Monster Concept

For this weeks Halloween task we had a homework assignment to design and create our own monster concept, we had lots of freedom with the final piece as it could be realistic and gory or stylised, anyway we wanted as long as we put the effort into the piece and worked it up well.

To start the task off I first created a visual mood board representing a bunch of reference and inspiration images for me to start creating my own concepts from.

After researching into current concepts out there I then started sketching out some rough ideas for my own concepts and tried out three rough ideas, the first being a more stylised Tim Burton style monster with geometric shapes, the second and third being a more realistic, scary style of concepts.

I then decided on my final concept as my second design as I felt this was the most visually interesting monster concept that I could take forward and digitally paint to bring the piece to life. The idea was based off a mash up of a few of my research inspiration images and then added my own spin on the piece and created an earth like monster. I then re-drew this concept out on a larger scale and altered the design by adding in some more legs and making the tail longer to stretch the creature out which flowed better with the long slim legs.

I then took this design into Photoshop and added the base colours to map out the concept. I decided on earth like colours such as greens and browns to make the creature more earth like and realistic to fit in with the environment.

Once I was happy with my base colours I then created another layer and used the multiply layer function and added a 60% grey to mark out my shadows on the creature and add a more 3D realistic feel.

I then created one final layer and used the multiply layer function again and started to blend the shadows in with the base colours to add a more natural, less harsh flow to the highlights and shadows, I also added some highlights and a shadow underneath the creature to ground it and stop it floating around the page, I am really really pleased with my final concept as I feel it looks exactly as I intended and I feel as though I am improving with my digital painting skills overall.