Monster Workshop - full sketch due tonight (Monday)!

[Snarky]

      â€œIf we were very, very, very naughty, and wouldn't be good, what then?”

               â€œThen,” said the mother sadly, “I should have to go away and leave you,
                 and send home a new mother, with glass eyes and a wooden tail.”

This was a game idea I was working on a few years back, inspired by Lucy Clifford's creepy children's story "The New Mother." I thought the new mother might make a good topic for this workshop.



My go-to sources for visual inspiration are mainly Jan Svankmajer and the Berlin Monsterkabinett. Also Harlow's surrogate mother experiments with monkeys (thanks to Quintaros for pointing me towards that) for the concept.

I had some concept sketches at one point, but I seem to have lost them, so I'm starting from scratch again.

Edit: Initial sketch

[Eric]

Same as Snarky!

[loominous]

Great initiative Andail, and will be cool to try out a new format!

After seeing ProgZmax's ogre, I did start sketching on one of my own yesterday, an ogre intellectual, or as close as they're able to get. It didn't look very monstery though, but I figure one could take the concept further, more towards the topic. (was a paper sketch, which I don't have with me atm, but I might find n scan it).

So yea, monster intelllectual is the current plan.


05-09 - Initial Sketches w lighting

Started sketching on my monster intellectual and tried some lighting. The 'monster' label will be used in a Quasimodo fashion, where it denotes freakish qualities, rather than scary.

Still a bit too harmless human like, so the plan is to push the extremes further.

The character is supposed to be standing on a shelf ladder, in a library, which is hardly readable atm. The designs are quite generic, so I'll be researching and trying to come up with some nifty ones. The angle of the shelf and ladder will probably change as well, to better suit the back lighting, and making the character pop.



05-11 - Further Sketching w lighting




Reworked the char a bit, his neck in particular, giving it more of a straight line to his back, and fleshed out the backdrop with diagonal shapes n arcs.

Been thinking about ditching the ladder, and instead just make him this hugely tall guy, which could be cooler as well as avoid the whole ladder readability mess.

After I saw the cute creature in dactylopus' montage, and probably due to the fact that I've been periodically accompanied by a yawning kitten for the last few days, I tried adding one to his long neck. I initially thought it could be holding a candle, as I had some issues with the current lighting setup, and a candle behind him could help, but then I started fleshing out the background, and it seemed to work without it. I't s quite generic atm, so like with the char I'm gonna push it further.

The backdrop is working okish atm, wanna get a sense of scale and the windows might detract a bit too much, might end up hiding them and just have light haze be visible, we'll see. Also considering flipping the whole thing, as it would make things flow a bit better. (also, when I flipped it, way too late as usual, I noticed a lot of tilting issues, which I'm gonna have to deal with, along with the severely flawed perspective (I tend to be very loose with perspective when I sketch, just winging it, hate straight lines).

05-12 - Some refinement/modifications



Bit of refinement/modifications.

Thinking about adding a few of these kitten like creatures, perhaps giving his robe a hood where they would gather. Quickly sketched in two of them, and they do make the scene more interesting, particularly if they're not that easy to spot, adding some exploration. Overall gonna keep things in low contrast, with hopefully lots of nifty things to discover.

[Cogliostro]

Okay, I already have a character in mind for one of my games, but no actually idea of what he looks like.  The villain's name is LaPLace, named after LaPlace's demon, a thought experiment about determinism.  Scientifically, LaPlace was slain by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, but that never stop a good villain before.  As a recurring character, he was a shapeshifter, but introducing himself the same way every time he runs into one of the main characters.

THE DEMON: “I got a lot of different faces in I where in all sorts of places, but I only got one name, and that's LaPlace.”

LaPlace also exists in Voodoo as the Master of Ceremonies.  Based on that bit, I reimagined LaPlace as a dignified monster who has to obey rules and helps the players as much as he threatens them.  Most of all, during the course of the game you will begin to understand LaPlace.  Sure he's a evil, but it's so much more disturbing when you understand why he has chosen a course of action that has earned him the label, demon.

So, what does he look like?

I don't want to make him look like a traditional video game demon â€" actually I might have, but Ben beat me to it, so onto the research.
A Google search turns up few useful images: the inventor of the thought-concept, LaPlace himself, and a picture from “The Rozen Maiden”, but I'd rather not go rabbit.  Honestly, I'm hoping for something dark and sinister with a veneer of civilization over the top.
Switching to something more Voodoo, I can find Baron Samedii, but not LaPlace. 



