Artist Pipelines

Concept Artist and Creature Designer, Brynn Metheney shares her techniques on warming up and creating inspiration on her blog. Metheney uses a website called Pinterest where she collects references and inspirational images of nature and animals. The collection allows Metheney to view a variety of animal species at random, showing the differences and similarities of different animals. Metheney states that during her warm up doodles, she has a tendency to incorporate the same traits of forward facing eyes and leathery hides into her designs because those traits is what she likes the most and is more comfortable with. To help combat this trait routine, Metheney uses her collection of references on Pinterest and scrolls through the large collection of animals. She would scroll through the collection fast and wherever the page lands on, she’ll use those animals on that page and create a creature from it.         

“Smashing up different animals is essentially the essence of what creature design is. You're taking what you know about the natural world and using those traits to create something new and exciting.”

Above is an example of how Metheney uses Pinterest to inspire new creature designs. She uses this technique to warm up and to encourage her to keep using fresh and unusual animal traits within her designs. This method is slightly different to Terryl Whitlatch’s work, as Metheney takes traits of different creatures and put them together, whereas Whitlatch creates a creature with its environment and purpose in mind. Both methods are credible, and it is up to the designer to develop their own understanding of nature and how they see the world.  

Ken Barthelmey is a creature designer who uses both digital painting and 3D to create his work. On his website he answers commonly asked question about his work, his pipeline and his advice for student artists. Below are the questions and answers from Barthelmey’s blog.   

What is a typical pipeline you go through as a concept artist, after receiving an initial brief for a creature?
I always start with very rough scribbles. I do these mainly for myself in order to get ideas and to find a specific look. After that I start with more detailed pencil sketches which I present to my client. If a sketch gets approved I start enhancing the design and colour it in photoshop. However in my recent jobs, I immediately jumped into Zbrush after the approval. Zbrush is a fantastic and very powerful tool, I always enhance my designs when I work in 3D.

How do you strike a balance between making something look ‘cool’ versus something that is believable?
If you design a creature too 'cool' or fantastical, it will look unbelievable and silly. And vice versa. If you make a design too realistic, it will look boring. In order to make a good design I think it's important to have a good taste of realism and imagination. I love seeing an actual anatomy in a design, even if it's mechanical. Using reference photos from real animals is always a great help to accomplish that.

Besides creating believable anatomy, what else do you consider while creating a creature?
I always consider creatures as characters. Even bloodthirsty beasts with long teeth should have their own soul and backstory. What is its motivation? What is its goal? What evolutionary functions does it need in order to survive... The more thoughts go into a design, the better the result.

How long does a typical design job take?
That's very difficult to answer, since it depends on many factors. I like to have a fixed deadline from my clients, that way I can easily structure my working process. Depending on the project, this can range from one day to six weeks or even more. I like to have at least one day for sketching ideas and additional 1-2 days for a beauty render. A complex creature with over a thousand arms takes longer, of course, than a simple blob creature.
 

You are an artist who likes working with pencil, why?
It's a great and fast way to present early ideas. Working with traditional tools has a different feeling. For me it's the first meeting of the image that I had in my mind. I was fortunate to work with very creative clients who immediately saw the potential in early sketches. Sometimes however it can be difficult to judge an early pencil sketch. So presenting ideas in a compelling way is very important. A sketch should never be seen as the final design thought, it's only the first brick in the wall.

Do you have any advice for students? What makes a good Artist/Designer?
You shouldn't have dreams, you should have goals! Simply follow your passion, you can only do the best work when you are motivated. You don't need expensive softwares in order to make art, start with pencil and paper and learn the basics.
From the technical side, I think everyone can learn how to paint. It's all about how hard you are working on your skills and how disciplined you are. But what a good Artist/Designer marks is creativity. Creativity makes every artist unique; you need to be able to come up with singular ideas and solving problems in the easiest way.

Overall, these artists use very different methods and pipelines to create their creatures. It is clear that each artist has their own routine and reasoning behind why they use certain techniques. It is up to the designer to develop their own pipeline that makes them comfortable and able to create new and interesting creature designs.