Intro and what is this about

This tutorial is about the idea of making concept art creatures, discussing about the essentials but making it simple so that everyone can understand it quickly.

After this, you'll be capable on doing different type of creature including Dark Creatures and Monsters.

Video Tips

A. Research and Gather Ideas

It's hard to come up with original ideas so the main idea here is to get different ideas and mixed it together to get an original Idea.

It looks like a shrimp though.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------Researching for anything is very helpful.

My tip is to research for different mythological creatures for ideas. Roman, Norse,

Greek.

 

or you can mix up your different type of fears.

B. Essentials

So before we end up doing anything, we should at least know some fundamentals so that it will be easier for us to mix some different kind of figures.

Knowing Anatomy can be very helpful because some creatures have similar anatomy.

 

Like Wolf and Human for example.

 

If you check closely, they have similar anatomy if you compare them with the same posture.

But of course, we look weird if we do that and our body is designed by walking in 2 feet.

Even on birds, anatomy are still similar.

-------------------------------------------Being knowledgeable in form and construction, It will be easier for us to mix different creatures by drawing them into simple shapes.

depicting the characters into shape will help your audience identify the attribute of it.

 

Like Circle can be welcoming or cute.

 

Or Square can make the creature looks heavy, tough, and hard to move.

 

Or Triangles will make them look dangerous.

-------------------------------------------Having a good grasp of good proportion will help us balance the creature and know how to exaggerate it properly and making it look functional.

 

With the 2nd example above, that proportion can't stand properly with it's tiny legs, so changing it's way of posing makes more sense to it. Like make the pose like a gorilla.

 

 

-------------------------------------------And lasty, the most important thing in doing character creature design is making the sillhouette recognizable enough on quick glance.

 

Here are examples of animals and some common creatures.

 

Making unique silhouette can help your audience recognize the creature quickly by just showing the silhouette, and by just looking at the silhouette, we will be able to tell what it is.

C. Technical Process

My idea would be, centaur like concept plus spider and it should have fins to it so that it is capable on swimming underwater though the main attribute should be on land. Adding scorpion tail can make it look more dangerous, and some praying mantis blades.

The technical process, you're free to do whatever you want but make sure the silhouette is recognizable enough already.

From here, you can start sketching the details, but as for me, I'll just gonna add highlights on the top to form the entire look.

 

While in making the creature, you're so welcome to change anything along the way.

 

And you can also add human figure on the side to identify the scale of the creature.

In doing a concept, it doesn't require a godly painting skills because most likely you'll be selling your idea.

 

Though, if you are good on painting then it is a good plus and you can make your concept creature looks good without a sweat.

If you wish to make it more immersive, adding background would help a lot.

 

Though most of the time, this part isn't necessary, it's the illustrator job to do this, but for some reason to have fun, then go for it!

And this would be the final look of the creature! Hope this tutorial helped you to think of a good idea of a creature you wish to have.