Sunlit Rykos

Riding the highs of completing the last challenging piece - the unicorn versus the werewolf - I went for more complicated lighting, but with a main subject that I understood. Thus I went for a Rykos (my horned dog creature) as I knew I could get a good, recognisable pose with solid references of actual dogs, giving a clear visual insight into its personality.

This image is very similar to previous sketches, just mildly more detailed. The horns needed the clay model for perspective as I could not figure out exactly where each part would appear. The lighting is very basic and for a while I was happy with this image until I considered it against the previous, and decided to return to it and find a solid lighting reference to imitate.

 

This final image is A5, and is what made me return to the unicorn piece to resize, so that they would match. The light is much more dramatic, with forced perspective from the blurred leaves close to the camera. The flipped image felt best of the two, and I really like the outcome. Even though it is not fully realistic (I am not entirely happy with the horns but suspect I just need more practice with them) I am very pleased with what I managed to achieve for a more rendered version of my creature.