Creature Design thread! Post your comic's monsters, robots, and spirits here!

[JessJackdaw]

Hello there! : > I tried searching the forum for a similar topic, but couldn't find anything similar so here we go!

So what's your process in designing creatures for your comic?

Creatures, monsters, aliens and more! I love them all and I would love to hear how all of you come up with your monsters! You're welcome to just post pics of your comic creatures (as many as you'd like), but if you also like to, feel free to elaborate on how you went about designing the creatures too!

For my own comic, Pest Caravan. I have a whole bunch of different species planned for it, so I think I'll just broadly talk about how I like to design creatures.

Personally, I like to start with several different animals that I can blend together in different ways, and I like to throw a lot of different nature images on my canvas to use as reference. The Pyromancer species here combined probably ten different animals into one creature (bear, tragopan pheasant, armadillo, pangolin, crocodile, Corsian ram, bulldog, elephant, rhino, porcupine). I will use animal reference for just about anything. From the overall silhouette of the creature to the color scheme.

Other creatures that use less animal reference, are usually twisted human figure creatures that I want to evoke a horror vibe from.

Also, I have a weakness for drawing monster hands so most creatures I design have weird or multiple hands. I guess I'm just a odd artist that actually always liked drawing hands? They're fun an expressive, and it's fun to have monsters that have a bunch to work with. So if you notice a lot of my monsters look like centipedes... this is probably the reason. XD

[spadesart]

here's some from SPIRE, they're humanoid but still count as "monsters" in the comic's lore

[JessJackdaw]

@stnmaren I love how all of them look so sassy! And don't worry! Humanoid monsters are still monsters! They count just as much! : >

[J.Z.Castillo]

This is a Hellion... this is the very very very first time drawing one and I still have to draw the female. I haven't focused much on creatures for BioHazard since they don't make an appearance until waaaaayyyyyy later in the comic, so I'm sure this concept will change a lot until then.

I just took a bunch of big cat species and mashed them together since Hellions are precursors to all of them. Don't wanna give too many spoilers so I'll leave it at that haha.

[WakaXO]

I will have a few monsters in my comic, though right now only one has made an appearance.

Hes not that bad off mutation wise, his original design was basically his whole body looked like a pangolin, but I toned it down to better fit with how the other characters in my comic mutated. For the most part all my monsters were human to start and then when they mutate they acquire a physical trait of one animal (excluding my main character, her design wasn't based off an animal, but instead a Japanese ogre/troll)

Your monsters look badass, I especially like the one with all the arms, its the stuff of nightmares. I can't wait for your comic, your monsters all look so interesting.

[panistheman]

The Blood Zombie from VOIDCALL:

Also this... thing:

[indagold]

Welcome Back was a weird comic for me. I went against all my creature design instincts and started basing them off dreams, surreal characters and abstract art.

Some where based on mythology.

This thing I made based off mythology and one of my dreams. I call it a very weird baku spirit.

And this guy I made as a monster based off the feeling of losing control of oneself and reality.

[R.n.P]

Sparnatius is not exactly a monster, he is more of a spiritual being that brings out people's rage like the this red dude down here

THE LAST SAMURAI

[apocryphagraphics]

Yay, creatures! Here's some of the creatures from Heroes for Ghosts!

[heterodont]

not really monsters but i guess in context to the story they'd count as such??
my story that im posting right now has a fictional species which are, short and simple, shadow dragons :Y just because i like dragons and i have a habit of making any creature vaguely reptilian

because they weren't really based off an existing species, i just used my zoology class to make them as believable a species as possible ¯_(ツ)_/¯

focusing mainly on their biology, they're big enough to have two brains (one in their head and another underneath their back spikes. they also have copious amounts of blood in them that it'd take days for one to bleed out and their blood vessels/veins are extremely elastic to counteract the amount of blood within their body. They also have veeerry faint pupils and vestigial eyelids and have a gland underneath the eye which overproduces a lubricant to prevent their eyes from drying out (hence the 'crying' appearance), Their horns start off bone white until they're stained black by reacting with the atmosphere. Their mating season is in the winter time and the eggs hatch around spring (short gestation) and the babies are precocial. Usually it's the mom who takes care of the eggs and then the dads take up duty of caring for the hatchlings (as the females are almost 2x the size of the males, so eggs are safer with the mom than hatchlings are).

I can go on and on about them, especially since theres 3 other subspecies that are adapted to different envrionments HAHA

in general i love designing monsters. while they don't show up in the comic, I made true forms for my angel characters abaddon and zachriel. they were mainly based off of motifs? i guess? for example abaddon in the bible commands a horde of locusts (which when described, do not sound locust-y at all) so. i just made his look like an insect. and zachriel's is a two headed raven because he's the angel of memory and, although not in the same mythos, i wanted to make his reminiscent of huginn and muninn - the ravens that flew around the world to bring back information to odin :Y (and also his human disguise is pretty bird like anyway) then the being cut in half thing is. foreshadowing. not in the literal sense though.