Historical demons look stupid.  A monster made of horns and fangs, isn't necessarily bad, but looses the evil gentleman feel.  I can go with an abomination of shadow, tentacles, and madness, but ProgZmax is already doing Cthulhu.

For the moment, I think I'll emphasis the shapeshifter angle, a supernatural entity who appears as a vagrant in our world, but who can pull you into a world of madness and shadow.



Okay, that's starting point.  Now I have to actually produce some concept art.

- Cogliostro

[Andail]

Alright, I don't really have a plan or a clear picture in my head yet, so I just sat down and sketched a bit today.









May 8th, Distant monster, more sketches!
I still have no real visions for the monster itself, so I'm just sketching some more, this time more land/cityscapes. I think I want to make the monster appear in the far distance, its features almost indiscernible, probably with the hero in the foreground, being chased. I'm gonna do a handful more of these sketches, as I really enjoy the process, and the randomness can give me new ideas for designs and nice compositions. I try not to spend more than perhaps 15 mins per sketch.


I really love sci-fi cityscapes, and if I go with this setting I'll probably try to increase the sense of speed further. I like the idea of a fish-like, floating monster, even though it's not really original. I began drawing the buildings seen more from beneath, with a more "drastic" perspective, but I changed it back to a more standard perspective, but some buildings are still tilted.


This one has a very straight and calm composition, which I hope can make the giant humanoid shape even more eerie and out of place. I envision someone being chased seen in the foreground. The tree-brush is just a placeholder until I draw my own trees. Still some perspective-lines visible.

May 13th, Flying cockroach snake!

It's a bit messy, so I hope to get it cleaner. The focus will be on the two figures on the hover-bike-thingie. I might bring them even closer to the camera, to be able to catch more details.

[cat]

*bump* 

Water dragon, week 1, step 2 - Environment

Let's take a look at the environment:


Link back to step 1

[Cerno]

Edit: moved this to the next post to have it all in one place.

[Cerno]

Mammalian Dragon, week 1, step 1: references

So here's mine, let's see how this will turn out



Mammalian Dragon, week 1, step 2: first sketch

Okay I'm going out on a limb here and present my end of day 1 sketch (original about 3800x2600).

This went better than expected, but there are a lot of things that are just wrong or didn't turn out as I wanted.
So I'll keep working on this sketch and see if I can improve here.

I especially don't like the missing dynamic of the monster, as it's missing the more dramatic attack pose I was aiming for. Also obviously the arms are far from how I envisioned them.

So yeah, needs a lot of work.



Mammalian Dragon, week 1, step 3: second sketch

I did some research on perspective after I realized that the previous sketch was way off, especially the legs.
The horns seemed too flat and stuck to the head, but some perspective lines helped to improve them as well. Theory yay!

I also found a better brush after seeing some of the sketches here, as the standard one does not offer much in terms of sensitivity. I like this one is much better.

Next I realized that in order to make it qualify as a dragon I would have to lose some of the animal characteristics I was copying from my references. It looked too much like a chimera and too little like a dragon. It still looks like I simply tacked on a bull's head, so I guess that will need some work. I get the feeling that adding spikes and horns will not be sufficient here.

Still not happy with the legs and arms, though. They will need some additional iterations.




Mammalian Dragon, week 1, step 4: corrections, detail and shading first pass

Increased the wing size (thanks for the input, miguel!)

Cleaned up the lines and added some details. Finally got semi-decent feet after figuring out that in this perspective we should be able to see the inside of the feet. I guess I got lost in the details though.

After reading 304's excellent update I copied some of his shading techniques, although I will need a lot more practice here.

Decided to move the sun to the left to achieve more dramatic shadows. After playing with light sources a bit I realized that shading this setup will be quite a challenge (sun, volcano and wizard's staff), but a very good exercise. The volcano and staff lighting cast on the dragon is not there yet.

So far I'm a bit surprised how well it turned out compared to my previous endeavors in drawing. I could do with some more c&c at this stage



Edit: Since I had to finish another competition I did not have enough time to work on this, but I am still in. So this is my end-of-week-one-status. The composition will remain more or less like this. If anyone would be so kind I'd really appreciate some c&c.

--- other thread ---

Since I'm quite new to all this, I am pretty much stuck at this stage.
For anyone willing to give me c&c, I would be happy with some very general pointers here.
Basically, what I should improve at this stage before it's too late and what the next steps would be.

Week 2 Step 1

Thanks to everyone for their invaluable support and tips.
I had to organize it all and even the condensed version now fills two pages.

So first I tried to improve the wings. The initial imbalance was inherited from the reference image of a bat with its wings pretty much in the same pose, but I agree that this has to change.

Next I tried to do some thumbnails, very useful technique, by the way. Thanks loominous!



I like the general feel of them quite a lot

Next I tried to sketch a pose that incorporates some of the advice I got, mostly from Kasander and waheela
I moved the wizard to the lower edge of the screen and made the dragon more prominent. The legs, arms horns and snout now all point towards the wizard. I tried to hint at a triangle here.

Unfortunately I was not quite able to catch the presence of dragon from the thumbnails, maybe this stage needs another iteration.



Edit: Maybe a little more like this, now the wings underline the arrow-shape more and it becomes a little more dynamic:



@waheela: Thanks a lot for the eagle images, nice finds. I have some trouble adapting the pose since an eagle has no arms, while the dragon does. But I tried to get the wings somewhat similar and I plan to heavily reference the talons.

@loominous & Kasander: Unfortunately I won't have the time to redo the whole dragon, so I won't be going for the 3/4 perspective since I fear that I might not make it in the end.

To every other helpful soul out there: You are not forgotten. All advice has been compiled into a neat list and will be commented on in due time


Week 2 Step 2

Last update for today.

I played around a bit with talons:



Also I tried to apply the pose I sketched earlier.
Somehow I get the feeling that every time I go from abstract to concrete the picture loses a lot of personality

Anyway, I know this is far from perfect, but I think I'll have to start thinking about lighting and colors, since I'm running out of time for the sketch phase...



Week 2 Step 3

So I tried to get a feel about lighting and colors with a very rough sketch. It might have been a good idea to do lighting and color separately though.



After Kasander's hint about adding some meaning through colors I drew the whole scene in reds, lighted from below and colored the wizard's spell in blues to underline his foreignness in this envionment. Just realized that the mountains would need different shades of grey to give them a better impression of depth.

After loominous's hints about contrast, I scaled down the image to thumbnail size:



I can see that the dragon takes the focus as it should but the smoke has too much contrast and competes too much. My decreasing the contrast here, I hope to get the background volcanoes to actually feel like a background, the same goes for the mountain range. Also the central volcano at the bottom as well as the wizard's cliff is almost invisible. This has to change.

Week 2 Step 4

Detail work, slow progress. Needs plenty more work, still got a lot to learn, need to research more, I guess.
Tried a different pen for the hands, which now somewhat clashes with the rest of the image.
The wizard's shadow is most likely wrong, at least the pole should not cast a shadow with the light source on top.



Week 3 Final Image

Time's up. Here's my final version (click for full size image):



Phew that surely shaved some time off my life. Worth every minute though
Unfortunately now I'll have to consider redrawing everything I did for the game I'm working on so far...

[Cuiki]

Bump. Step one.

[EchosofNezhyt]

I've been a bit stressed this week. But I really like Minotaur... Hair is a #@&!* to draw though (At least for me.)

But it should be a good learning experience. I'll think about a pose and work on a sketch right now.


Edit: Or maybe not... HMMMMMMM!

[Monsieur OUXX]

Hello dears, this is Selmiak's mom, I'm looking for him, he didn't pick up my calls.
Selmiak, you need to come home and do your homework. ^_^

http://binarylegends.cbm8bit.com/forum/index.php

[Ghost]

Week 1, Step 1 - ideas, reference pics, and ramblings



Will go straight to sketches now. This is gonna be awesomely sick.

Week 1, Step 2 - Roughs
So, I'll defenitely go for a "spliced human", but I want more than just a "Fly" copy. Why settle for one insect when you can mash up everything? So far I got a rough pose; now to research what makes a nice mash.



Week 1, Final Sketch


Everything's settled- a cliché but still powerful "point of view", and the monster's complete too. Lots of shoddy work in the background there, but this is my final layout.

[selmiak]

Hello dears, this is Selmiak's mom, I'm looking for him, he didn't pick up my calls.
Selmiak, you need to come home and do your homework. ^_^

http://binarylegends.cbm8bit.com/forum/index.php

hi mom

[Misj']

I finally decided on the kind of monster I'm going to do. I want to do a monster loosely based on those found in Greek mythology. Like most monster the Greek 'invented', it will be a monster made up from different animals mixed together with some human in there too. Oh, and she's going to be female (because females are much more vicious than men, and that makes them terrifying as monsters).

