I have to geek out for a minute. I went to a creature design workshop with Terryl Whitlatch today. It was sponsored by the UVU Illustration club. It was awesome!
She talked about many aspects of creature design. One of the things she talked about was looking at LOTS of references of real animals. She said once you understand the anatomy of real animals then you can start designing your own creatures.
So this is my study from the reference using prismacolor markers.
and then this is my attempt at creature design. She made it look a lot easier than it is. This is my tiger/shark.
It was the best $5 I've spent. I have to thank the Illustration Club for putting this together.
And on a side note, she was kind enough to sign my The Art of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. This book in my opinion is rad. It's one of my favorite books to look at for inspiration (plus, it Star Wars).
Now, I will get off my nerd box. Thanks.
I found my notes from this. So I thought I would post them here. They are not great. here they are:
Notes for the Terryl Whitlatch creature design lecture.
- · Love and appreciate animals. After that, you can draw them really well.
- · She does a lot of lateral orthographic. She calls them Di Vinci’s
- · She does a lot of narrative illustrations
- · She uses copics markers for some of her sketching
- · When you are doing concept art imagine your self as that creature
- · Doug Chiang is the nicest person she’s ever meet
- · If you want to work for the movies, you have to know the basics of drawing.
- · She’s working with Jack Horner currently as a paleo-reconstructionist.
Notes for the Terryl Whitlatch creature design works shop.
- Creature design is hard work
- Do lots Quick thumbnails before starting your actual drawing
- Look at References LOTs of references
Animal Drawing, Anatomy and Action
for Artists by Charles R Knight
An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for
Artists By Wilhelm Ellenberger
Elliot gold finger
Princeton field guide to Dinosaurs
Animals real and imagined by Terryl
Whitlatch
- If you want to design a fast animal: look at the horse or the gray hound. They are running machines
- Use Warm and cool gray copics markers
- Pencil sketch on tracing paper over your original design to show muscles and bones.
