Moonlight Meeting / Waterfall Dragon

Some process stuff for a recent illustration. Thumbnails and character exploration for the human figures.

Sketchbook Sampler

Finishing up a sketchbook and figured I'd post some snippets here before cracking open a new one. My pages tend to be hectic, mostly stream of conscious and random shapes that eventually develop into people or monsters. Sometimes there's a finished drawing, often I get impatient and move from idea to idea before finalizing any one specific thing. There are also plenty of studies included here of animals, people, and some images by John WIlliam Waterhouse. Ladies riding deer are also a recurring theme.

Scalloped Ox / Rivet Heads

Mini creature project. I've had the idea for these guys knocking around in my head for a while so I decided to sculpt them. Eventually I'll turn this into a game ready model, but for now I've posed them for a fun paint-over to test out lighting and coloration.

Reference! I didn't have this while sketching but it's useful for sculpting details. These creatures pull mostly from tortoises but there's some crab and squid in there too. The Scalloped Oxen as they are currently called are large reptilian omnivores distantly related to tortoises. They thrive in a variety of warm climates, surviving in lean times via fatty stores beneath their flexible external carapaces. They travel in herds with a social structure similar to that of wild horse bands, the lead males of these herds attempt to add females to their ranks through showy displays and by battering rivals with their armored necks.

Zbrush sculpts posed with Transpose Master and bpr rendered.

Gryphons

Some older sketches and drawings that I forgot to put here earlier. 

Designing gryphons for a personal project, based on the premise that they're small fire-less relatives of true dragons and tend towards scavenger behavior. For my world building purposes I don't necessarily require them to be immediately recognizable as gryphons/griffins, but need them to look like a creature that could have inspired them.

As dragon relatives, their wings are bat-like, and rather than fur their bodies are covered with rudimentary feathers, something similar to what therapod dinosaurs would gallivant around in or what modern day ratites wear.

Reference! Mostly stuck to vultures but there's some fish in there for flavor. 

Did these silhouettes later after already finding my general look and feel. Just narrowing down little things like overall proportions and wing shape.

Messing Around

Some recent studies, speed-paints and other messes.

Below: Trying out something cartoony. Based on Zedig Diboine a bit and his approach to characters.

Quick moody messes playing around with an old dragon character. About ten minutes for each thanks to some musical motivation.

An unfinished matte painting experiment.

Lunch studies: