JAY TARRANT
VISUAL DEVELOPMENT | CONCEPT ARTIST
PRODUCTION ARTS PATHWAY
UNIT 6 -
PRODUCTION ARTS - FANTASY CHARACTER CONCEPT ART
During the Briefing, I was already aggressively thinking about hat animals I could create and join together in horrifying ways, to create an interesting fantasy species.
​
Throughout the brief it seemed as though Paul had a internal battle every time he had to show us some slimy and wet 'Halo' looking creature. I wasn't at all interested in creating something lizard like anyways, but this just urged me more to stay away from this theme.
​
Initially, I was very interested in taking design inspiration from How to Train your Dragon, initial inspiration at that, I didn't plan on using creature references for animals that didn't exist, and are already 3D Animated.
There is a combination of features used in the HTTYD Dragons that just make them slightly odd looking. I was very specifically inspired by Toothless' design, the majority of the other dragons are so awfully ugly. I don't know what particular points of Toothless' design initially inspired me. A weird mix between the ears and the sort of 'paws' he has...
​
This inspiration ended up just being an initial idea builder though, as this was replaced very quickly by other, more functional ideas. But this definitely helped me decide what sort of route I wanted to go down.
I have a weird case of tunnel vision, when it comes to making something, specifically fantasy. I get unnerved by the idea of making something entirely new, and the pressure that comes with it. So I focus on one specific aspect until I decide I need to move on.
​
In this case I decided I wanted to look at the flow and features of an owl's face, an owl being one of the main inspirations for my fantasy creature. Although at this point in the project, this was completely unnecessary to be doing in the first week of the project, it did allow me to have a brief deeper understanding of the feather flow and facial structure of the owl. Funnily enough, doing this also actually inspired the final form for my fantasy creature, as the facial features I struggled the most to draw here, got sort of burnt into my memory, and drawing them into my creature felt like a 'must', and now these have developed into some of the most defined physical points of my creature.
INITIAL DESIGN IDEAS
One of the very first issues (what was the most irritating, but overall was a very small issue) I needed to work through was the experimentation process that came alongside creating a fantasy creature.
I knew I wanted this to be a beaked animal, but this did bring some limitations in the anatomy. With almost all beaked animals, if you look into their anatomy, there are very limited muscles as pretty much their entire facial structure is made up of bone. Combining this realistically with another animal, specifically an animal that DOESN'T have a beak, was originally proving to be a little bit difficult, as I couldn't figure out a successful way to combine the two together, while keeping the anatomy correct for both sets of animals, so that they have full range of movement, and aren't heavy weighted towards the front or back.
​
I was given an idea to see if I could combine two birds together to create my fantasy creature. I did some brief experimentation with this, but it then became a struggle to create something that actually looked like a fantasy creature, not just an odd looking bird. I also was feeling as though this was an easy way out, as although slightly unique, most birds' anatomy is 99% the same, apart from size.
​
Especially with my initial ideas, having my final creature resemble mostly with a bird was disappointing to say the least. Having the time to experiment birds/birds, it did give me a good idea of how I can break up creatures and put them back together again, it also gave me a good idea of what birds I didn't want to use (Ostrich and Vulture, it just looked very wormy whenever I was sketching). It did solidify my intent to focus in on owls and eagles (specifically for the beak, I really liked the shapes and danger I could show with using carnivorous birds beaks).
This sketch kind of came out of nowhere... it was the result of getting slightly irritated about not being able to correctly dissect anatomy. My thinking was, if I could work out that initial joining point (figuring out how to connect the birds skull to a mismatched neck) I could then work on body shape and animal inspiration later on.
​
In the long run, I'd say that this was successful, and the neck/chest area did prove to be my biggest struggle. I really liked this sketch, as it didn't look completely like a bird but also didn't really resemble any other animal just yet. And unlike my previous sketches, although the neck was quite long, It didn't look anywhere near as 'wormy' as my previous sketches.
​
It was at this point that I realised maybe the owl wasn't a good animal to take inspiration from. This initial sketch looks very intimidating, and much more like a predator that owls do. I was also not really liking how flat the face looked, I felt like having a heavily down-turnt beak, made the face look much flatter than it was.
I had a VERY quick experimentation using multiple types of creatures, seeing what the best mix could have been for my creature. At this pointy I knew I definitely wanted my creature to be four-legged. But what anatomy and textures and behaviour this developed into I was still experimenting with. Due to the shape of the skull, and the neck having to be extended to fit the anatomy correctly. I was struggling to find a creature that would look good from all angles. Comparing the first sketch to the third, you'll notice that I was also playing around with the angle of the skull, having a creature with a flat face, or having a more angled face much like birds have naturally. I liked the look of the angled face much more, I feel as though it gave more life to the creature, but also gave it more of a a dangerous vibe. One persistent issue I did battle at this point, was sketching the two animals together. and making the animal look 'normal'. In order to avoid the 'wormy' look I hated so much, but also keep the weight distributed fairly, I was having to add a hump to the back, I found that without the hump, the creature appeared very dog like, and I feel like this could be seen as docile (which sint exactly what I was going for...) Due to constantly drawing this hump, I started looking into animals that naturally had this anatomy, One of the most prominent ones, was the Rhino.
After a few more sketches, this design was the one I settled on for my creature. On the right, is a full body concept, on the left, I was experimenting with how the anatomy would work, and also trying out the Eagle feet, instead of rhino hooves.
Compared to my other designs, this one looked and felt like something I could move forward with. I liked the structure and the aura this design came off, and without all the detail it still successfully showed as a predator.
I wanted to make the face the most prominent part of the creature, because ultimately it was going to be the most intimidating part. I feel like in this initial sketch it shows a lot of potential. One issue that stood out to me at this point, was with having such a large creature with such massive body mass, having the talons and the feet being so 'dainty' it didn't give that sense of realism within the anatomy. It didn't look very convincing that this creature was capable of supporting its own body weight.
I did do some more brief experimentation with the idea of having bird feet, but ultimately for this reason, I thought it was best to stick to a design that followed strong bone and muscle structure within the legs.
EXISTING FANTASY CREATURES
For context, this section was written 17/10/23, any earlier and this would have had helped me so much more in the long run!
I knew that from the beginning, when I was inspired by HTTYD, and wanting to include birds etc. That it wasn't going to be difficult to find conceptually created creatures already. Some of which would be particularly popular in books and media. I knew this would make life slightly easier for me, as having multiple people discuss the logistics and working motions of an animal that 'doesn't exist' obviously also helps me consider the motions this animal would go through.
​
For some reason... up until today, the only animal I could find/ think of, that was similar to what I was designing, was a Phoenix. This wasn't as helpful as I was expecting. It did help in anatomical; ways, with scaling up bones and what looks right etc. But it didn't help as much as I was hoping with inspiration.
​
UNTIL TODAY! A week before the project is due and I remembered a PHOENIX is a fantasy animal, that is seen and talked about all throughout HISTORY, and not only history it is in MULTIPLE TV shows and Movies, seen as a functional creature that moves and walks and flies and does everything.
​
There are so many similarities to a Phoenix and the creature I am creating, if I had thought a little bit harder 2 weeks ago I would have been able to have 10x more inspiration to work with, and a lot more content to help with anatomy merging.
​
I guess one of the positives of not coming across this sooner is that I did get to test a lot of things and cover a lot of hurdles I wouldn't have so much. A lot of thought process went into the structure and design, trying to figure out how connections and bone structure would work, it meant I had a lot of failed designs, but I think its probably also made my final concept a lot stronger because I didn't have a 'cheat sheet' so much. There are a lot of similarities between my fantasy creature and a Phoenix, but its also important for me to say (both for myself and for all the work I've done) that my creature is NOT a Phoenix. It does not have wings, it is not able to fly. Yes, there are quite a few similarities, as there are with thousands of other animals in the world. But ultimately, my creature is much cooler than a Phoenix, because I created it.
PHOTOBASHING
Photo bashing was a skill I learnt in College, also for concept art purposes.
I knew in this situation, it would be a perfect skill to use, as I was quickly trying to figure out the texture, shapes and design of my creature. As I was using reference from pre-existing animals, it made it the perfect opportunity to merge these animals together, and try and test things quickly to finalise my concept design.
​
This first test was my 'final' idea. Once I had put all the pieces from my sketches together, I didn't like the feet. I knew from my sketches and photo bashing below, that bird feet REALLY didn't work, but from this task, I realised I also didn't like the look of Rhino hooves.
​
I really didn't want to give up hope on the idea of a character with talons. I thought it would be a perfect focal point for an intimidating character. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I pushed for this concept to work, it didn't sit right anatomically.
​
I knew from this point that I really liked the bulkiness that the rhino body bought. It appeared very powerful, and flowed very nicely in comparison to the small, but dangerous head, and feathers flowing over this intimidating body.