So...Female with animal parts.

ps. and it's going to be totally different from Ghost's awesomely sick human turning monster...I promise

EDIT:
Some studies and sketches.

The first four were drawn while I was riding the bus to/from work. They were more about ideas than about execution (yes, I say that because their execution is terrible ). For the three on the right I try to fleshen out some of my ideas; focusing on her face. Her hair definitely has to change (because it reminds me too much of Disney's Rapunzel). But I wanted to give my monster a bit of an angelic first impression; so I gave her a bit of a softer face. I do love the very small pupils of the top-middle sketch...it's very hypnotic.


Edit 2: CONTEXT
my monster started out as the following scene: imagine walking into an old church (possibly a bit fallen into decay). In the light of a window you see the contours of a shape: an angel. Turns out, it wasn't an angel.

So I want my monster to have - at least when we first encounter her - a silhouette that resembles an angel. And my entire character-design is based around finding that silhouette and especially how to deform that into something less attractive.

Edit 3: CHARACTER-STUDY SHEET
She's definitely going to have a feline body ('cause Cats are cool; and they look really cute when they sleep). She's also not going to be evil per se, because I just don't feel like drawing evil at the moment. That doesn't mean she won't kill, or even won't kill the innocent. It's just that she kills for food and not for fun; she actually feels bad about it. So initially she's introduced as the silhouette of an angel, then she turns out to be a monster, but in reality she's innocent and vulnerable.

I prefer to draw around story, so as the story is fleshening out, so is the character (and there are still some holes in both). I almost always do these sketchy character-sheets (well, normally they're on multiple pages of my sketch-book I always carry around) because it helps me to build around characters (and story) rather than a single image/stance. It also helps me explore different sides/aspects of the character.


Edit 4: THE UNEXPECTED AND UNUSUAL
One of the best parts about character-design is that you get to try things that are different. So I have this innocent and shy girl who is also a monster (feline body, wings, horns, will kill for food, that kind of thing). This creates some nice contrasts to work with; even in the most common situations.


I like this piece, because showering and cleaning oneself is not the first thing you think about when you're thinking 'monster'; yet it fits the character of a beautiful femaile-cat-person perfectly. My only concern...I might be a bit close to breaking rule #1, because she's getting less and less of a monster; just trapped in a monster's body.

EDIT 5: WARRIOR PRINCESS
Added another small sketch just playing with and exploring the character.

I have to say, the wings are going to be a challenge to position with the right energy and stance. Then again I haven't tried any stance where she's actually using them. Maybe it's about time I should explore what she'll look like when jumping/flying. That could be quite interesting.

EDIT 6: ATTACK
First of all, from now on she's named Sandra.

I was thinking about a nice pose to work on; and this was what came out. Though there is still a lot correct, push, and make stronger, I think it's a nice basis for an image. And it's something I've never done before (it's also something that would be ruined my my usual flat rendering unfortunately...so that's going to be an interesting challenge).



EDIT 7: COMPOSITION

the overall idea is to have her live in a cathedral/church kind of place, and have a big church-window behind her. That's all I know for certain right now...the rest will evolve as I continue working on it.

I want to have a (male) character to the front for her to attack, and maybe a small group of people in the back slightly in front of the window (this will also help us get a sense of scale). I would love to have a chandelier in there as well, but I don't think it will fit within the composition/framing. So basically...all key-elements are still missing

kept the flying attack-pose, and addressed some of the things that bothered me.



EDIT 8: CONTEXT
I added a some very rough additional character sketches to the scene to add some context

[selmiak]

rough Sketch:
[imgzoom]http://selmiak.bplaced.net/stuff/sketch.jpg[/imgzoom]
so I want to draw ... a mutated muscle frog... thingy?

rough references:


surroundings references:

probably something like this, gotta screencap this from my DVD for better quality than the random image found on the net




miguels Monster looks scary already. And I'm looking forward to ben's cute hedegehog monster?

[Chicky]

Holding of this space for me!

[Kasander]

Update: step 1

[Cerno]

Mammalian Dragon Step 3: Sketch-over, new brush, learned something about perspective, ever so slightly more dragon-ish: Bump

[miguel]

Cerno, check your wing sizes. To lift the dragon up you need bigger ones.

[Cerno]

Cheers, miguel, I'll try that.
I based it off the bat without realizing the different body sizes of the dragon and the bat