Japanese mythology, but I didn't know any specifics.

The artist whose design process I wanted to begin my studies with was Feng Zhu, founder of FZD School of Design. He has a series of videos on YouTube, typically an hour or more, about various topics, including creature design.

Research
For this design I used Feng Zhu's video "Design Cinema - EP 62 - Real-Time Creature Design", in which he drew three Men In Black style alien creatures, and then tidied up the lineart on the same layer. Also, he used a shade of red to draw in, instead of the typical grey/black. Another I used as guidance was "Design Cinema - EP 85 - Mythological Creatures", which features the idea of drawing for a client, and creating three initial versions that are distinct from each other - one entirely based on the client's brief, one filled with your own ideas and interpretations, and a happy medium in-between. He also explained that it's best to work with notes and images on the page as reference, to keep your mind grounded in what you're trying to achieve, and to research into creature designs to get the best understanding. This is why I chose Feng Zhu as the artist whose techniques I wanted to explore for this creature, as I knew I would have plenty to research on it.

Thus, my research on Yatagarasu and three-legged crows was fairly extensive:

Wikipedia - "three-legged crows"

• For a general overview of three-legged crows in mythology. 
• Yatagarasu ("eight-span crow") is the Japanese version, a giant jungle crow/raven embodying divine intervention and guidance. Within rituals to him is the idea of purification by fire.
• Sanzuwu ("three-legged bird"), is the Chinese version, though the names Yangwu or Jinwu ("sun/golden crow") are used for the ten crows that pulled the carriage of the sun god across the sky. They were red in colour and were blindfolded to stop them being tempted to land and eat a forbidden grass.
• Samjok-o, the Korean version, was a symbol of the sun and of power, chosen over the dragon and the phoenix.

The Legend of Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow and its possible origins

• More in-depth about Yatagarasu and the myths it appears in.
• The European tales all have black crows, linked with death, war or the underworld, whilst the Eastern myths tend to change the crow to red or yellow to better link it with the sun.
• Cherokee Indians told of the Raven Mocker, an androgynous, withered old creature that robs the dying of their life, and flies in a fiery shape, arms outstretched like wings, with sparks trailing behind and the rushing noise of a strong wind. His call is like the sound of a diving raven, an invisible force that frightens and tortures the dying.
• Northwest Indians spoke of a raven who stole fire and gave it to Earth - once the raven was white, but its feathers were stained by smoke.
• Australian Aborigines had a raven that stole fire from seven sisters, failed, and was charred in the attempt.
• Odin owned Huginn and Muninn, ravens that sought hanged men and slain bodies - sometimes they were considered valkyries in raven form.
• In Ancient Greece, ravens and crows were messengers of the sun gods, Helios and Apollo.
• In Irish myth, the Morrigan often took raven/crow form to fly over battlefields and armies, taken as an omen of impending bloodshed and fortune.
• Typically ravens were considered one of the oldest and wisest of animals.
  

Three-Legged Animals in Mythology and Folklore

• Three-legged, asymmetrical animals are highly unusual in mythology. Typically they feature two front legs and one back leg, or three legs in a row. It's much rarer to have one with one front leg.
• The Scandinavian helhest ("ghost horse") has one front leg and two back legs. It is blind, a harbinger of death, and leads people into the hereafter. It is a psychopomp, a guider of souls to the afterlife. Sleipnir (an eight-legged horse from Norse mythology) was similar, and could descend to infernal regions. (Potentially used for the warhorse planned later?)
  

Wikipedia - "Tengu" and "Tiangou"

• Yatagarasu is often equated with Karasu-Tengu ("crow tengu"), which is a giant crow-like demon. Karasu-Tengu is also similar to Garuda, a winged Buddhist creature.
• Tengu are identified by a bird's head and beak (karasu tengu), or a human physique with wings and a long nose (konoha/yamabushi tengu).
• Tengu was taken from the Chinese word Tian-Gou ("celestial dog"), which resembles a black dog/meteor, thought to eat the sun during an eclipse.
  

Process

Feng Zhu's videos said that writing notes about what you want to design, and collecting found images around the topic, all help to keep your drawings in the correct frame of mind without drifting too far. 

