Sketchbook Vol 02 by Rob Thornely
A bunch of creature concepts done in a period of 2 days
A bunch of creature concepts done in a period of 2 days.
Rob is an artist with a vast imagination. The amount of work he puts out is incredible. Check out his reel below and share his work!
Nomad Sculpt Predator
Ilya Tulyakov showcases the Predator in this MOBILE sculpting app
Ilya Tulyakov showcases the Predator in this MOBILE sculpting app.
If you’re interested to test your skills on the mobile sculpting app > jump over to Nomad Sculpt or get it through the App Store or Google Play.
Artificial Nightmares
Warning: the dream machine may result in corrupted memories
Warning: the dream machine may result in corrupted memories.
This is a very unique way of displaying art. It’s almost like an art-directed, painted, fractal pattern, which is executed impeccably and comes in different themes.
CreatureFix has picked out some of their favourites, though they all are amazing.
Coulrophobia Circus
Crypt Walker
The Kraken's Fury
4K Resolution images available as an NFT on OpenSea in the Artificial Nightmares Collection:
VOL. 3 - https://opensea.io/collection/artificialnightmares3
VOL. 2 - https://opensea.io/collection/artificialnightmares2
VOL. 1 - https://opensea.io/collection/artificialnightmares
Please see below for more Artificial Nightmares and share this great work.
Trolls, Orcs & other Creatures
Elliot Ward’s great sketches for some creepy monster designs
Elliot Ward’s great sketches for some creepy monster designs.
Below you can see his designs to the Cave Giant and further down, Belly, a design for an Ogre.
Geometric Beauty
Alexandre Chaudret displays a gorgeous series with a sneak peek of his workflow
Alexandre Chaudret displays a gorgeous series with a sneak peek of his workflow.
Witch of the Dark Moon
The Red Executioner
The Falconer
The Chop and Chup Brothers
The Floating Sisters
Saint Niskullas - Merry Christmas
Father and Daughter
Silent Night - Merry Christmas
The Masque of the Red Death
Baba Yaga
Cutie Patooties
Mickael Lelièvre and his heart-melting little critters
Mickael Lelièvre and his heart-melting little critters.
The Tomb Guardians Pt. 2
Zhelong Xu presents the counterpart of his Chinese Tomb Figures inspired work
Zhelong Xu presents the counterpart of his Chinese Tomb Figures inspired work.
Not too long ago we featured the first of the pair in “Dragon Master Zhelong Xu”. Here, some pictures to refresh our memories:
With Xu’s latest contribution, he completes his set of Tomb Guardians and the result is astonishing.
The inspiration came from a pair of ceramic Tomb Guardians from the Tang Dynasty displayed in the Art Museum of Cleveland.
A strange monster with a human face and bull-like body. Unusually large ears, curly hair and blue skin are some of the features of this creature.
Its imposing manner shows the guardian being always alert and guarding over the safety of its lord.
Once again, Zhelong Xu manages to capture the characteristics and soul of Chinese Mythology in a modern take.
Inspiration and initial sketch by Zhelong Xu
Forest Troll
Eric Richardson’s latest, very well executed 3D character
Eric Richardson’s latest, very well executed 3D character.
Inspired by Klaher Baklaher’s 2D illustration, Richardson did a wonderful world transitioning this character into the 3rd dimension.
Parasite
Florent Desailly gives us the shivers with his new “disgusting” creature.
Florent Desailly gives us the shivers with his new “disgusting” creature.
He created this beauty during a five day workshop over at Cime Art.
The goal was to show a workflow for short assignments.
After some explorational sketches, Desailly picked his top favs to push the shapes even further.
Time to Disco!
Senior Concept Artist, Geoffrey Ernault, created a beautiful, vivid underwater world
Senior Concept Artist, Geoffrey Ernault, created a beautiful, vivid underwater world of deep sea fighting monsters, with weird colorful plants and a tumultuous sea of blood.