​
I tried multiple times from multiple different joining points to find a way to keep the talons, but I decided in the end they were causing more harm than good in my design idea, so sadly I did decide I needed to find something else better fit.
This ended up being my final design concept (almost). Overall I felt like the entire design was very solid. Having these strong bear feet matched up very nicely with the bulkiness of the rhino body, while also giving me the difference I was looking for in the feet. I was still playing around with the idea of the antlers at this point, they did look slightly out of place. I was reminding myself that I didn't want the antlers to be as big as my references. Its very difficult to find antler reference that were the size I wanted, whereas I had managed to edit, or find almost perfect references for every other feature I wanted to capture.
I was careful to make sure I included some reference to my texturing at this point, as I wanted to make sure it looked okay at this stage.
INITIAL SKETCHES
After creating my own references for my concept art. Everything now got a lot easier. The biggest struggle I faced was the fact that drawing animals (specifically the animals I had chosen) was still very new to me. So having accurate reference poses and anatomy was vital. I did find it very difficult to make sure my anatomy was correct and bones and joints moved correctly (because I wasn't familiar with the way they moved). In comparison, drawing humans is (in comparison) easy. As I have been drawing people for a very long time, and also I have been taking in reference for this type of thing for ages. (being a human myself) I also have subconscious knowledge of how limbs move, and what can move to what extreme etc. Whereas, drawing this concept art, I found myself heavily referencing images and poses I had found online.
The first image, its very easy to see that the anatomy was very off, but I was very quick to sketch out the spine and get the skull to line up with the middle of the spine. Working out the differences in the ankles and knees was also a challenge, trying to figure out what angles were correct to make this creature look like it was standing with relaxed legs, not rigid.
I am really pleased with how this concept came out. It gave me a perfect idea of what I can expect, and gave me a lot of opportunity to play around with my own photo bashing, but also the reference pictures, and create a result of both. One thing I did come to terms with at this point, is that I was using less and less of my rhino reference as time went on. I started, thinking a rhino was a perfect animal to reference. It had the hump in the back I was so fond of, it also had a very large bone/muscle structure. It was a large animal that had the potential to be morphed into a very threatening creature. But as I was drawing, I realised that I was looking at less and less rhino images, and more at bears and lions, as they had that very visible external muscle structure (that I was desperately trying to draw), while a rhino, although EXTREMELY strong, doesn't have as much of a visible muscle structure... it is hidden by very thick skin. I realised that I could take inspiration from the rhino structure, while referencing the structure of animals that, mostly, look the way I want them to already, in real life, not just rhino anatomy pictures I was clinging to trying to draw from.
​
I liked this concept art, but I wanted a final image that I could really get stuck into the interesting details with. I used this image as a base, as the structure was really nice, and it was a more accurate representation of what I wanted top finalise compared to the photo bashing. One detail of this image that I did lose in my final hand in, was the harshness in the beak. I was so specific in the preseantation of the beak, and this image had captured it perfectly, but in between my tweaking and painting I lost some of that sharpness I was so desperate to keep.
​
I decided to follow reference images of lions, as they are naturally extremely externally muscular animals. it meant that almost any reference picture of a lion I looked at, I had a diverse range of muscle movement I could actually visually see, so accentuating the muscles on my creature would become easier, as my reference image has quadrupled in variety.
CREATING CONCEPT ART
POSE EXPERIMENTATION
Much like before, the initial sketching was the most difficult part of this process. I had a much larger range of reference images this time. But joining two very different animals together still seemed to pose the same starting difficulty every time.
I was starting out my sketches way too soft, from the first image you can see that I was trying to draw very smooth circular lines (and also the head which is not in any way connected to the body). I figured this out very quickly when I continued with much harsher, sharp lines (and also managed to get much better shape than I was previously). I wanted to follow quite dynamic poses, to test myself for one, but also to show as much range of movement/ different sections of my creature as possible.
SIDECAR: COLOUR PLAYING
This was the final sketch. I was worried at first that it wasn't realistic enough, but because I was going to be painting over this, I was really only following this sketch for a rough outline of detail, and nothing related to this sketch would actually be see able in my final outcome. Also, something I've come to terms with in my own skill level. Is that the more realism I add to my own sketches, the less they look the way I want them to in the final image. I focus on small details from the start and it decreases the final quality of my drawings, as I was focused on so much detail in the early stages.
