One of the most recognisable species in the Gretchen Goosander universe are honey dragons - huge and furry creatures who can shoot an incandescent liquid from their throats to set everything alight. They are in equal parts cute and scary. They have a certain look to them that while not realistically proportioned, still comes across as appealing due to their big eyes, highly emotive faces and shaggy coats.
This cements the stylistic choices of the Gretchen Goosander universe. The creatures are intended to be half-realistic and half-stylised. There are two schools of thought when it comes to creature design: Getting the creature to work in the universe it lives in and look real and getting a creature that looks appealing to the audience. There is a sliding scale of realism v.s. appeal and creatures tend to fit somewhere between the two aspects.
For example, Wayne Barlowe's aliens from "Expedition" tend to be more on the realism side and the creator has thought heavily about the functionality of the creatures than "how cool they look". That's not to say that the aliens don't come with an inherent sense of appeal.
By comparison, the designs from "How To Train Your Dragon" lean more towards being stylised and appealing to the audience, as do creature designs from "The Croods". However, the designers went to great lengths in order to retain the creatures' sense of functionality and believability in their own universe.
My designs would probably fall somewhere between the aforementioned constructs. I also want to go for a very specific kind of appeal, which is one found in films such as "The Neverending Story", "The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth". I will be researching into the character designs for these films and also art books and creature design books.
Below are a set of sketches for honey dragons, (mainly Mumbeltrousse who is a main character). I spent a long time figuring out how the feet should be structured. I studied spider monkey faces for the expressions as I feel they are structurally similar to a honey dragon's face.
There is still a lot of ground to be covered with this species, such as how they live (since they come from Madagascar), their hidden form and how they use magic (I am considering their hidden form being a lemur or a tree) and a few other things. But for the most part, I have this species nailed down and I may even start doing a zbrush/photoshop hybrid for these creatures as a test.
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