Back to School!

Hey boys and girls,

This summer has flown by. I can't believe I'm going to see you all again in just a few days! I hope you've had a wonderful few months and feel like you learned a few things. Thank you for your enthusiasm and coming up with some cool new creatures. I can't wait to see what you do next!

I hope you will all consider continuing on the work you started here and keep sharing. Keep pushing yourselves and each other. I know it's hard during vacation when you have jobs and family commitments always seeming to take precedence over art. That never ends, unfortunately. But doing things like this, making sure you have a little place and community that will force you to keep moving forward, it makes all the difference. Keep it up and eventually making time for art will be as natural as making time for  the new episode of Breaking Bad.

And with that, I will leave you with one last fun creature list:

20 more animals you won't believe are real

A Wild Munna Appeared! Realistic Pokemon from Britt, Plus Some Goblins!

I've been painting goblins for a book cover for about 6 hours today, so when I checked in to see the blog, I decided to take a few minutes to use Emily's Pokemon project as a brain refresher. (before I get back into the goblin-y fray!)

I only started playing Pokemon this year, and I instantly fell in love with Munna. She's just about the opposite of things I usually draw. Round, Pink, Girly, Flowery, Easily Stackable, and nibbles up the dreams of pokemon like candy. What's not to love?

(My friends keep buying me little Munnas. They stack nicely on my studio windowsill)

Below is a 45 minute-ish speed paint, I'll do a bit more on it later this week I think. I was stumped as to how to start, and by Emily's suggestion, I based her off a tapir... they do have similar noses! Working in Munna's flower spots is tricky but I think as I develop the skin/fur texture they're going to be a little more abstracted and part of the "real munna's" coloration!

Pokemon Realism - Emily

I'm sure most of you guys have seen this sort of thing, but I figured I'd share some of the things I've been doing. It's fun! And coincidentally, a nice creature design exercise.

Pokemon! There are now more than 700 pokemon, each incredibly unique little monsters.

They're pretty simple cartoon characters, made with some really wacky shapes (that sometimes make very little sense as far as realistic anatomical structure). Cartooning's never been a strong point for me, so I prefer to draw my pokemon with an extra heavy dose of realism, making colorful shapes into living, breathing, and believable monsters.

Here are some examples from other artists' rendition of pokemon:

RJ Palmer

René Campbell

 

Gavin Mackey

And here are a few drawings of mine:

 

 

It's a ton of fun! I enjoy researching some of the background information on how some pokemon designs came about. For example, the last one, Tyrannitar, is based off of Godzilla, so my rendition pulled inspiration from Godzilla designs rather than making him into an actual T-rex. Being a rock type pokemon, I chose to adorn him with tough, rock-like scales (much like Godzilla's nearly indestructible hide) and interpreted the dark spots in the official art to gaps in his 'armor'. Many pokemon are based of real animals, myths from around the world, even everyday objects. 

You can stay close to the original design, re-imagine the creature completely, or anywhere in between!

The same sort of concept can be applied to most cartoons really, I just figured it'd be fun as a creature design exercise, if anyone wants to give it a try! 

~Emily

Silhouette Creature-Brittany

Hi all!
This one is definitely not quite as finished as I'd like it to be-- but today's the deadline so here we are!

I'd imagined this creature being from a dystopian future, either an experiment or a freak of nature resulting from the meltdown of a nuclear plant near a swamp.

The legs are very frog like and the torso appears to have vestigial nubs where limbs once were. It is not a creature you want to be anywhere near, as its very undiscerning about what it eats. The jaw can unhinge much like a snake's, making it capable of devouring just about anything.

This was definitely a challenge for me- I tend to soften everything i draw so doing something creepy/pointy/uncomfortable is sometimes a difficult stretch. I'm not completely happy with it yet but its on the road to getting there!