INTRODUCTION

Hello! I’m Naeyah! I’m a digital artist and I enjoy drawing cartoony styles!

 

Springtime 2024 event is around the corner and I’m excited to share information about Hybrid character designs! Throughout this post, I will be showing tips and supportive advice that will help you come up with mythical, fantasy, creative combination creatures!

 

Not only that, but i will also use my hybrid character as an example to help give ideas to what you might like your own character to be like! as well as my own species I made off a planet that I created!

 

This will be a painless and quick tutorial to get started on what you need to know right away! There are steps to this post and each will lead up to the final result.

 

My goal is to help the audience who are looking forward into experiencing design for creatures, succeed in the knowledge of designs and exploring ways to be creative!

 

 

DISCLAIMER

The species and character I am showing in this presentation all belongs TO ME!. Please do not STEAL! Taking inspiration is okay! Make sure to CREDIT ME on anything that is related in this blog.

 

THANK YOU

WHAT IS A HYBRID?

A hybrid is a species of any sort combined into two to transform (or fuse) Into half of the species genetics! Basically a 50/50 look of it apart.

 

For example: A human and a horse combined, which is called a centaurs, is a hybrid because it’s two different creatures together in one body.

1. THINKING BEFORE CREATING

Character designs are always something we think on first before drawing it down.

So lets think about it! What are hybrids suppose to look like?

 

Well, ANYTHING! Hybrids are a combination to creatures you put together into one piece! It doesn’t have to make sense or look perfect. YOU can make it crazy, silly, even abstract in many ways as you can! Afterall, it is just fictional. Nothings real!

 

 

References

If we know hybrids can be anything, what species could we use?

 

REFERENCES comes in place with this!

Of course we all need a little inspiration from time to time. This helps us take in information and using it into our piece for our characters! It’s really helpful especially when designing ideas.

 

First, discover and see what catches your interest. You can pick animals that are your favorite or characters from TV shows etc. After that, brainstorm it. make sure it’s something you think would fit nice!

Here is an art piece of my own species! As you can see, they both have similar features to other different creatures. I detailed out what parts of it made it look similar.

This is a helpful source to use if you ever get stuck still.

Now that’s what you call/look a hybrid!

 

So, now that we have our references and ideas of what our character is gonna look like, how can we put it together? What we do now is we put our ideas together and make it come alive! and by doing that, were gonna start drawing step by step and seeing the results! I will be teaching you along the way in this post, providing tutorials on how to create character deigns.

 

Without further ado, lets get started!

2. BEING CREATIVE

Basic Sketch

HELPFUL INFORMATION

Optional

 

I just wanna point out the resolution for the canvas: I recommend using 600 resolution to give it more of a HD clean quality to make your illustrations spark out!

To begin, we start off by sketching out the base.

What pose should it be in? How tall or short is it? Is it skinny or fat?

Think about how your hybrid character body structure should be like to you — more fitting in other words.

 

For me, I have sketched out my character and how I imagine her structure to be like. I like her to look more humanoid with some features of a other species. (It’s not shown on there but i’m getting there — just bare with me)

 

That is something you can figure out and see which matches to the puzzle!

 

And of course, if you are stuck on where the brushes are at, they will be shown on the left of the workspace where the brush section is at.

 

(Sorry my workspace is rearranged)

I have a several brushes on that list, but keep in mind it doesn’t matter what brush you use! You can use a brush that you feel more comfortable using when sketching.

 

 

The Base

After finishing the sketch, you should now be able to draw it what you come up together from your mind onto the canvas! Did it look good? Is it how you wanted it to look like?

 

Here is my finishing piece of my character’s base. As you can see, I have drew out every detail I put in all to form into a hybrid.

To explain my characters hybrid species, I will show a creature of my own I created off of a planet (by me).

 

This Species is called an Exectexe! A blue & yellow fur creature that has the ability to manipulate electricity. These types of creatures are the top predators of the kingdom.

So the electexe is fused with a human (from earth) and together that’s how it became into one because of the genetics being put into on piece.

 

The reason why i’m showing this is so because some won’t be confused as to why my character only looked human and not something combined. This is the best example I can explain, but at the end— I hope you found it still useful!

 

 

3. COLORS

As we know now, coming up with a color palette is one of the next hardest parts to figure out when we want to pop it out.

 

What colors would match my character?

 

Let’s look back at the references. We can see how the wolf and bird is combined together into one— so for that, we can mix both colors from the two and create a more mixture types of colors.

Not every color has to be realistic— in the example, the wolf isn’t brown it’s blue while the bird’s wings aren’t black but red. That is because I messed with different colors from the color wheel and see which colors would match with the hybrid.

 

Color palettes, however, doesn’t always HAVE to look accurate. Though for most of us, we want it to be appealing, which is also fine. Just remember to not make it frustrating!

 

 

Using a Color Schemes helps with also trying to find colors that can match from one another.

If you’re having trouble, don’t worry, that’s why there are color palettes there for you on researches! There are many palettes that are matching and is especially useful for character designs!

 

 

But if you’re independent on this, my advice is for you is to mess around with the color wheel and putting colors together until you find something that catches your eyes!

 

 

Color Filling

How I color in my linearts,

 

Create a new layer and add it below the lineart layer. After that, go to your lineart layer (Stay in it) and head over to the magic stick which will be shown on the left side-corner of your workspace.

When you click on it, head over to the canvas and select the areas OUTSIDE of the lineart. you will then start to see the selections appear around the lineart.

 

Once that happens, you will then see a section bar with your magic stick and on it, click on INVERSE. It changes the select that was outside— is now inside of the lineart.

After you did that part, you head over to the budget tool and fill in the selection with the color you had pick.

 

If you are still stuck, don’t worry, i have a gif of the instructions.

Adding Details

Adding details is basically finishing the rest of the piece. By doing that, you fill in any parts that need to be colored in.

 

When you’re doing that, create a layer above your color layer and apply clipping mask on it. That way it locks in with the layer below without coloring out of the lineart.

When you’re finished, you are now completed with the colors of your character!

 

It should look like this (My progress so far)

4. PERSONALITY

Style/Clothing

When it comes to creating a character, we figure out what kind of person will they be like? These are questions that are thought of and it is also a very hard thinking process.

 

Personality is what completes the character as a whole— by expression, pose, and even clothing. So let’s think about it— How would you like your character’s behavior to be like? Or— what alliance could they appear to me? Bad, good, or neutral are traits we want to think about.

Here is examples you can take

 

For my character that i am displaying in this presentation, she wears tomboy style clothes. Therefore, her personality is more chill- easygoing. You can even add outfits that fit their hobby in a way.

If you ever get stuck, I suggest you do research on clothing based on personality— it will help best for those who are still figuring out what would match.

5. IT'S ALIVE (FINAL)

The Results

At the end, I have showed you ways to make your own hybrid character! By references, sketching it out, and coloring it out.

Here is my final piece. As you can see, i have added more to it such as the color palette, name. height, and details that is on the character

Thanks for coming to read my presentation! I hope you found all of this helpful and I wish for the best of luck when creating your hybrid character!