Book of creatures

While working on my book, I have focused designing creatures as my main theme for the art book. Looking at many animal species and take a few illustrations for research before designing actual creatures. Figured it would be more useful as a source for where I got ideas from and plan out what it is I'm about to create rather then jump right in it.

To make the book to bind well I had to find out what usable material I could use to keep the pages together, so I decided to use staplers so they would keep the pages together into a proper booklet,


Cover
This one I made for the cover, making it showing only a creature's eye to make people curious about it. Also added the shading with it. The difficult part was to make the fur texture as good as it can, just using the exact tool for this was very hard to find one. I wanted to make it look like an actual e.ye, adding lighter.

Large winged bird
Made a head design of a bird, wanting it's head to look majestic, exotic and graceful so I looked at several species of birds such as eagles, hawks, peacocks, parrots and other smaller birds. The feathers were the main importance for birds to have and need to fly, creating a texture of feathers that flare up like a crest going down from the back of it's head to the neck.

I have sketched the head of the bird, figured it would help knowing what sort of bird it would look like and took a close look at some birds to know what their feather covered bodies look up close.

Sketch:

The original concept design of the creature's body, wanting to give large wings that would be used in the same way as arms just as it has a finger as it's body is very long and flexible. Drawing the feathers on the wings and tail were more difficult than I first thought when wanting it to have proper feathered wings. Studied some examples of birds and their wings, drawn the shapes and lines for each row of feathers. The same for the scales on it's talons as I figured since they descended from reptiles.

Example:

This is one of the examples of inspiration to make the bird into what it is now and looked at the colours of their fathers, their wings spreading out as they fly and the tail feathers, going for brighter colours.

Multi-tailed, six-legged canine
I've looked into creatures of mythology and legends, and found an intersting idea of making a fox-like beast with multiple tails and given an extra pair of legs. Looked at a few canine species and wanting the tail to look less flat then muscle. Worked on the fur so it be more of a mane going down from the head to the back like a lion has so it would look tough despite having the thin appearance.

The multiple tails were tricky to do to make one big tail with lots of 'split ends' in the same way as hair. Made sure it was swaying so it would not look flat and too much like a feather tail. As for having six legs, I thought how it would look as a drawing, moved the middle legs forward near the chest with the front pair so it would have an advantage of speed. Drawn a few doodles for the paws as it was the first time, drawing a canine so I looked for a few tutorials and photos of paws from dogs and wolves so they would look perfect; not too small or too rounded.





Great White Manta fish
Making an aquatic creature, it would have to be something close to the species that exist on Earth, so I looked into a few basic fish and think of what sort of fish it would look like. One of the species I found interesting was the Manta Ray because of their shapes, the way they move their bodies in the oceans makes it look as though they were flying rather than swimming. Chose the manta ray as the inspiration of one of my creatures but wanting to make it more different so I gave it more fins, a longer tail with a spread out tail fin. The skin colour was meant to be a pale blue grey with darker grey around it.

 

Example:

I've taken a look at some photos of the manta ray to get a clear idea of the shape and how the wings/fins would move. It was one of the varied species of fish I looked at to make doodles for the shape of the body, tail and fins/wings to make what I've drawn above.

Alien insectoid

Wanting the latest creature to look terrifying and alien, I wanted it to be unique from some aliens so I looked into other sci fi creatures and what I could take note from to make mine different. Taken a few samples from insects to get some idea, wanting the carapace to look smooth and a little curved around the head. For the alien to have multiple eyes, I chose the number of four eyes and planned out how it look. 

Made some thought of having them around the front with one set above the other, making them at a reasonable size so they would not look too big.  The mandibles I set to look as though they were a single jaw but in fact a quadruple-hinged bottom jaw; whenever it would open them up, they woudl sometimes split from two to four depending on how loud it would. This was inspired by the Predator and Sangheili/Elite from Halo and used the idea for this but more armoured and curved with the teeth shown inside.

Example:

There are some insects with well designed carapace to protect their soft insides, It would also have to have mandibles so I took some study of the insects like beetles and other animals with protective bodies; armadillos, turtles, tortoises and terrapins to observe the difference of their armored shells and carapaces.