Creature Design - Church Griffin and Natalie Hall

Creature Design #7

Overview
In the Cathedral Ward of Bloodborne there are small griffin statues on pedestals, but the closest an enemy comes to that form is an obviously created dog with the head of a crow; my creature idea was a visible amalgamation of parts into a griffin-like animal, presumably failed and disturbing, and hidden away from the public.

The chosen artist was Natalie Hall, a tattoo artist who often posts animal sketches on her facebook page. She uses pencil and ink, and the results are normally fluid, exaggerated and sometimes in abnormal poses. During my initial sketches for ideas I drew a few creatures in the same kind of style and I thought it might be interesting to expand upon those.

Research

• Natalie Hall's instagram
• Fox hounds
• Crows, ravens, and their skulls

Process

Initial exploration. Since the environment is typically a Victorian-style city, it seemed implausible for there to be lions or eagles. Thus, my ideas stayed with what existed in abundance in the world - dogs and crows.

I tried to use biro like Natalie Hall, which I quickly dropped in favour of pencil again. The small statue is a quick study of an in-game screenshot so I could get a feel for the creature I was designing, imagining the mindset of those who would be making it in the world.

Resorted to brushpen for quicker layouts for an end pose, as it helps me see the overall shape better than pencil lines do. Additionally, drawing in pen means each line counts, and has to be thought through a little more than pencil, as pencil has the option of being erased.

Several of the creatures are consigned to boxes to try and replicate Natalie Hall's style. 

Some poses worked well for forcing a sense of character (in particular, the one throwing feathers, and the one sat on its haunches), but they didn't work overall for displaying a creature's design, though it might be the wings that were at fault. Wings couldn't be folded on its back as it would hide too much of its body, but outstretched didn't fit in the constrained poses. 

The design developed at this stage, also. I went back to pencil, and then drew over it with a thinner brushpen just for line variety. The beak became more combined with the dog's skull, more in proportion with the placement of its nostrils.

Picked the best poses from the previous page and enlarged them, with more detail.

Final design for the Church Griffin. Deformed dog skull protruding into a muzzle, skin pulled back to the back of the jaws, feathers developing into a mane, wings too small to carry the creature in flight, and large crow-like fore-feet. Probably a mixture of hound bays and crow calls for its cry.

Reflection

• Monochromatic designs don't give the same impact as coloured versions
• Pencil/pen work great for sketches
• Different poses, especially constrained to a small area, make for visible personalities in the creatures
• Multiple sketches really help to develop a design
• Basing the design in the world and using what would be available (for a chimeric creature like this one) helps to give a more realistic outcome