[All images are from Google Image searches aside from the bottom-most sketch, which is mine.]

To get a sense of what could be possible, I drew a few crows/ravens, using references for proportions and typical features.

Feng Zhu drew in red in my chosen video to follow. It was an interesting change from the previous grey/black I would normally use, and helped to avoid figuring out shadows instead of just defining the shape.

Left - two legs forward, one leg at the back. Hunched. Looked too reminiscent of a gryphon.

Right - three legs aligned. Cawing. Too stilted.

Blindfolded crows. One leg slightly forward. Hunch less exaggerated. Still seemed too unnatural.

Left - different pose of the previous two, experimenting with features.

Right - rough concept of a potential opening cutscene with this boss. Player walks into the arena with a sole tree in the centre, seemingly full of leaves. Leaves are crows, drop to the floor in a cacophony of noise, branches revealed to be bony, broken wings of giant crow, which pulls itself to its feet to begin the fight. This idea was discarded because the difference between feathers and bones felt too off, and didn't seem like it would gel into a good design.

Chosen pose/design. Blindfolded, hunched, feet planted apart for stability. Continuing with Feng Zhu's process, I tidied the line-art on the same layer rather than fading it and drawing it again on a new layer. It was much faster and gave more detail (i.e. the idea of feathers) than I am used to with line-art.

Final colours. Already knew it would be red, to avoid looking like the typical black Bloodborne crow. Potentially it rises from a lake of blood. Keeping with the theme of fire found within my research on Yatagarasu, the boss would hit a new phase at a certain amount of health left, and burn off the bandages to become more threatening, and then at another subsequent phase, it would set on fire. Probably 50% and then 30% health.

Top - moodboard/references. Used in the second image.

Left - first concept for the fire Yatagarasu.

Right - final design, using references of bird wings damaged in forest fires, and embers. The pose is more hunched, with raising wings, to make the bird seem more upset and threatening. I couldn't make the design work the way I wanted, but feathers with too much fire would burn entirely, and a fiery skeleton felt too otherworldly and unfitting. For a first attempt at smoldering fires I'm fairly pleased with the result.

Reflection

• Feng Zhu's design process is extremely useful and was a good exercise
• Reference images and notes on the drawing page is something I try to do, but now I will definitely keep it up as it keeps your mind grounded whilst offering inspiration
• Not drawing over the line-art neater made for a faster workflow
• Research prior to the design helps to develop ideas and inspiration, often from unexpected places
• Keeping the 'client brief' (or the main concept) in mind for one idea, and then moving through into an idea based on your own thoughts (i.e. the typical red Yatagarasu, and then the fiery one)  means that ideas don't get too out of hand, and also push the initial concept forward
  
• The art I created using this process was more researched than I would have done otherwise
• Line-art was looser and it felt much more acceptable to change elements of it on a whim than it would had I drawn a black, neat line-art over the top
• Didn't entirely uphold the idea of 'client version, midground, own version', but I did keep separate ideas in mind, and explore them (i.e. the tree-branch/bone wings)
  
• All in all, Feng Zhu's design process is definitely useful to take elements of, and the fact he has a series of design video tutorials ("Design Cinema" on YouTube) means that his tips are open to any caliber of artist

Sketch-dump

I didn't have access to my camera for a while so I couldn't update my blog with images, but now I can rectify that. I have also added my brushpen sketches to this blog post from earlier.

Bloodborne - Creature Design Mini-Project

Initial sketches, toying with a bull, fox, crow, and cat creature.

Pencil - looking at werewolves.

Pencil - exploring the idea of a human-like mimic creature, which wore the skin of another enemy and burst out when attacked. Would be much stronger than a typical version of that enemy.

Foxes. Tested the potential of having a crown-like crest of horns. Also looked at how foxes hunted, and how they might pounce on crows in-game.

Pencil - hunter wearing a wolf-skin, and a crow beak forcing its way out of a human's mouth.

Pen - werewolves, foxes, hounds, also the idea of an existing, recognisable weapon in the game being buried in the body of a strong enemy to add more depth to the world, implying another hunter fought it and lost.

Outliner pen - Yatagarasu (three-legged crow), snake ball variant with a crow host, muzzled werewolf with hunter master.