Once I had followed my sketch, to create my base colour, I went back in and actually started to erase details that I hadn't captured in my sketch. It gave a much more natural effect, I feel. I focused mostly on the paws of my creature, as since the beginning of my sketches, I haven't focused much detail into the feet, apart from figuring out what they were going to be referenced from. I wasn't too focused on adding too much detail at this stage, as I would be painting over this image, and I could always come back and erase more of this base colour later on if I felt I needed to.
This also gave me a very quick look at the silhouette of my own character. It is an odd pose, so its not as obvious as it would have been in any other case, but I do like how strong even this silhouette presents itself.
I decided the smartest way to tackle this painting would be doing the exact opposite of what I'd do if I was painting traditionally. I worked from dark to light values. As I didn't have any linework to reference, only my sketch, it made sense to approach it in this way, as using the darker values first would essentially create line art for me where shadows hit the body. Now that I've done the concept art, I think that I could have attempted a light to dark version of this method as well. I think my overall values would have turned out a lot lighter, and the highlights would have 'popped' a bit more than they did in my final drawing.
Once I had down the darkest values, in order to create depth and imitate texture, I went back over these areas with a very light eraser, and started erasing my texture. Doing this felt much more successful and natural than it would have if I were to draw the texture on. The lighter spots look slightly more random and sharp than they would have if I had drawn on top of my darkest values. A direct comparison to this would be the final values drawing, where I added that lightest colour on top, specifically looking at the front leg, it looks soft and smooth, compared to the randomness you notice at this stage.
Creating the feathers was definitely the most challenging stage of this drawing. I had to create enough distinction between the feathers, to show the texture and depth I was looking for, while also keeping it relatively simple and in line with my current colouring style. because I had limited depth in the face, I was relying fully on the feathers to imply depth and flow into the neck and spine, so I had to make sure that my feathers accurately followed the anatomy of my creature, in order to make it look realistic. I think I did this pretty successfully, and I especially like the ruggedness I created at the chest and edges of where the feathers separated.
I was really happy with the final outcome of this value painting, and I thought it was an especially good start before I went on to add colour. Reflecting back on what I could have changed. I do definitely think I would have at least started with a much lighter base colour, as although I do have a wide range of values, nearly black between the front legs and chest, and the front of the face having completely white highlights, because of how dark the base colour is, it makes my drawing look quite flat, and doesn't quite show as much of a spectrum of the values as there actually is.
Once I had finished the value painting, I could very easily (sort of ) color my model. Using a color layer on Photoshop, this would take a flat color, and using the black and white values, change how the color looked. It made painting very easy, as I had already done all the hard work while painting in black and while. I did have a slight issue, which you can see in this test color, that because my base color was such a dark color of grey, a lot of the color was being quite heavily muted by the base colors. The body color I had originally put down, was a warm brown, but due to the greyed out base, I ended up with a very muted red-brown. I got around this by adjusting the values and saturation after I had fully painted my model, and then went back with a multiply layer to add the finer details in the feathers/fur of the main body.
FINAL CONCEPT ART
Before adding enhanced shadows (for depth)
After adding enhanced shadows (for depth)
Creating the texturing for this was really fun, but also extremely tedious. Over the top of my value painting, I was then going back over (in color) creating the darkest tones in the feathers, and then adding the mid tones at the ends, the lightest tones at the tip, and then the highlights where sunlight hits the edges.
Up until the coloring, I had been working through a clipping mask, to keep my edges neat and sharp, once I had added the main bodies of color, I started working outside of the clipping mask, specifically around the feathers, to create a more rough and transparent edge, which I feel gives a really nice change to the sharp edges of the rest of the coloring, It also adds a bit more depth to the edge of my painting, which I think helps to make it appear a little bit more 3 dimensional.
I decided to add a shadow enhanced layer last minute, as although I had a very detailed, intricate drawing, It didn't feel as though the depth was there. The front and back legs were sitting at the same value again. I added this specifically to the back leg, and the underbelly of my creature, to really accentuate these areas, and help pull my creature out of the 2D software I drew it in.
I drew my base sketch following pretty closely to my reference images, to make sure my structure and anatomy was correct.
​
I then went on to add the details in my own creature, most of these are relatively small changes in the face. This included making the eyebrow ridge (not the right word in reference to an eagle, I cant think of the alternative) much larger and sharper, and slightly changing the shape of the eyes, this was in an attempt to make my creature appear more intimidating.
Comparing this final drawing to the other value painting, there is a big improvement of quality when it came to my use of values. Most of this came down to starting with a lighter base color, so I had more of a 'range' of darker values to work from.
