DOWNLOADABLE EDITION www.artbookhouse.vn The Tutor Draw a powerful creature Learn to sketch a dynamic, muscular monster in an action pose Jeff Miracola Freelance Illustrator www.jeffmiracola.com A fantastical creature can take any form you like, but feel free to borrow from real-life animals, too. This monstrosity has touches of gorilla, lion, bull and dog. This guy’s wide shoulders and strong upper body propel him forward as he possibly chases down prey. Expressions aren’t limited to your creature’s face. This behemoth’s entire figure, from his hands to his tail and feet, are used to express motion. The way you light your subject will be crucial to the feeling you are trying to convey. Strong overhead lighting produces dark shadows, giving weight to muscles. If you want your monster to express its power, there’s no better way to do it than to put that creature in motion. massive muscles dancing just under the surface of the skin. This energy is what you’ll capture with this lesson. If you’ve ever seen a horse or lion run, then you’ve likely noticed their Throughout this workshop, we will focus on the attributes and expressiveness that give your monster the powerful presence it deserves. We’ll pay close attention to shading to define muscle groups and create unique designs that give your creature personality. All of the eyes and noses on this page are drawn to the same scale (and from the same angle) as the main reference image shown here. The templates on the page below use the same scale, to allow you to pick and choose from these references when designing your own variations. Eyes that are entirely black can instantly make your monster look more sinister and scary, evoking a sense of doom for whoever or whatever catches its gaze. Look to the animal kingdom for inspiration when building your monster’s look and characteristics. Certain nose designs will imply the characteristics of your creature. A pig’s snout is sure to conjure images of a wild boar – a deadly creature to cross paths with. Get creative with your monster’s anatomy. Odd nose designs can add interest and give your creature an otherworldly feel. Changing the direction of your light source can display different effects or emotions. For example, moving the light source below your creature can project a sense of mystery. Using the templates on this page and the references above, draw the eyes and noses on these monster heads. Experiment by drawing noses of all shapes and sizes to see how the character of your monster changes. Do the same with the eyes. Once you’ve had your fun with the eyes and noses, we’ll move towards the top of the head to tackle drawing horns in our next exercise… All of the horns on this page are drawn to the same scale (and from the same angle) as the main reference image shown here. The templates on the page below use the same scale, to allow you to pick and choose from these references when designing your own variations. Broken or scarred horns can show aging or that your monster has seen plenty of battles. Drawing patterns on the horns of your creature will add to your monster’s mystique. Curled horns, like those of a ram, can give your monster a sense of age or wisdom. Horns can be pointed in many directions, such as upwards or forward. Using the templates here and the references above, design your own unique horns by following the outlines provided. Add interest to your horns by giving them battle damage, such as cracks, scrapes and breaks. You can also give form to your horns by sketching contour lines across the shapes. As strong as horns are, our beast has even more powerful biceps. We wrap our arms around drawing them in the next exercise. He’ll also need a strong tail to balance him out, so we will sketch that next… The arms and tails on this page are drawn to the same scale (and from the same angle) as the main reference image shown here. The templates on the page below also use the same scale, to allow you to pick and choose from these references when designing your own variations. Don’t get caught up in details at first. Try to focus on the large muscle groups, such as the deltoids, biceps and forearms. Pay close attention to your shadows because they will define the shapes of your muscles. Knowing how and where the arm connects to your monster’s body will help you understand proportions. Try to imagine the inner structure of your monster’s tail. This will help you craft a more feasible design. There’s no need to overdo it. For tails, simple ones like that of a rat, bull, or cheetah can be fun and appropriate. Make your creature look less human by adding fins or other protruding elements from the arm. Try using your 8B pencil to define the muscles, but don’t press too hard – it’s a soft pencil so it only needs a light touch. Using the templates on this page and the references above, sketch arms (above) and tails (below). Once you’ve grasped how the muscles work, try embellishing your appendages with extra details, and practice your shading. Try pushing the limits by creating a tail that is magical with mystical energy or flames. Don’t fear, we haven’t yet come to the end of our ‘tail’. It’s time to take the skills you’ve learned to draw the creature you’ve been waiting for… Using the template on the page below and this image as a reference, you can now draw a charging creature. Don’t forget to add your favorite elements from the earlier exercises to add personality and flare to your creature design. Practicing shading can be fun and relaxing. If you’re feeling brave, try to shade your character using a different light source. You’ve now complet e ed the creation of a baddy b of col olos ossa sal pr prop oportions, but it’s time to p push it even ev en fur urth ther er.. Be Below you’ll find a stripped d-back template for you tto use. Don’t be intimidated. Charge ahead and ttackle the challenge head on. Use your creativitty and the skills you’ve learned to create a mo onster of your own. Lightly draw simple shapes, s, such as circles, triangles, or squares, to aid in the design of your monster’s anatomy. Remember your light source so you can accurately draw shadows and highlights. And express your creation’s character through its face and its body movement. The Tutor Design a swamp creature Learn how to use amphibian characteristics to create a swamp-dwelling being Abigail Larson Freelance Illustrator www.abigaillarson.com Bulbous, protruding eyes to see in the dark and under water. He’s slumped over, weak, and wrinkled to show advanced age and malnutrition. Large, paddle-like feet are good for moving through water. Webbed, short, flat fingers enhance his amphibious nature. There’s really no wrong way to design a creature, but something to always keep in mind when drawing any new being, is its terrain. Think about where the creature lives, and what kind of characteristics those creatures would have, naturally. For a swamp creature, for example, I looked at amphibians for inspiration, as well as other cave and water-dwelling creatures. In this workshop I’m going to show you how to take various biological features and turn them into a more fantastical creature – one that’s fit for the finest of all swamps. All of the features on this page are drawn to the same scale as the main reference image shown here. The templates on the page below use the same scale, to allow you to pick and choose from these references when designing your own variations. Think about how the muscles in the face push the skin around the eyes to show emotion. You can also see how different mouth shapes and designs can change the personality of your creatures. Adding a larger lower eyelid helps to portray a happier expression. A protruding lower lip also gives him a somewhat dopey appearance. Lowering the top eyelid creates an angular form which makes the character seem more aggressive or angry. A sharp jawline can exaggerate an aggravated look even further still. Soft, drooped eyelids help to create a sense of sadness. A dropped lower lip extends the feeling of sadness. By changing the angle of the head, you can suggest different expressions and moods. This tilted head looks inquisitive. Portraying the mouth slightly open implies alertness and expected conversation. Using these templates and the references above play with the expressions for your creature. Try out different combinations. You can also experiment with detailing the ears below. Tilting the eyebrows or pushing the eyelids up will drastically alter your creature’s expression, as will changing the opening of the mouth. Once you’ve had your fun with the creature’s expressions, we’ll move on to the character’s pose and volume… All of the references on this page are drawn to the same scale as the main reference image shown here. The templates on the page below allow you to experiment with poses and volumes. Once you have the placement of the head, draw the curve of the spine. Drawing this curve in different locations will change the movement/pose. An elongated curve stretches the body out, which is good for standing positions. A compressed curve will create a crouched position. You can also change your creature’s physique by adding bulk or removing it. You can do this by starting with a basic framework (think about where the joints are) and building more shapes on top. Use the templates on this page and the references above to practice posing your creature. Experiment with the volume of your creature to see how it changes his character, then play with the placement of his limbs to change the pose. Now let’s put what you’ve learnt together to create a creature packed with character… Using the template on the page below and this image as a reference, you can now draw your very own expressive character. Feel free to embellish him with your favorite details from the exercises. Now you can have a go at using this simplified template, which will allow you to build up your own creature, choosing the pose and expression. Use simple shapes and curves to determine the position of your creature and build up the shapes on top to determine the proportions. Stick arms with their joints portrayed are a good starting point. Draw over them loosely and lightly for easier erasing while you plan where you want them to go. The Tutor Sketch a believable alien creature Explore and learn how to design an extraterrestrial being using plausible real-world anatomy Mike Corriero Concept Artist/Illustrator www.mikecorriero.com A believable creature should still abide by the laws of nature. It’s what we can relate to that makes a design successful. The overall anatomy has mammalian, insect and crustacean trace elements. It’s important that the creature does not reflect any one animal’s anatomy too clearly. You want to try and blend all of these traits in a seamless manner. This is what makes it truly unique. One of the best ways to draw something that doesn’t exist is to understand the functionality of what does exist. I’ll therefore be explaining how drawing creatures is merely the act of blending and manipulating real-world animals. Examples of this An important aspect to any design, even those that are on the verge of extreme abstraction, is the plausible functionality of its anatomy. This is why referencing real-world animals is essential. Note that skin textures and patterns are not uniform. The break up in scale and spacing provides a more aesthetically pleasing appearance. It feels like it’s a living, breathing animal – even if it’s fictional. sort of manipulation of anatomy will help you understand how creature design is like building a structure or engineering a vehicle. Once you’ve learnt the basic design of most animals, it becomes surprisingly easy – and fun – to draw your own creations quickly and successfully. Looking back at real-world animals and applying this knowledge to your alien creatures is how we’ll begin to create a plausible-yet-fictional design in this workshop. Eyes are a powerful tool in design; they set the overall impression and represent a great many things to be understood. Complex eyes portray expression and personality, while simplistic eyes appear more alien or horrifying. This is why many creatures with glazed-over pupils or a lack of eyes seem worrying. The angle in which the eye is positioned is yet another element that can be changed and manipulated. Such deviations from what we know in reality are very effective. Most real-world eyes are circular or oval in nature. This example of a more triangular shape, of not only the pupil but the entire eyeball, sets it apart from anything Earth-based. The pupil and iris are not the only aspects that can affect the eye’s appearance. Decorative eyebrows, patterns of light and dark values and other features help instil subtle originality. Decorative details within the iris and the obstruction of a common round pupil are simple solutions to distinguish the taxonomic understanding of the creature. As well as playing with the designs of eyes, experimenting with different quantities can give some surprising and unique results, too. As seen in the main reference, these are simple compound eyes. Multiple pairs on a body much different than an arachnid can achieve something profoundly compelling. Vertebrate creatures have an eye socket in their skull. The size and location of the eye is based on where it’s located. The pupil and iris can provide a lot of personality. Use the templates on this page and the references above to try out some different eye designs for your creature. Think about how the eyes of different animals change from one family to the next. The same principle is used in creature design. Arthropods have compound eyes which can be placed in more extravagant locations. Eyes are placed for different visual awareness. Try coming up with your own unique eye design and placement. Now that we’ve conquered the eyes, we’ll learn how to design different mouths and jaws to give our creature a variety of looks… The head and mouth of a creature lets us know where the animal might fit within a fictional taxonomic rank based on what it may eat. So learning how to draw different mouths and what their functions are is one way to establish a base for what sort of creature it will become. Tying some anatomical design elements into your original creation will help the creature relate to the viewer. This design exhibits a star-nosed, mole-like muzzle. It’s both aesthetic and functional. An underbite with a large lower jaw can present a powerful and intimidating appearance. Whether you add teeth or not depends entirely on the creature’s diet. Manipulating animal anatomy can apply to the skin texture, eyes, mouth and so on. Give a bird a chitinous coating and immediately it looks like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Tentacles are always going to scream ‘alien’. If it has elements of a Cephalopod and it’s a terrestrial creature, it’ll always look otherworldly. They could shoot out of the mouth like a grappling tongue. Mixing various families of animals is a great way to create something unique. If you take mammal and insect anatomy and mesh them together you can come up with some interesting mouths. When rendering, your line strokes should follow in the direction of the planes that the form is broken up into. Don’t just shade in one direction. Using these head templates and the references above, try to come up with your own unique, interesting and functional mouths to give your creature different looks. Now that we’ve conquered the eyes, mouth and jaw structures of the head, we’ll learn about designing limbs and their importance in animal functions… We already know that a seamless mix of anatomy is what makes a design plausible. Now we’re going to learn about aesthetics and functionality. This image shows arms and legs that don’t deviate too far from reality while still manipulating what already exists. Certain aspects of what makes a hand a hand lay within the basic idea that it contains individual digits. If you fuse the digits and claws together, it becomes both frightening and exotic. When you take two things you can relate to and mix them together, you create a balanced compound. The manipulation of anatomy is a science after all. This appendage shows strength and dexterity. To produce an original arm structure, simply take the leg of an animal and manipulate the joints and bones so they can work as a hand. This is reminiscent of a Koala, for example. The heel of a foot in certain animal species appears more elongated than in humans. This is when an animal walks on its toes rather than the sole or heel of the foot. A varying difference in the sizes and types of claws and toes provide the creature with different skill sets. Some are used for tearing, some for grasping and others for digging. Practice drawing hands and wrists using these templates. Try filling the gaps below to create your own leg designs. Use the circles for joints, but feel free to explore outside the boxes, too. Think of your own arms and legs and how they bend and rotate at the shoulder, knee, elbow, ankle and wrists. This is the basis of functional movement. Apply this understanding to your design and practice, practice, practice. The numbers of fingers and toes or the types of digits also provide a form of identification in the taxonomic ranks. Play around with different claws, hooves, suction cups and so on. The last important part of creature design is to grasp the overall design of the body structure. We’ll cover shape, silhouette and general proportions… Use the template below to better understand where joints are located and how forms are simplified. Look at it like an X-ray of a drawing. Use this main image as a source of reference for cast shadows and how shadow wraps around the shade of the head and jaw. A light source helps define where the darkest shadows would appear. On your final drawing, experiment with different ways to shade your creature, such as cross-hatching and erasing white areas to show highlights Once you’ve mastered the idea that biology is basically the same as engineering a car, you can design your own creatures by producing your own templates. Large circles work better for the dominant body parts. Lines and small circles can help indicate where limbs and joints such as knees or elbows will bend bend. Play around with the placement of your circles, figuring out where the head will go and how many legs and arms it will have. The creature’s proportions are based on the size of the simple circles – and that’s it. Above all else, have fun. The Tutor Monsters, mutants and dinos Draw fearsome creatures and cranky mutants Kurt Papstein Character/Concept Artist You will notice that the entire image is comprised of ‘bubbles’. I draw everything in circular volumes. These bubbles build form and even provide detail lines when left in the drawing. Shadows create depth and round-out your drawings. Drawing lines around your bubbles – like hemispheres – will help you define these shadow shapes. Keep your light source in mind. In this workshop, I will share with you the techniques I use when drawing monsters, aliens and many other fearsome creatures. The process is not unlike those of other artists, but I will ikameka.blogspot.com Teeth and spikes are also made up of tiny bubbles. Imagine the bubble landing on a surface; it has a flat side where there is contact – this creates perspective and weight. When drawing, think about the motion of the character. Typically the head leads the motion and dictates direction, with neck lines following behind. also present to you some of the things that I think about while drawing. While I don’t necessarily employ these steps or techniques all of the time, they are constantly bouncing around in my head while I work. So for this workshop, I have chosen dinosaurs as the prime focus, keeping it simple with bust drawings to build up a foundation of skills. All forms begin with a circle, even if I don’t stick to the circle’s shape or area exactly. It creates a footing, or a plot on the page for me to start. You can then draw through the spheres to see the drawing from all sides, placing hemisphere lines to indicate form. Sculpt the forms and build perspective with ‘feeling lines’ – rough gestural lines that follow the topology of the head and neck. These will provide detail and anatomy when selectively erased. When starting, you can begin with a loose silhouette shape or place large spheres together to block in volume. Combine these methods to find your design. Curves are countered with straights, and soft is met with hard. Contrasting forms are important for visual interest. Remember to think of your lines as crosssections when drawing through the other side of the spheres. These lines will be crucial for keeping the perspective true. Use the references above to build your own head volumes within and beyond the guidelines provided. It’s important to plot in corners. The corner of the mouth, nostrils, jaw bone, eyebrows, and so on, act as visual guides for the other side of the head. Add to the basic shape by building out with giant spheres for the corner of the jaw and the nose. These are the biggest landmarks. By the end of this exercise, you should have a small stack of head shapes filled in. Each one should have obvious large features and roundness. The mouth can be a very expressive element to your design. It can show intelligence, emotion and even hint at how the creature lives. Imagine the volume of the mouth is like a puppet mouth; two simple planes that divide the head into a ape. This is a good way to get started. wedge shape. The first line placed on the head indicates the mouth’s design, and how it divides the head into interesting shapes. A sharply drawn and angular corner to the mouth indicates it can open wide, making it very dangerous. Teeth th are placed with bubbles and spheres. Later refine them into spiked, flat or chipped U these th t l t to t create t inte iinteresting t ed mouths are easier to design, design Use templates teeth patterns on the mouth lines provided. Closed o try some variations while you sketch. sketch so You can now create some open-mouth designs below. Remember that the mouth is a wedge cutting into the shapes. Now you should be more comfortable drawing head shapes and giving them a mouth full of teeth. Next we’ll look at the dino’s eyes… For the most part, I feel eyes are the easiest. All things have derived from a sphere and the eye is no different. The size can vary greatly; experiment with different positions to balance your design. Remember that all forms wrap around the sphere of the eye. Drawing lines around the eye provide wrinkles and lid deformation. They also act as topology lines for the socket, adding early details. Finish the eye with a nice round highlight that overlaps the pupil and iris. This gives us a sense of the material. The tear duct is the first thing to be added after the eye sphere. This gives us an idea of how the lid closes and the direction of focus. The brow and cheekbone shapes can help frame the eye and create flow and focus to the design. To convey intelligence, imagine the pupils are focusing on a target without crossing their line of sight. Reference the above images to build out your own eye designs over the templates and head designs. You can find a huge range of different characters in the same head shape by just changing the eyes and brow shapes. All of the foundational elements are now present with the head, eyes and mouth. Now it’s time for the details and finishing work… Finalizing our drawings is a simple task, now that we have practiced all the elements. In this exercise we will render cast shadows, wrinkles, and put p the final touches on our line art. Wrinkles and creases act as connecting lines to put emphasis on motion and form. Drawing a contour line for cast shadows will round the form out and create striking surface planes. Don’t over do it with details; keep them limited to a few regions like the edge of shadows, the silhouette, or selected patches. Maintain visual interest. Draw your own dino-spheres of spikes and wrinkles, then practice with light and shadows. Vary the amount of spikes and shapes, p as well as the wrinkles. Now take what you’ve learned to shade and texture the line-art. Fill the heads with wrinkles, spikes, and finally add your shadows and line weight. You now have all the tools necessary to build and finish your own creature head designs. Think of each part as a dino-sphere that adds to the entire piece. Dino-spheres are our friends! With the provided shapes, use the skills and lessons in this workshop to develop your own pack of creatures. The exterior shapes are provided, so start by filling them in with volume and take them through to final details and shading. I hope by now you have a stronger grasp on n how I go about quickly throwing down a pagee of monster faces. You can do the same in yourr sketchbook k hb k by b d drawing i a lloose template, l filli filling the page with circles and gradually hitting each step of this workshop until you’ve finished the entire image. Remember the dino-spheres! The template on the page below is stripped right back so you can use your own imagination to build a pack of creatures.
