Where do you get your inspiration for fantastical creatures in your world?

blakestackman 2022-12-24 07:03:42 UTC #1

If you have not already noticed, a few of the fantastical creatures in the world of Qwé are taken and inspired from our own. The Saiga, Balaeniceps-rex and the Vampiric Lamprey all exist in the real world but appear as though they could have come from another world entirely.
Whisp the squeaking wyrm /caterpillar is based on real species, like the Squeaking Silk Caterpillar in this video.

What are few of your sources of inspiration, when creating creatures - or anything? Please share.

Darth_Biomech 2022-12-24 11:44:14 UTC #2

My main sources of inspiration is the macro photos, rainforest insects, plants, and underwater critters that are Not-Fish. Brought and remixed together it can create some truly alien-looking things.

IMO to get the best mileage out of their uniqueness it is important to not just carbon-copy them, but instead, find traits that are most intriguing, and then fuse and mix them together in a new creature (while trying to avoid the "Lego anatomy" approach of just sticking parts of one creature onto another), probably also trying to adopt it for the new environment (when taking something aquatic and putting it on dry land for example).

The mistake I see far too often is when people basically just find a cool bug, enlarge it to human size, make it roar, and consider the job done. Oh, maybe also repaint it if they feel daring today. But a good design always borrows from at least four different sources.

allenT 2022-12-24 11:55:29 UTC #3

My creature designs are not really inspiring... just something extra and comes along throughout the story.

My fantasy creatures are not the spotlights, I don't want them to draw away attentions from the characters, so I don't design them in a way readers would expect like "mytical creatures in mystical places", that's very outward-focus. I want to keep them mundane and ordinary looking (many are just hybrids of real life animals) only few are somewhat alien.

Flios 2022-12-24 12:01:57 UTC #4

I create my "magic beasts", as they are called in my story, by twisting elements from the real world.
Take the gyrtle, it's essentially a snapping turtle, but larger and stronger. Also, there's the kolve, which is wolf but with ice powers and a powerful physique.

blakestackman 2022-12-24 14:30:20 UTC #5

Love the Grassmower.

MK_Wizard 2022-12-24 15:57:55 UTC #6

Honestly, I just take animals that I love and think of way to make them cuter. Usually in the form of combining them. Like you have a lovebird and a butterfly? Combine the two and you get a butterlove!

Archetype_Moon 2022-12-24 16:10:45 UTC #7

I get my ideas for my mythical creatures, called Masters from mythology, stories that I enjoy, and real life animals.

powerplantanimations 2022-12-24 18:04:39 UTC #8

I guess the stick figures in my universe count as fantastical creatures. Originally it started off as "Har, har they're stick figures", but eventually it grew into something more like "At every story protagonist's core, they're just a stick figure. Strip away their artstyle and all that".

The point is to give them a reality check of a lifetime. Eventually the concept of kenosis became the basis of this. Also well... cavemen were drawing stick figures back in the day.

feuersichel 2022-12-24 22:46:55 UTC #9

Well... When I create my creatures I just kinda randomly draw something... so not really inspired but more the mixture of things I know and spontaniously want to mix... My most favourite so far is this lovely creature ^^

They come in all sorts of colors and have a very bright character. Very fast and enduring runners.

samirasose 2022-12-25 10:42:20 UTC #10

I have a bunch of nature spirits in my comic. My main goal for their designs is to make them blend into their surroundings and not feel out of place, so all their designs are either based on an animal from our world or the part of nature they represent/ some random element of nature (or both).Some of them also change their leaf colors etc with the seasons to blend into nature better.

E.g. The grass spirit is basically just a blob of grass that has arms and little "ears", while the cave spirit is based on a bird, just that they have tree "antlers" growing on their head.

system 2023-01-24 10:42:30 UTC #11

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