Following up from my last post relating to Terryl Whitlatch, I've decided to try and incorporate my new method to learning creature design. This method should minimize the amount of work I do while maximising learning.
I want to create a drawing called "The unicorn girl" which focuses on an anthropomorphic unicorn-girl child in a magical forest. I begin by throwing down a very quick design of my general idea. The initial concept is okay, but lacking in anatomical accuracy and the pose is a little awkward.
I will need to consult references in order to bring the design up to scratch. Instead of just bringing up photos to look at and re-design the girl, I will draw what I plan to use to load this into my visual memory so it is easier to recall the information later when I cannot pull up a reference. I also consult Terryl Whitlatch's work again for anatomical references as well as work from "The Ressurectionist" to give me a different angle on how to go about drawing fantasy creatures. I then consult Google images to bring up further references to fill in the gaps, but I will only draw as much as necessary to prevent wasting time and overloading my memory.
Now that I have references, I can start re-designing the character. I use Ken Hultgren's "The Art of Animal Drawing" to help me understand better how to get good, strong poses. I can explore the character as much as I want until I feel happy with it. I try and understand what her "appeal" needs to be. This is one of the 12 principles of animation, trying to give a character a certain "appeal". I figure that her appeal is that she is cute, shy and a little naïve. Next I lay out thumbnail sketches for potential compositions and pick the strongest one.
Now it's show time. I begin with a giant image, several thousand pixels in height and width. I will probably consult further references to give me a general idea of what kind of lighting and shading I would like to go for, but I won't use these too much so not to flat-out copy the images.
And there we have it! A finished image of the unicorn girl. I have finished an image while actively learning anatomy and character design at the same time. This is how I plan to carry out my studies rom now on, though with some variations to my study here and there when I want to be more spontaneous.
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