Conversations With Creature Designers

A panel amazing creature designers discuss their creative processes and share their inspiration and imagination in the CTNx panel discussion called "Creature Conversations with Creators."

A panel of amazing creature designers discuss their creative processes and share their inspiration and imagination in the CTNx panel discussion called  “Creature Conversations with Creators”

(CTNx’s Workshop description)
Creature Conversations with Creators
Amazing Creatures!!!! Are they real, do they exist outside of the imagination, how do they become real and from where? Where does the inspiration come from to create never before seen creatures? What kind of creative courage does it take to go through the door into that never before seen and unknown design territory? Listen to this AMA-zing group of creature creatures discuss this process and their work.

The discussion was moderated by Sue Nichols (IMDB), Character Designer and featured:
Dave Guertin, Creature Box
Greg Baldwin, Creature Box
Terryl Whitlach, Creature Designer
William Stout, Creature Designer
James Gurney, Illustrator

In this workshop, each artist had time to share their art and talk about their process. As with other workshops, I loved the diversity of career backgrounds among the panelists.

The breadth of creature design experience represented in this workshop was nothing short of astounding.

It was also great timing for me personally as I watched it because I had just supported a Kickstarter campaign (now closed) by Creature Box. They’re putting out a Monster Volume of their creature creations.

A key overarching principle is that as an artist, you are not just drawing creatures but creating characters, you’re bringing them to life by doing the mental work of thinking through how they effect other creatures, what their personality is like, how they effect story and more.

I highlighted key quotes and notable principles by each artist below and as always, I highly recommend watching the video to see some of the incredible artwork and hear the artists as they share their thoughts.

James Gurney, Author and Illustrator (IMDB)

• Worked on Dinotopia.
• He is interested in showing dinosaurs in other positions besides the running attacking postures- “an endless push and pull battle with the anatomists” about what is actually possible.
• Gurney uses maquettes and photo studies to get lighting and positions correct and to explore what it might look like in three dimensions for a sense of realism.
• Observing animals in real life helps him imagine creature designs and science based illustrations.
• By doing all of these he’s able to develop illustrations with a touch of realism, empathy and story so that his creations connect with audiences.

William Stout, Creature Designer, production designer (IMDB)

Stout started as a production designer but noted most did not see their family for 2 years. The mentality often times is that if you’re doing your job right you’re working 7 days a week, minimum 18 hours a day. Because of this, Stout made the
decision to focus on creature design (and even had to turn down Dances With Wolves!)

Personal note: this is one reason I chose to start an indie studio. We occasionally have to pull an all-nighter or two to get a project done, but we strive hard to balance work with family and personal life. A healthy, balanced employee is going to do better work and be easier to work with.

Terryl Whitlach, Creature Designer (IMDB)

• Most notably, worked on Star Wars for ILM in the 90’s.
• Crucial for creature design is looking at contemporary animals for reference and understanding for imaginary and pre-historic drawings
• To be a good artist and avoid falling in a rut physically and emotionally you need to live and engage in life. “Have adventures so you can portray adventures.”

Personal note: I love that last quote! One of our core values here at Timbuktoons is that we want to cultivate “awe and wonder for a lifetime”. You can’t do that unless you experience those adventures. I heard a great speaker once say, “We need to accumulate experiences, not things.”

• “Know the realism behind it so you know what you’re exaggerating” (Sue)
• “To draw even the most stylized character is going to be more convincing if you have the foundation of the real down.”
• On Star Wars: Phantom Menace: Jar Jar Binks took 1.5 years to develop, and is the combination of duck billed dinosaur, amphibian/smooth skin), a parrotfish (patterns), and a lot of emu (specifically his legs). She had to demonstrate how he walked to ILM so they could understand his gait. Sebulba is basically a grumpy camel and took one afternoon to design.
• Research and life studies are key!

Greg Baldwin and Dave Guertin, Creature Box (website)

• Push silhouettes.
• See creatures in the emotions/expressions exhibited by humans (his kids).
• To make things more believable you have to think about function. Such as with games, they may not work when the hero character runs around the camera.
• Some creatures are “elder beasts”. They want to think thru what monsters look like when they age.
• They sometimes design characters with “flesh clothes”. Shapes that mimic clothing items but are part of the creatures anatomy.
• “Try exploring the lighter side, cartooning, find the humor and feed that into your images.”
• Put stuff you’ve done in the past around you to avoid doing the same thing over again.

Personal note: It is very easy to fall back on convention or what you have already done, but the thrill of being an artist is experiencing something new every time you draw. Drawing from convention will lead to staleness.

OTHER NOTABLE QUOTES DURING Q&A:

• Don’t skip the story or introduction of a character because that’s your opportunity to get the storytelling into the design of the character. It gives grounding, underpinnings, and boundaries.
• Research: library, museums, video, internet, Google images, clipart file, zoos, etc.
• Go have you’re own adventures not just someone else’s.
• Put yourself in uncomfortable positions, try things you’ve never tried, draw shapes you don’t usually draw…fail at it so you can fix it.

As always, I loved viewing this workshop and am thankful that CTNx has put together such an amazing venue for those of us working in this industry.

I’m looking forward to rubbing shoulders with other artists at CTNx 2012 and I’m going to catch as many workshops as I can.

I’m also teaching a workshop (http://www.CTNANIMATIONEXPO.com/how-to-run-a-small/) so if you are coming, be sure to sign up!

Until then, I hope this post and video will inspire you to design some amazing creatures and characters!