The Beautiful Works of Nikola Matkovic
Mythical Creatures as far as the eye can see …
Mythical Creatures as far as the eye can see …
A great attempt of making a mermaid a little bit different.
Matkovic approached this idea by using an atypical underwater creature to base his mermaid of. Something weird , maybe scary but still beautiful.
Why not a jelly fish?
See below a snippet for a timelapse for this gorgeous piece of art.
The Queen
“Hideous and beautiful at the same time, like a widow spider.” James Cameron.
“Hideous and beautiful at the same time, like a widow spider.” James Cameron. 
The year was 1984, James Cameron had wrapped up his now very successful movie, “The Terminator”. Following the success of Alien (1979), Brandywine Productions was eager to make a sequel, which took seven years to be completed.
Cameron turned in the finished script in February 1985, and the project was finally green-lit and we could enjoy some amazing design work.
The alien queen was James Cameron’s concept, idea and design, and with very specific instructions was brought to life by the one and only Stan Winston. Their goal was to stay true to the biomechanical aesthetic that had been established by H.R. Giger while still finding ways to push it further. SW and his forty-people-strong crew produced a dozen alien warriors, as well as the full-size Queen, a 14 feet puppet that took sixteen people to operate, including two inside it.
“Even though Giger wasn’t directly involved, his ghost sort of hovered about.” James Cameron.
“Somebody once described it as an anorexic dinosaur, which I supposed is inevitable, even though that’s not what I had in mind,” said James Cameron “In fact, I wanted specifically not to suggest a dinosaur concept because that would have been a little too common place and boring”
At the very beginning of the project, Cameron showed a beautiful rendering of the creature he had done, which Stan W. liked immediately. From there, he and Winston traded sketches before establishing a final design, which then was sculpted at 1/4 scale by a team of SWS (Stan Winston Studio) artists. One of the key artists was Shane Mahan, who tackled the head.
Stan Winston’s School supervisor and co-founder of Legacy Effects, Shane Mahan Sculpting a full size head of the queen.
Stan Winston Studio had not used hydraulics before and considered them as a learning experience. They were essential for moving larger parts of the queen puppet, including the head; a hydraulic foot press in the body moved the tail up and down.
“I thought, ‘This man is out of his mind.’ Nothing like that had been done before. But in the next moment, I realized that if he had imagined it, we could probably do it.” Stan Winston.
Winston and the team built the prototype from black garbage bags, foam and two puppeteers with sticks for claws. Once the team got the prototype to stand and walk, they shipped the design to England to start building the real thing.
After sculpting maquettes, Stan's ALIENS crew moved to England, where they combined forces with Stan's British Alien FX crew and began construction on the queen, replicating one-to-one the 1/4-scale maquette that had been sculpted at SWS.
Once sculpt, mold and cast was done, the creature was painted up and given a variety of supporting rigs, which changed depending on the requirements of the individual shot. The Queen was mainly supported from the bottom with the rig being hidden in it’s vertebrae and sometimes hung with wires of a crane.
In total there were 2 different Queen heads built. One that could withstand the harsh filming conditions and one which was much lighter but also much more fragile for more delicate actions. Articulation was achieved with hydraulics for creating snarls and jaw drops, and a tongue which was controlled independently of the rest.
The Alien Queen was such a complex built and came with so many challenges, it was “as if a bunch of world-class musicians were suddenly handed instruments that they’ve never seen before” (-Stan Winston).
A creation with an enormous learning experience for the entire crew. A pioneer for approaching different methods in SFX and explore new ideas. It also is an important footprint, alongside other astonishing SWS creations, which contributed to the Stan Winston legacy.
Make sure to check out more content over at Stan Winston School.
Bone World: The Gate
An ancient fossilized statue by the talented Andy Walsh
An ancient fossilized statue by the talented Andy Walsh.
Hardy Fowler’s Digital Painting Studio
A Great Resource for Artists
A Great Resource for Artists.
From his series: Five Faces in Five Weeks, Exploring life like non-human skin tones
Mr. Fowler has started his own YouTube Channel to help aspiring artists and inspire in general.
He goes through a series of
Tutorials
Painting Demos
Art Challenges
Live Stream Events
Make sure to subscribe and benefit from it.
"Monster concept art for a YouTube challenge Fowler will be hosting in February. Five Monsters in Five Weeks.
He’s going for something dynamic and full of energy that blurs the line between living and mechanical.
Join him in the challenge if you want to participate and level up your creature concept art.
Hardy Fowler - Digital Painting Studio
A demo project from Fowler’s upcoming master course in concept art.
OCTO8 - A banner image for one of three Design Houses for students of Concept Art Academy.
Monster Head Concept Explorations
Don’t forget to check out Hardy Fowler’s Portfolio and his YouTube Channel.
BUFFALDOG
Julio Grimaldo’s Cute Little Critter
Julio Grimaldo’s Cute Little Critter.
This savage, heavy animal that has to look threatening but could also be tamed and trained for combat is part of an army of tribal cultures form another planet. Grimaldo explored with this piece to balance how aggressive, dynamic and bulky a creature could look like.
More Carnage by Adam Burn
The Concept Art of Venom: Let There Be Carnage
We were very pleased being able to show some concept art of Venom: Let There Be Carnage before …
… and are even more happy to see that Adam Burn had more up his sleeve for this movie.
“A series of concepts exploring early designs for Carnage's weaponry and how his tentacles form. At this stage we were messing with the idea of fairly rigid looking tentacles similar to actual limbs.”
Concepts to explore how Cletus transforms into Carnage.
A series of concepts exploring how Carnage's tentacles form.
An early key-art illustration showing the wedding of Cletus and Shriek with Carnage looming over proceedings.
Extra Terrestrial Creatures from Returnal
Mighty Canvas’ Art Director, Daniel Bohrer do Nascimento leads his team to some stellar work for the Playstation 5 exclusive title, Returnal
Mighty Canvas’ Art Director, Daniel Bohrer do Nascimento leads his team to some stellar work for the Playstation 5 exclusive title, Returnal.
For 2 1/2 years, Mighty Canvas produced concept and 3D production art under Bohrer da Nascimento’s leadership, who was also responsible for look development and surfacing. The team created fresh designs under the art direction of Housemarque.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Fomori
Straight from Lyon, France, Camille Bachmann puts on paper one of the most disgusting (in a good way) concepts for this Action RPG
Straight from Lyon, France, Camille Bachmann puts on paper one of the most disgusting (in a good way) concepts for this Action RPG.
"Fomori are a type of Possessed aligned with the Wyrm. Usually the work of full-body Bane possession, a fomor is corrupted in mind, body, and spirit." The concept art was done a few years back for the licence Werewolf: The Apocalypse (World of Darkness).
The possessed guards with a chance of mutation when sustaining damage, unlocking a special attack/changing behavior pattern.
Umbra vision is used to detect which parts are susceptible to mutate.
Spooky Stuff
Inspired by Oleg Vdovenko, Alan Albiach painted up some very creepy creatures. Beware, they are truly disturbing
Inspired by Oleg Vdovenko, Alan Albiach painted up some very creepy creatures. Beware, they are truly disturbing.
Great choice of colors. We love the contrast of pale and burnt/irritated skin texture. Also the presentation as if they were being photographed in the dark is killer. ;)
Destiny 2 Creatures
Adam Beardall’s contribution to some very well designed creatures for this free-to-play, online-only multiplayer FPS
Adam Beardall’s contribution to some very well designed creatures for this free-to-play, online-only multiplayer FPS.
A massive collaborative effort, where Beardall is very grateful for the help and support while working on The Witch Queen: Savathûn.
Small life creatures found around in the swamps of Savathun's Throne World, in which Beardall was given a bit of freedom to explore the design of those little critters.
