Critters!

It's been awhile since I last posted. I've been busy with commissions, that I'll hopefully be able to post later. In the mean time, here's some personal sketches I've been working on. Alien critters!

I always enjoy having a few "rules" to play by when I create new creatures and characters. It helps keep me focused on important aspects of the design and the opportunity to find creative solutions on how to work within my rules.

One of the rules for this set of xeno-animals is that none of them could have true teeth (the predators' fangs are part of the skull), and they must have scaly, avian/reptilian feet. With just those two rules, I've made five different creatures, each with its own niche. Hopefully, their roles will be clear from their designs. (Click the image for a bigger view.)

• The nova-frill is a small arboreal creature that eats fruits and nuts. Its brightly colored frill changes color and fans out to frighten predators.
• The poiga is an herbivore that lives in lowland jungles and marshes.
• The firetail is a pack predator and scavenger that inhabits grasslands. Males have a brightly-colored tail to attract mates.
• The terror-bear is an apex predator that prefers temperate and taiga forests.
• The skaptopus is a small jungle insectivore, and a good swimmer.

These have been a lot of fun, and I've also enjoyed getting critique from and bouncing ideas off of  Leah. I'll probably do another set of creatures like this in the near-ish future.

Concepts

Continuing the concept work I've been doing lately, I moved on to fleshing out character designs for some of the Syäloä characters. Because my initial focus this time was clothing design, I simply re-used my temple guardian sketch as a base. It saves time and the pose--frontal, fairly open--works well for quick sketches.

The first design is for the High General of the Autocracy, Seket. This one was particularly challenging, because I needed to incorporate armor. What I finally decided upon was a modular design. The partial armor Seket has on is her everyday wear, which augments her strength without being cumbersome. More pieces can be added for combat.

The second design is for the Empress of the Autocracy, Nileshta, which developed much more easily. I got a lot of great feedback from Leah and Christine, which really helped the process. Christine even contributed a few touches to Nileshta's headdress.

IDW #151 Final

Here's my final image for IDW #151.

IDW #151

So, I decided to stop lurking and do some of the community activities on conceptart.org  I picked this week's Industrial Design of the Week, for which the prompt is an remote-controlled, surveillance ornithopter. Drawing mechanical things is a bit outside my comfort zone, so I thought this would be a good challenge.

Everyone seemed to be doing dragonflies, so I decided to start from a beetle. I ended up going with a scarab. Initially, I thought about trying to make some futuristic Egyptian-styled device, but wasn't quite sure how to pull that off without it looking like BattleStar Galactica... So, after playing around with it, the design kind of transformed into a very 50s... thing. Kind of an amalgamation of everything mechanical from that decade. I referenced cars, motorcycles, cameras, microphones, radios, TVs, and even refrigerators.

I'm pretty pleased with the design, overall. (Not sure if it would fit the "avoid detection at all costs" bit, but oh well.) The only thing I'm really hung up about are the wings, but I feel they're starting to look more mechanical, now.

1st image: Overall design and color, perspective view.

2nd image: Back view, refining details.

3rd image: Final for IDW #151, fully-painted perspective view, line-drawings for alternate views, labeling and size comparison.

Sketches - "Chandra"

Now that I finally have an opportunity to work on personal art, I've decided to start doing more exercises. I really want to spend some time on technique, and try to examine where I need work. I decided to begin with some character work, and picked Chandra as my subject.

I hadn't done much with the character since I designed her a couple months ago, so I wanted to try to explore her personality with some studies. Her clothes, jewelry, and makeup reflect the culture she's grown up in, and I felt her movements should, as well. Unlike her mother who's usually standing straight, I chose a lot of crouching poses. Mom is also used to chairs, while Chandra just sits on the ground.

The original photo references come from some super-cool folks on deviantART: SenshiStock,  Kirilee, Gesastock, Reference-Poses, and DrunkHobo-Stock.