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Welcome to the tutorial! Today I will show you how I draw hybrid characters between Humans and animals! If you are interested in the topic, I invite you to watch the video tutorial or read the article below!

Keep in mind that the video goes into more depth about the topics and gives more examples! <3

I. Hybrids 80% humans 20% animals

These types of characters are more inclined towards the human side, they are characters that look completely human but with animal details, the usual thing is to add little ears, little tails, and depending on what animal it is: Wings, horns, antennas, etc.

The details are what make the design stand out, such as the claws or even depending on the animal we can add a little fur, feathers or scales to the body or its clothing.

If an animal does not have visible ears, what I usually do is: leave the human ear or make an elongated elf-type ear.

We can place the ears in various parts of the head, I usually place them like in the following image:

As you can see, I place the tails on the lower back.

II. Characters 50-50

For these characters, in addition to adding the animal characteristics from the previous section, we are going to make the lower body of the character more animalistic.

 

What we will do is identify what the animal's legs are like from the pelvis to the hind legs, what their shape and volume are and then transfer it to the character, you can do it in a more simplified way.

 

NOTE: the character will be standing, this is very important for him to retain humanity

to. Mermaids

The moment of truth has arrived ✨ the mermaids ✨ with the mermaids I do the same thing of replacing the character's lower body, the first thing is to decide the length of the tail, I usually go for the following sizes but you can choose to make the tail to scale that you prefer! The one marked with an arrow is the one I use most often.

Then we are going to choose what type of fins we want, wavy, rigid, pointed, what is the shape and scale they are going to have, I love the fins because we can make many types of combinations and put them the way we want, a tip for draw them is that the beginning of the fin is usually much narrower than its end.

I usually put the fins in these areas:

✿ Lower body: On the sides of the tail, at the pelvis-tail junction and the tip of the tail.

✿ Upper body: arms, hands, ears.

I place the gills on the sides of the neck or torso. To draw them in mind:

✿ They are curved diagonal lines, thin at the tips with more filling in the middle, to give the illusion of relief.

✿ Make two to three lines to draw the gills, they go on both sides of the neck or torso, it should be symmetrical.

✿ You may or may not draw the nose, that is up to each person, although I draw gills I like to leave the characters with a nose.

For the Ears there are many ways:

1- human ear

2- elf ear

3- Fin with structure

4-double fin

3- fins that arise from the skin of the face (without structure)

 

Note: the ear flaps I made are illustrative, they can be any shape you want.

But are these the only mermaid designs there can be? NO

we can make octopus, squid, even jellyfish and stingrays! It is a matter of identifying how we can unify the human with the animal, how to mix the volumes of both, humans from the pelvis and with animals depending on which animal it is, it can be from the neck, half the body, it is a matter of trial and error. .

 

In the video tutorial there is an example of a mermaid-stingray, take a look! ;)

b. A little more animal

Another way to make characters 50-50 human-animal is to make the lower body of the character even more animalistic, it works in the same way as explained above with the mermaids:

✿ Identify the human pelvis.

✿ Identify on the animal where the human torso may fit well, in most animals in the neck-shoulder area it works quite well. There are animals that you will simply have to get creative with (like octopuses or jellyfish)

✿ Join both volumes as if it were a puzzle and ✨ magic ✨

III. Hybrids 80% Animals 20% Humans

Here we will see more animal designs but with human attributes, something that they must have is:

✿ Let them stand on two legs.

✿ Let them have their clothes and props: it will give us information about the character (occupation, social-economic situation, tastes) and will also add humanity.

✿ That they have human expressions, to truly distinguish an animal character from a hybrid is by the face, the emotions it transmits.

This will allow you to connect with the character no matter how animalistic he or she looks.

My types to achieve the effect with the eyes are:

✿ Draw human eyes and if necessary change the scale of the eyes so that they can be seen properly.

✿ Big eyes and the white area of the eye can be seen quite a bit since animals normally don't notice it much unlike humans.

✿ Don't forget the eyebrows.

You can see a small speed paint of this character in the video tutorial c;

to. Animal but human proportions

A very common way to draw these characters is to make the character completely covered in feathers, scales or fur, depending on the animal, but at the same time, the proportions are human, perhaps preserving the shape of the head and details such as tails and ears, but in general the body has a very human structure in the arms, torso and legs.

b. Characters with animal proportions

First of all, I identified the shape and volume of the limbs. The hind legs tend to be as similar as possible, while I try to make the front legs look like arms but retain their animal air. From there I have to decide if I want to go for hands. more animals or semi-humans.

As for the face, we are going to try to identify the volumes to be able to transfer them to the drawing, identify:

✿ Head shape

✿ The position of the eyes

✿ nose shape

✿ Does it have a snout? does it have cheeks? has a mustache?

and finally I highlighted one or several attributes that I find striking about the original animal, in this case, I wanted to highlight a little the beaver's tail and its soft belly.

In the video tutorial I do a little analysis of this design, check it out!

IV. Design

So far we have talked about the traits that characters may have physically, but now let's talk about their essence and personality, and how we can tell the character's story through their design.**\

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Pose & Context**

Both depend on your character's personality and lifestyle.

We can tell if a character is shy, adventurous, bold, insecure, outgoing, etc., just by body language aka pose.

 

Its build will depend on what type of animal it is and its lifestyle. If a character usually exercises frequently, it would make sense for him to be strong and wide. If your character does not do much physical activity and has a quiet occupation, it is natural that he does not have muscles. .

The secret formula

If you don't know how to start designing your character, I recommend using this formula:

1-What animal(s) is it.

2- Choose a couple of qualifying adjectives that describe your character.

1-What occupation do you have in the universe where you live.

1- something you like.

 

This will already give us a good base from which to build the character, of course if you can expand later, this is just a starting point.

Let's put it into practice:

 

Emma

• Butterfly

• Bitter, pessimistic.

  • Work with customer service

    • His favorite time is when he leaves work

  +needsanarmandanotherjob

With her pose and expression I wanted to talk about how Emma feels at this moment in her life: frustrated and angry. With his clothes I wanted to allude to the fact that it is a work uniform. The colors are desaturated and gloomy because that is their mood.

Another example:

Ivan

✿ Thoughtful deer, reserved, loyal

✿ Entourage of a prince (Who is his friend)

✿ He likes tranquility and silence.

✿ He is quite stoic but there are people who get on his nerves and he can't control himself (the prince)

Thanks

Thank you for making it to the end! I hope you liked it, don't forget to leave a heart and a comment, comment on what surprised you the most or what you liked about the tutorial.

 

Last reminder to watch the video tutorial, there is more information and tips that I did not mention in the article!

 

A hug and see you in another tutorial! c: