Sam Santala - Concept Artist | Illustrator

Because there are simply so many creature studies I'm creating for this course, I've decided to filter down the number of those studies that I'll put onto my blog. For this post I'll briefly sum up the two weeks worth of topics. Firstly there was the dog/dinosaur studies. As I said from the last post, dinosaurs come in two varieties (bird-hipped and lizard hipped). That week was all about studying another mammal, and combining it with the bird-hipped dino that my previous study didn't cover. Below are the studies and final product: This combination turned out quite well I think! Taking the thin aspects of the Russian wolfhound and combining it with th4e relatively stocky Parasaurolophus was quite the challenge though. --- And for the following week was about ungulates (animals that walk on the tips of their toes) and combining those. I could have chosen any two ungulates, but I chose a Shire horse and Dorset Down sheep because I knew they ...

During this weeks lesson I spent my time studying birds and their ancient ancestors, Theropods. I had taken a while to really try and understand how the anatomy of birds can be traced back down the evolutionary tree and so did detailed studies of examples of both, making notes as I went. As you can see I studied bones, muscles, posture, and wingspans. It definitely revealed a lot about how theropods transitioned into the birds we see today. Here's a closer look at some of my notes: Unfortunately I couldn't find the species of the deceased bird I was referencing In the image for the theropod you'll notice how I've highlighted the pelvis of the creature. This is because this is what defines a theropod as it is 'lizard-hipped., This is to create a stronger support for it's leg muscles. As opposed to 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs such as the triceratops, who have closer hips to allow for more digestive tracks to break down the large amounts of  ve...

This weeks assignment was to focus more on the earlier stages of evolutionary life so I could grasp how anatomy developed over time. I was tasked with sketching some studies, and combining a fish with either an amphibian or a reptile. Fish/Amphibian Hybrid Fish Studies Reptile/Amphibian Studies After I'd gotten the basics of these creatures sketched down I decided to try going more in-depth on their anatomy. This wasn't required but I felt it would help me really make better decisions on the final piece. Fish/Amphibian Anatomy What made this especially interesting for me was the fact that I knew most creatures followed the same basic plan when it came to their anatomy. But fish and amphibians turned out to be wildly different to what I expected. Amphibians (Salamanders specifically) lacked a ribcage, and fish had their pelvis right near the front of their bodies when I was expecting it to be near the end. With this though I knew I could tackle the fin...

I'm trying to make use of every spare moment I have to try and push my artwork just a bit more. So during the end of my lunch-breaks I've dedicated about 30 minutes a day to just trying to work on portraits as rendering faces is something of a weak area.   And because I had some spare screenshots I also made a quick progress GIF in case people would like to see the process.   I'll definitely be doing more, but I may just post a select few on here. You can be sure to see them all as I make them over on my Twitter: HERE

I'm ashamed to admit I don't draw nearly as many Dinosaurs during the Twitter event of 'Dinovember' as I should, but this year I tried. I actually sketched up this quick image during one of my lunch-breaks, and I'm quite happy with it. I'm definitely going to plan on tidying this up at some point. So stay tuned! Misty Mother Sketch

I recently signed up to a creature design course hosted by Terryl Whitlatch on Schoolism. I'm a huge fan of Terryl's work, so it'll be interesting to see how I develop my creature work whilst on her course. These should be weekly updates, and this week's topic was to try and get a grasp of the fundamentals of creature design. So our challenge was to draw a human, a tetrapod, and a human/animal hybrid. Then break those down by rig, skeleton and musculature and label each. Here's what I came up with:

I won't deny it, I'm still a pretty big Pokémon fan, and with the new game offering up some different takes on old designs I wanted to take my favourite Pokémon and give it a new twist. First, I tried to figure out what kind of change this would be. For instance the original design looks like this: Originally just a water type Pokémon I wanted to reflect the Psychic nature that's always been present in it's design. I sketched a couple ideas, from floating monk types, to ones that seem exhausted by their mental strain.   I actually decided to work on it's previous forms story. Originally a dumb duck that suffered constaint migraines that gave it its psychic power, I wanted to try and portray this even more in its evolved form.   And so the Alolan Golduck suffers from constant insomnia. Never able to sleep from it's terrible headaches, it only worsens the effects, which in turn increase its power. Part of it's design is taki...

After looking at my old masters studies I decided to try and give my hand at doing a few more value studies to see if I'd improved. The originals are on the left with my studies on the right. Each took roughly 3 hours. I feel like I've gotten a good grasp of values themselves in the last year, but I really need to work on texture and my edges.

ConceptArt.org's forums often hold a Creature of the Week contest. Many of my older posts from a few years ago were typically revolved around these contests and I can certainly see how much I've developed from my posts back in 2012... It's been a couple years since I last entered though, and with the latest contest sounding as fun as it did I couldn't resist trying to see what I came up with. Final Design This weeks topic was to redesign the Elder Dragon 'Bahamut' from the Final Fantasy series. Bahamut is typically shown as an almost anthropomorphized dragon, with an upright body and large wings. However, I wanted to try spending this time designing a more feral creature. I started by trying to draw some very strange dragon shapes, adjusting proportions and wing spans. I had an image of a lumbering creature with huge wings and small arms originally. Eventually I settled on the more typical draconian design, trying to keep the wings the main focus...