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 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: