Background Research

As always, my project begins with background research about the type of project and also to get some ideas of how other artists are doing similar projects. So, I started looking for similar artwork done by others. The results of this background research were quite surprising for me. So far, I've only worked with humanoid characters, that has a certain shape and form. The only unique thing about this kind of project is the costume. Even so, the bigger proportions of the costume of any human character are always similar. For example, upper body, lower body, outerwear, head wear, gloves, shoes etc. The basic shapes of these clothes don't differ very much on a bigger scale. 

 

But, when you talk about something like a monster, it can come in any shape as there's no fixed anatomy for a monster. They are all imaginary characters that come in countless shapes and forms. As an artist, this is both the good news and also the bad news. The good news is that I don't have to worry much about the anatomy. Because there's nothing to make believable here. The bad news is that there's no certain guideline as to how a monster should be modeled or sculpted. It all depends on the concept and the amount of complexity intended for the project. As you can see in the picture below, these 3 are all monsters, but each of them has their own unique shapes and forms in both bigger and smaller proportions. 

If I think about the bigger proportion, the first one looks like a giant potato, with a sapling on its head, one giant eye, a boomerang shaped mouth with a tongue and triangle shaped teeth and tentacles like octopus but they are fat but short. The second character looks like a piranha from front view with hands and a palm shaped foot. The third one looks like a scorpion on the bottom half, and it has a long head with three eyes and animal shaped mouth with teeth. 

So, each monster as a character, comes with its own shapes and forms and they have to be modeled in their own specific way depending on their shape. There's no general rule or guideline to create a monster unlike humanoids or other regular animals like dogs, chickens etc.