Animex Workshop

Drawing for Creature Design: theory and practice

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Today, I ran a workshop at Teesside University's Animex Festival. The workshop was called Drawing for creature design: theory and practice. It covered what I know about creature design methods and where to look for inspiration. The workshop went really well. Here are some highlights of what I covered.

Feedback

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Here is some lovely on-the-spot feedback from a few of the students I had the pleasure of teaching!

Here's a write-up of the workshop from Leela Taylor: http://papertalesofnorthyorkshire.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/creature-design-workshop-at-animex.html

For more details on the workshop, visit the Animex 2017 website: http://animex.tees.ac.uk/archive/animex2017/speakerProfile.cfm?speaker_id=618

Thanks for reading!
Rosemary.

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www.rosemaryartist.com

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Creature Anatomy with Terryl Whitlatch: Lesson 9: The Narrative Illustration — Part 2 — "Hunting"

The final week of Creature Anatomy with Terryl Whitlatch! Our assignment was to finish the capstone project. I experimented with an unusual colour palette. I usually go for bright, saturated warm colours. This time I tried more muted, cool colours. Also, this is the first time I have produced a full, traditional under-drawing, rather than jumping into digital too soon. I quite like the effect but I could develop the background further to make it more immersive — at the moment it appears like an unfinished sketch. The scale of the dinobird was hard to achieve. The prey is a dragonfly from the Carboniferous period, they were lot larger than contemporary dragonflies! It's hard not to see the dragonfly as a modern size, making the dinobird appear very small.

Narrative Illustration: Hunting

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References

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Initial Sketches

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Development

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Thanks for reading!
Rosemary.

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www.rosemaryartist.com

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Creature Anatomy with Terryl Whitlatch: Lesson 8: Complex Poses and Problem Areas

This week was a nice change of pace again. After producing orthographic views of creature designs for the past 6 weeks it was great to sink my teeth into some more dynamic poses. I chose to focus on Greyhound and horse anatomy because they are what I find the most challenging. Below I have produced sketches to study and analyse more dynamic and complex poses, such as running or seated. Horses act quite like dogs sometimes!

Horse and Canine Anatomy: Complex Poses and Problem Areas

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References

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Thanks for reading!
Rosemary.

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www.rosemaryartist.com

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Creature Anatomy with Terryl Whitlatch: Lesson 7: The Narrative Illustration — Part 1 (work in progress)

This week was a bit of a change of pace. The assignment was to produce thumbnails for a final narrative illustration featuring one of the creature designs created in previous weeks. I chose to illustrate my Harpymimus-Bustard dinobird hybrid. The most challenging part is trying to compose the image with as much interest and dynamism and visual storytelling to create an engaging illustration. I could do with persevering with the thumbnails. The dinobird appears to be too static in many of my composition ideas.

References

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Thumbnails

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Thanks for reading!
Rosemary.

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www.rosemaryartist.com

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Creature Anatomy with Terryl Whitlatch: Lesson 6: Elephant Anatomy

Week six was all about elephant anatomy. It's amazing looking beneath the surface at how adapted the elephants' skeletons are in order to carry their huge bulk. I can't quite get my head around how they essentially walk on their tip-toes! I spliced a Red River Hog with an Indian Elephant to create quite a big friendly giant. I will pursue this idea further - I want to see how it looks in the beautiful rust colour of the Red River Hog.

Elephant-Pig Hybrid: Indian Elephant + Red River Hog

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References

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Initial Sketches

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Thanks for reading!
Rosemary.

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www.rosemaryartist.com

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Creature Anatomy with Terryl Whitlatch: Lesson 5: Hoofed Mammals

I really enjoyed this week. Horses are such a challenge to draw, but the more I draw them the more I'm starting to become accustomed to their highly specialised anatomy. The assignment this week was to combine a hoofed mammal with an animal studied in the previous weeks. I chose to combine an Akhal-Teke horse and a Saluki hound. Both orginating from the desert, I thought their sleek silhouettes designed for speed would complement each other. This is one of my favourite creature designs so far and I will definitely be developing it further.

Horse-Canine Hybrid: Arkhal-Teke + Saluki

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References

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Initial Sketches

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Thanks for reading!
Rosemary.

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www.rosemaryartist.com

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