​
There isn't a massive range of values used in this drawing, I tried to keep it very flat, focusing mostly on the texture and details.
​
I used a very similar method to what I used to create the other piece, as I realized that erasing instead of drawing the majority of the finer details actually made for a much more polished final image.
FINAL CONCEPT ART
FINAL CONCEPT ART SHEET
I attempted to emulate a very standard concept art model sheet for my final submission. I had my two facial drawings at the top (I do with I had one from a different angle though rather than just two side profiles) as well as the final painted concept showing textur, I also added a very basic muscle structure breakdown, not drawing the additional details. In the middle is my size reference for my model, which puts my creature at just under 4 feet tall when on all fours. I kept the terminology for my creature pretty ambiguous, for no reason other than I was struggling to describe my creature in short sentences, and I wasn't too sure how to refer to it, hence ' this animal' and not knowing what to call it.
I did research a few concept art sheets for this, and they all seemed to follow this unspoken rule about layout, that I tried to take inspiration from, with the work I had.
The final muscular drawing in my concept sheet is very rushed. Compared to the rest of the work in the sheet, it definitely brings down the overall quality, I have also managed to draw some very unnervingly human looking feet, which I really don't like. from looking at references, I think the muscle anatomy is almost right, but some muscles (specifically in the arms and shoulders) I have not accentuated enough, and look too small.
Overall, I'm very happy with the final work I have produced, I think it looks professional and well drawn, in both a technical and anatomical point of view. I know that I could have done more for the final submission, which is annoying as I wanted to have a 1/2 turnaround, as well as a full skeleton/ anatomy study, not the final muscle drawing that is included. I also wanted to include some more close up drawings of the face and feet, where I could talk about the facial features and adaptations my creature has.
IN CONCLUSION
This project could have been considered a dream project of mine. It gave me a chance to develop skills in new areas of 3D, which since having access to Blender, I have been keen to do. But also kept me in safety and security with something I was confident in , doing concept art, while also allowing me to branch out into animals and fantasy anatomy.
I am really happy with my outcome, and the level of technical skills I have managed to work with.
However, and this is also reflected in my work for 3D, the more University projects I do the more I disappoint myself by not being able to complete work I know I am more than capable of producing. This was a pretty content heavy project, working on two pathways at the same time, and also having worked on this project almost every waking minute I wasn't working, it does frustrate me to know that if I had more time outside of Uni I could produce so much more. There were several more topics I wanted to focus on, for both pathways, that I didn't get a chance to touch on as I simply ran out of time. One of the drawings in my final PDF was extremely rushed, and obviously wasn't planned to be. I also really wanted to have a second page of work focusing more deeply on the anatomy of my creature, but I ran out of time to do this as well. I feel like 5 weeks was not enough time for how big, and specifically in-depth the VFX pathway was, for this project to be completed with as much attention to detail as previous projects.
​
I did manage to learn quite a bit over the course of this project. Drawing animals and their anatomy is not something I would have considered myself capable of doing prior to this project, but also I have never found myself capable of painting with that much detail and realism before. As I said in the reflections, I have quite an illustrative art style, and this tends to peak thorough in my work, whether by coincidence or on purpose. If I had put into perspective how short this project was, with how much there was to do, I definitely would have reconsidered the amount of details I put into the majority of my final drawings, and I would have tried to stick to more painterly 'sketches' and then had a separate sheet of detail-focused pieces.
​
After being so excited for these two projects, It is quite a kick in the gut to be so disappointed in the final submission of my work, not in the quality, but the quantity of what I had planned to produce vs the actuality of what I produced. In future, I need to try and value my time better, and create an equal balance of work load for myself, as I want to be able to show my full potential, but with the amount of time I have and the amount of work I set out for myself to do it is not possible. If I could redo this project I would definitely go back and stop doubting my initial ideas. Those extra few days I spent at the beginning mulling over my concept design, and whether my idea was 'original' enough, would have been more than enough extra time to have been able to produce the quality and quantity of work I wanted to.
REFERENCE IMAGES (A CHOSEN FEW)
RESEARCHING OTHER ARTISTS
https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/create-a-super-real-fantasy-creature
​
ABOVE, he starts painting (key word, STARTS PAINTING) in greyscale, working in big sections slowly refining detail back, colour adjustment done on greyscale layer.
​
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/25281/anatomically-correct-griffins
​
ABOVE, worldbuilding 'anatomically correct' series, where multiple people sit around on mythical animals and decipher how this animal could evolve into the world and what would need to happen for its anatomical being to... become anatomical.