Some Creatures

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been much more active these days over at 90 minute comics. I have some ideas for some interesting things brewing though, which I'm not at liberty to talk about until substantial progress has been made though.

Anyway, this is just a quick post of some fun things I've posted on my facebook page but realized never made it to here. First, since the world desperately needs more critically endangered Saiga antelopes, I spent a couple hours getting back into ZBrush and roughing one out.

(click to bigify)

I would like to get better with starting sculpts from scratch in ZBrush instead of taking the time to first do a low-res base mesh in Maya, so that's what this was an experiment in.

Next up, is just a digital sketch of a dragon I did when I didn't have any ideas for one night of 90 minute comics. This was done in Photoshop in the allotted comics time...so 90 minutes. It was fun to just make it up off the top of  my head as I went. Been a while since I had such an enjoyable sketch session :)

(click to bigify)

I'll try to be more regular. Sorry about the hiatus!

Best,

  Evan

Backlog of Sketches

I've done a lot of scanning today so I can post a bunch of sketches I haven't yet had the chance to.

This first group is a bunch of images I sketched while in Washington D.C. last fall. Most of them were sketched at the National Museum of Natural History:

Coyote (Canis latrans)...

 Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) from the National Zoo...

Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis)...

African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana)...

Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius)

Bull Moose (Alces alces), and a quick Restoration of Dimetrodon grandis

Candid people sketching at a local D.C. Cafe...

And here are some misc. sketches I've also come across.

Life figure drawing from a long time ago:

Continued creature concepts from an independent passion project...

Dragon-like creature thing...

Cycloptic creature...

Vulture...

Frog...

Old-Man Blocky...

Hand Study...

Last summer I drew this because I randomly remembered the book, The Whingdingdilly, which I loved as a child. It inspired me to draw all sorts of strange chimeras when I was young...

My dog, Teddy, in his famous "Walrus" pose. He does this so much that we've started using walrus as a verb...

Furry Rhino-Monkey Creature. Don't ask...because I don't have an explanation. 

Experimenting with drawing different styles of "cartoony" people...

 More critters...a crocodylian and some sort of giant worm-thing...

Skeletal creature...not based on any specific animal...

Yet another creature design...

 Aliens of sorts...

A Lamenting Pig...

-Evan B.

What happens while I wait for sims to complete...

I've been working on water simulation for my Thesis, and as we all know....simming takes a lot of time....so sometimes I decide to sketch while I wait for stuff to calculate.

First some Amphibians:

Here's a devious Cane Toad (Bufo marinus). He looks so evil, because of the nature of the animal, being introduced as an invasive species and killing everything it can.

When I first read about this my mind was blown. This is the Ribbed Newt (Pleurodeles waltl). These guys are like the Wolverine of the amphibian world (Wolverine as in the X-Men Character, not Gulo gulo). When threatened, these guys actually push the pointed tips of their ribs through poison glands and then THROUGH THEIR SKIN, to stab/poison whatever it is that is attacking it. I'm not even kidding about this. you can look it up for yourself!

Now we have a Commando Manatee....or a Comanatee, whichever you prefer. I know he should probably be in the Navy, and not a paratrooper, but I have a special connection to paratroopers. I drew another version of this guy on a whiteboard with parachute and an 82nd Airborne Patch, but this one is simplified a bit for visual clarity.

And here's a generic Rock Monster sketch I did as a quick concept for a friend of mine, who may be trying to build an army of them for a project.

And finally, we have another experiment of mine, continuing to test myself in creating completely original creatures that don't look like anything that currently exists. The idea behind this guy is that in its evolutionary history, it lost its limbs, and instead strengthened and lengthened millions of hairlike flagelli, that sweep under and around its body. There are a large number underneath the animal to support it, while there are also these tentacle-like things all over the body that constantly touch/sense/grab onto surrounding objects to inspect, as well as to propel forward. This thing is a little creepy, and I'm curious to see how it would look in motion.