Sam Santala - Concept Artist | Illustrator

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...