Designing the Sand Worm from Dune

One thing I found interesting from the Dune series were the giant sand worms. How huge they were on the planet and big enough to swallow a dozen people with their great mouths. So to make a worm I looked into how a worm would open their mouths, finding a suitable jaw or mandibles they would open when out of the sands.

Above and below: I searched and looked at a lot of photos with worms showing their mouths and amazed how they looked so alien then I imagined they would, almost as if they weren't worms at all. 

But I wanted my sand worm to be different as it would be monstrous by size so I thought that the mandibles won't work .

 1. Taking the original sketch and working on a few colour schemes starting with the brownish colour for the armour. Kept the jaw but with sharper teeth, wanting to experiment on the colours to see how it goes with brown and grey together.

2. Going for the more grey and dark theme but for the underbelly would be more dark brown but would be difficult to be seen with the amount of shadow it would cast and sand in the way. 

3. Decided to lift the head up much higher. Worked on the shades under the edges, not too dark as the edges and space between the plates not too deep. But for the mouth it would be very dark. I wanted the worm to bring it's head out at such a surprise with the sand burst out after it was tunnelling beneath the sands. Throwing the sand everywhere and then opening it's enormous jaws.

4. Given the sky a pale blue background with faint streams of thin clouds which can be rare in most desert regions, lowering the opacity of the brush to create dust clouds all around the head and not too thick.

Shawn McCauley

Shawn McCauley is an independent comic illustrator who is known for his work on the Shadows of Oblivion series. I've read his comics and find his work really good, even though the comic illustrations are in a black and white comics but find his work really good as I have looked at his artwork in some of the websites he goes on like Facebook, his homepage, DeviantArt and find myself a fan of his work. How he thought of the characters and the plots. McCauley has taken in fan artworks for commisions from Deviantart and artworks of his own. He makes video tutorials for artists to help them know how to make characters and to make comics by each step.

Known Sources

• Artist website: http://shawnmccauley.com/
• Comic book website: http://shadowsofoblivion.shawnmccauley.com/
• Deviantart: http://shono.deviantart.com/

Animation research: Avatar Series

Avatar is an animation series that is sent in a Asian-themed fantasy world where people can control the four natural elements by 'bending' them using the movement of their bodies in the physical performance of martial arts and techniques for each element.

For Fire the characters would use a technique called Northen Shaolin Kun fu  for fluent movement but also offensive strikes for fire bending and long range attacks.

Waterbenders Tai Chi Ch'uan in the flowing motion to control the water and use of healing.

Earthbenders use a technique to move all earth-based elements called Hung Ga and make shapes out of them like clay.

And for the Airbenders use Baguazhang to manipulate air, blowing a great gust of wind with their bodies as though they were dancing in air.


I like how it was animated and well thought out, showing viewers how bending is performed and how the characters move to interact and combat using bending techniques derived from the actual martial arts that exist today. The animals they designed were interesting and mixed from two different animals. The series so far has for 3 seasons and a sub-plot that takes place after the show and changes into an early 20th century theme and mostly steam-punk in the later series.

Naga, a polar dog

Flying bisons.

Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan is an artist living in California who illustrated artworks for many careers in his early years. Illustrating book covers for horrors, fantasy and science fiction book; Michael Moorcock;s Elric series, Anne McCaffrey and Pern's Dragon Aboard. And also John Carter's Princess of Mars series. His artwork is more traditionally similar to paintings before digital illustration was common

Renegades of Pern

I find his work really good and how he pictured them to relate to the stories he's read to get the settings, characters, aliens and creatures as how the writers thought of them. I think it's good for the illustrator and writer to discuss ideas of how the artwork would look and what it could need then one person doing it themselves. He was one of the artists who brought a new world of fantasy and science fiction to many artists in the later years.

Illustration Dune concept art

So far for my illustrative concept designs for Dune have started with simple sketches of them for the narrative illustration. Making sure they aren't exactly different but original from the books and here is the first part of the concept designs for the book.

Paul Atreides:
For Paul's description in the book he would have black hair from his father's and mostly brown from his mothers. For my version of him he would have a more dark copper hair and lengthen it a little, as I imagine that hair length would hardly be an issue the characters in the distant future. Still more work into him and also with the still suit, wanting it to have a more organic look and need to work on more on the body shape.

Sandworm:
"Their skin was thick, rough, and orange colored. It served the simple function of armor and was comprised of many scales, each a few feet in size. These scales overlapped and interlocked to form the armor that protected it against internal sand invasion."

• Dune Wiki

When reading more about the Sandworms and getting ideas to make them different from the traditional sandworm in Dune. Thinking about the armor, I thought it about an armored plating look but when up close would have smaller scales formed together. For the head I worked on a few sketches to know how it would look a lot different with a more jaw-shaped maw.

Reverend Mother:

The old woman was a witch shadow - hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels.

• Dune: chapter one

What I am going to do for this is make the Reverend Mother concealing her face, making her appear more mysterious and alien. Fitted her with a headdress and a mask, drawn a few swirls and curves around the face and along with the elongated finger nails fused to her fingers as claws.

Digital paint experiments

I had thought of starting with some experiments on digital painting to work on the level of colors from light and darker tone.

I was thinking of how to make a good sand texture, going for a few earthly color so long as they are brownish and tried different types of brush tools to work on the texture. I may need to use one color as the sands don't have many and work more on the shading. however, I do like a little how it turns out with the texture and how it looks, would need to figure out which brush tool to use for this sort of pattern to get it as good as I can get.

Using the same idea but more on the smoother colors to make a circular shape, making the center more lighter with the darker colors around it. I added the lighter colors around the 'edges' to make it look like an object. I would have to look into art tutorials to take notes and examples of how it can be done. 

Kevin Walker's Fantasy Beasts

Kevin Walker is a fantasy artist that made many designs of creatures of mythology and fantasy. This book contains many of his artwork of creatures and explain how he illustrated his designs by studying other animals, environments and the biology to create new creatures of different worlds and imagination. I like how he thought of them and drawn 

This page shows how he would start out with his studies of animals before getting the idea first. Photos most likely taken from him with the lightening and a bat, including skeletons to know how they would look.

Some of his artwork are in many things such as Magic: The Gathering, 2000 AD, Rogue Trooper, ABC Warriors and Warhammer