Creature Design - Suki

Overview

Shark/dog built around the idea of it being incredibly happy and overly friendly, though it looks intimidating. It would charge at humans full-speed; those who knew of them would be fine with their companionship as they are excellent protectors and scavengers, but those who were scared would kill them off. This doesn't stop them - they charge vehicles and transport too if they see humans. All they want is acknowledgement and companionship.

Suki is colloquial shorthand from their homeland, and stands for 'suiciders', due to this oblivious, fearless behaviour of running under cars.

Inspiration:

Creatures:

• Staffordshire Bull Terrier
• English Bull Terrier
• Tiger Shark
• Great White Shark
• Blue-Tongued Skink
• Andrewsarchus (extinct)

Process

This creature was difficult to pin down a design for initially, as I didn't decide upon the creature's role or behaviour; it was merely a shark crossed with a dog. Once the idea of it being friendly occurred, designs became much more dopey and good-natured, making sure that even though the creature looked stocky and intimidating, it could also look like a silly puppy, so that viewers could easily tell it had a warm personality under the more vicious exterior.

Initial sketches. The first design (top left) looks almost pig-like, and thus exterior ears were removed entirely in subsequent designs. The tail also did not fit well. However, stocky bodies and strong front legs were a consistent theme. The final design, with more of a neck, looked much more natural and realistic as a creature.

Colour idea, with sketches exploring the dopiness of the creature's behaviour. The leaping one has a wide, open mouth, reminiscent of both a shark and the staffie's wide smile.

Final design: two of them playing together. Smiles are clear; they do not appear ferocious in mannerism.

Before I moved onto the final design, I watched R.J. Palmer draw realistic pokémon on youtube, and utilised one of the techniques he used to add texture to the dog's skin - he added magenta, cyan, and other bright colours on Colour Dodge/Lighten with a textured brush to give the effect of fur when partially erased. The dog's multi-tonal skin is the product of clumsily experimenting with this technique. Additionally, the faded parts of the creature to show depth are a technique picked up from his videos, as is the silhouette of a human for scale.

Reflection

• The silhouetted character to show scale of the animal is extremely useful for keeping things in proportion, and keeping the design correct for its size
• Textured background adds some interest, and is great to sketch on
• Still using a red brush, though darker than the last project
• Texture brushes are fantastic for adding personality to a creature quickly
• Side-on poses work for displaying the creature's main features, while more interesting, developed poses show the creature's personality
• Next step would be to redraw the creature in a proper environment amongst others in the world