Outliner pen - werewolves, foxes, cats. Cats are burnt and ragged - potentially blind the area around them with thick smoke emanating from their bodies.

Brushpen - tested drybrush method with less ink. It gives a good sense of depth and form. Looked at horses (one saddled), Yatagarasu, and looked at some crow references.

Brushpen - playing with layout of sketches. Looked at bandages, blindfolds and trapdoor spiders.

Sepia outliner pen - trapdoor spiders studies. The ravine trapdoor spider has a curious body shape with patterning on the back - this could be utilised in the game as a face/skull of the original transformed human, or a rune that casts magic.

Pentel brushpen - crow/raven studies.

Close-up of text in prior image. Looked at Yatagarasu, Sanzuwu and Samjok-o for inspiration/behaviour for my three-legged crow.

Brushpen - human studies - copied a pose and looked at how it might become a creature. Looked more at crows (blind, or made of corpses), foxes, and the muzzled werewolf and owner.

Purple gel-pen/sepia outliner - breaking up black images with colour. 

Brushpen- three-winged crows, claw beaks and antlers. Broke into a more stylised artstyle in the middle.

Outliner pen - crow/fox hybrid. Hounds. Human hunter with face-covering mask.

Outliner pen - horses. Considering a unicorn-inspired warhorse that managed to survive in Bloodborne's bleak landscape. The wolves bled into more chimeric monsters, featuring absorbed souls screaming in their flesh. Also looked at rat chimeras and rat kings.

Pen - Chimeric crows, wolves.

Pencil - wolf made of corpses, chimeras, wolf with backwards human arms (unsettling gait?), fox in a cow skull, and a crow-headed dog Cerberus-inspired chimera.

Pencil - human with flayed arm-skin, forming wings. Crow with a ring through its skull. Wolf with no lower jaw. Crow-human hybrid.

Outliner pen (black/blue) - Wolves with snakes/horns. Considered a bear. Muzzled wolf. 

Outliner pen - hyena-inspired hound, large jaws.

Waterbrush filled with ink - Crow, several silhouettes. Much wetter than expected, hard to detail with, might be better with different ink or a dip-pen.

Brushpen (various) - silhouettes. Testing proficiency of pens more than paying attention to sketches, meaning I created a variety of odd monsters to be inspired by.

Brushpen (various) - silhouettes. Again testing pens. Decided the 'Pentel pocket brushpen for caligraphy' is excellent for blocking in silhouettes and not fussing over details.

Pencil/outliner - sketches in Natalie Hall's artstyle. She often constrains creatures to shapes, so they are bent in unnatural lines, but it was an extremely fun exercise and caused new ideas due to the constraints of the perceived box. I also added some shadows with brushpen, trying Andrew Mar's artstyle. I will attempt his artstyle more as it focuses on more complex lines with well-placed shadows, and might offer new insight into the design process.

Digital - Foxes, various poses.

Moodboard for previous sketches, early colour test on a chosen pose using Mike Corriero's colour swatch technique.

Took a creature from the pages of my sketchbook and developed its pose more than I normally would. Looking at its form, how its head looks from various angles.

Completed one pose in colour using the swatches again from earlier. Crow-headed Cerberus dog.

Picked another pose, began working on it - crow developing eyeballs around its neck.

Various digital sketches based on gathered ideas from my sketchbook. The wolf has dead/dying crows impaled on its spikes that would attack the player also.

Self-Reflection

• Tested: Mike Corriero, drybrush, ink-filled waterbrush, Natalie Hall, Andrew Mar.

• Getting more proficient with brushpens - can confidently test more artstyles with them now.
• Keep trying other artists' styles - possibly redraw a finalised creature in another artstyle to compare their overall effect.
• Try adding colour - look into Peter Han's style for brushpen and watercolour ideas.
• Use Feng Zhu's method for designing a few creatures (normal as according to design brief, more outrageous, completely own ideas).
• Do seperate headshots for a couple of creatures, like the DmC artbook's design process.

I'm going to pick out at least ten creatures from my initial designs and illustrate them digitally, and possibly redo a few in various artstyles/mediums for comparison. I will also break apart each design to explain why they are as they are (within the perceived game lore, and my own design choices), and what I've learnt from each new design process.