Creature ramblings

At this point in time, the whole 4th year massive self driven project thing has really managed to become a scary reality. I know fine well that I want to do creature design, but as to where to take it or what to do with it, I really don't know. It's all rather confusing what with wanting to figure out which media to try to focus on for the creatures (games, films, books etc), but being told my focus should be on coming up with questions that will help practical process. I understand the questions thing and I do get why it's being asked of us, but I just don't know what questions to be asking. I feel like I really need to have some sort of goal, otherwise I'm just meandering about getting nothing achieved.

I did get a few books for this project through, one of which in particular will be incredibly helpful. Unfortunately, half of the ones I got just didn't have the content I expected them to have and are of little use to me. The book that I think will be the most useful is Animal Anatomy For Artists: The Elements of Form by Eliot Goldfinger. While it doesn't go through every animal in the world, it certainly goes over a fair few in detail, showing muscular and bone structure, as well as the difference in proportion between similar species. I think it will be very important for me to start drawing references from it every day, noting the names of muscles and such, just to get into the habit of it. It will be very important for me to be able to understand animal anatomy much more thoroughly if I want to be a serious creature designer. As my creature design idol, Terryl Whitlatch says,

'It takes dedication and constant practise to be a competent animal artist and creature designer. Like everything else, it must be practiced, struggled through, and thought about every day. Just as Mozart still had to practice his harpsichord and piano daily, I draw and practice animal anatomy each day as well.'  Terryl Whitlatch, Animal Real and Imagined, p.59

In my perusing the Internet for useful things for this project, I have found four of the Gnomon Workshop tutorials that will be perfect for me, as they are by none other than Terryl Whitlatch herself. I certainly think they will be worth the investment, as the book of hers I have, Animals Real and Imagined, is very insightful, and it will be great to see her actually producing work and hearing everything she has to say. Here is a link to the first one:

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/421/Creature-Design-with-Terryl-Whitlatch-1#.VCMiyBZuVGQ









I have also discovered a tutorial workshop with creature artist R.J. Palmer who goes by the handle of Arvalis on deviantART.com.

Here is a link to his official website: http://rj-palmer.com/

And a link to his deviantART.com page: http://arvalis.deviantart.com/

I have one of R.J. Palmer's books, Realistic Pokemon Volume One. I love his artwork, it's really detailed and clean, with great use of lighting, design and colour. The tutorial I found can be bought from here:

http://www.skillshare.com/classes/design/Utilizing-Reference-Images-Create-Believable-Creatures/414561409?teacherRef=8440401&utm_campaign=teacher-referral&utm_source=ShortUrl&utm_medium=teacher-referral

I definitely think this will be another worth-while investment, as those who have taken the class have said how much it helped them and how insightful it was.

On a side note, I also came across a rather interesting interview on a blog with the artist Joseph C. Pepe, who has worked on things such as Alien Vs Predator and Avatar. It's a really interesting read from what I have skimmed so far and I will certainly be looking into it further, but Mr Pepe seems to have really good advice and thoughts, so here's the link:

http://characterdesignnotes.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/interview-with-character-and-creature.html

Returning to my point earlier of buying a bunch of books, I was mainly focusing on getting myth and folklore books. I did manage to get what i can only describe as a dictionary of such things, which should be helpful for finding creatures and their descriptions. It is known as Giants, Monsters and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend and Myth, by Carol Rose. I really do like folklore and of course the creatures associated with it, so I would love if I could take this thought somewhere on the project. It might be an idea to start just sketching creatures that sound interesting based on their descriptions in the book I got. At any rate, I shall ramble some more another time, for now I shall leave this post with a sketch I did of a creature based on my Monster Hunter research. It's intended to be a cute creature that isn't the standard annoying/appealing to children sort of thing and is also a 'gentle giant'. I based him on Slow Loris' and peacocks, with a few other animals used as reference for a couple of parts.

I don't quite know what to call it yet, but will hopefully think of something! Until next time.