[JessJackdaw]

@mrjonzap OH GOD IT'S SO CUTE! It's like what would happen if Ninetales and Arcanine had an amazing baby! Gahh!

@WakaXO Sparkles Mc-Pangolin Man! XD He's beautiful. Also dang how big is he? If he stood up he'd be bigger than the subway car! Thems some big shoes now that I think about it...

Your monsters look badass, I especially like the one with all the arms, its the stuff of nightmares. I can't wait for your comic, your monsters all look so interesting.

Oh gah, thank you! The ahh, Alchemists look a little better with clothes on, if that's any consolation. XD

@panistheman Ahh your blood demon's face reminds me of the creatures from Spawn! : > Nice!

@apocryphagraphics Ohh! Is that a chameleon cassowary dinosaur! That's awesome! XD

@heterodont Oh gosh, that last bird creature, Zachriel, is so cool! Those colors you picked for it are super nice! I always loved interpretations of angels, because going by what the true text says, they really weren't as beautiful as those figures we put on Christmas trees. There really is a reason that everytime they show up, they exclaim, "Do not be afraid."

[AnnaLandin]

I've only got one creepy beastie so far in Grassblades, but there will be a few more before I'm done:

This snake-tongued creature has a creepy elongated neck, sharp claws and teeth, and a tongue to strangle people with. It turns up in chapter 3, making its home in a village shrine.

[WakaXO]

Sparkles Mc-Pangolin Man! XD He's beautiful. Also dang how big is he? If he stood up he'd be bigger than the subway car! Thems some big shoes now that I think about it...

He is somewhere around 10 to11ft. In all truth I kept his boots on becuase I don't like drawing feet 😅

[MissMagicGirl]

I don't know if the ghost from my comic counts but here he is anyway:

Also there was a demon in my comic ones... Turned out to be a human in disguise though....

My comic: https://tapastic.com/series/magicadvisor

[TrustyShamrock]

i got robots in my comic not monsters. so i dont think that counts... but i looove monster and HOLY JEEZ these are all so awesommmme!!!
@JessJackdaw yur monsters are super freakin detailed and creepy lookin i love those!!
@stnmaren i really dig the style and personality yur monster things have. they seem like theyd be fun characters
@WakaXO daaaanguh that dude looks intense. the glowy bits are aweshome. and teh tail looks like itd be a pain in the butt to draw but it turned out real good!
@panistheman UGHHHEECK that blood zombie is hecka gross. but also wwwowwwww so much detail that musta taken forever to draw
@heterodont AHHH! i love dragons too and those are sweeeeet. that lil baby one is so cute. and those monster angels are super rad. you should def figure out a way to put them in yer comic me thinks

[Sketchu]

This thing.
I only really have the technical details about these things and some old sketches but yee.

Their forms vary greatly, they are more like mutants and their designs are dependent on what/who they were (unless they've gone so far they don't really resemble anyone anymore like the one above).

The creatures do what they desire most or feel like doing at the time even if it becomes an inconvenience or blatantly harmful to them.

Large ones can passively cause feelings of discomfort and fear, possibly followed by headaches, breathing difficulty and loss of vision or balance just by being near them for an extended time. If a person is unfortunate enough they could end up fainting.

[J.Z.Castillo]

OH GOD IT'S SO CUTE! It's like what would happen if Ninetales and Arcanine had an amazing baby! Gahh!

hahaha THAT'S INTERESTING!! I actually wanted to give him more of a Kirara feel.

But yeah, this one grows up to be 10 feet tall and almost 15 feet long, the perfect pet

[timinabox24]

i feel compelled to post this and I'm not gonna let anyone stop me
(unless I'm breaking a rule of some sort here X_X)

[60Six]

So my comic takes place in a world where everyone wheres masks and these things called "blanks" just wander around everywhere:

They're pretty much everywhere and it's not uncommon to have one just walk through your kitchen in the middle of dinner. They're so common that nobody really gives them a second glance and they're practically harmless as they don't have any awareness and just sorta wander around aimlessly. For the most part the only hassle is one might stand in front of your TV or something.
That is unless you drop your mask!

They sorta have a tendency to steal faces if they see them which is why everyone wears masks
If they manage to steal a face and get away with it, they eventually completely turn into the person, memories, personality, body and all:

Which is basically the whole concept my comic revolves around!

Only one has made an appearance so far but they also come in the animal verity which can only steal animal faces:

(These are however much more rare as they usually manage to steal a face before they have the chance to reproduce and make more animal blanks so the chance of your pet's face actually getting stolen is about one in a million unlike humans who are pretty much fucked if they drop their mask.)

[CHMsketches]

I have this 'thing' of a long time ago XDD