Alien Camel Concept Art Aquatic Alien Nimal Concept Art

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Designing a plausible conflicting life form represents a claiming for concept artists. The monstrous creatures used blockbuster movies and video games tin be relatively easily created, equally they don't need to exist functional within a existent world context. To blueprint a creature that not only meets with a clients' requirements, but is likewise potentially biologically viable requires a careful balance between plausibility and visual impact, a balance aided by careful research into the way real animals wait and behave. In this tutorial, Alex Ries will explicate how to illustrate an alien life grade that could potentially exist in real life. Let's become started!

Tutorial Avails

The materials required for this tutorial are researched reference images and textures. For this alien life grade the post-obit are used:

Elephants
Tiger Beetle
Ostrich
Bird Pes
Giraffe
Fly01
Fly02
Horsefly
Wasp
Monitor
Paper
Gumtree
Pythons

About This Creature

This animate being, nicknamed the Needlejaw by local inhabitants, is a four foot alpine quadrupedal omnivore inhabiting the dense reddish-leaved woodlands of a small fertile globe. During the twoscore-hour periods of daylight it divides its time between resting, and tracking downwardly fruits and soft plants with its keen sense of a smell, peircing them with its hardened rostrum and sucking out the fluids.
Every bit darkness descends however, its beliefs changes dramatically: Antennae previously held furled against the head are deployed and are able to detect the infrared radiation given off by its warm-blooded casualty in the darkening wood. Using its slender legs and light build, the Needlejaw stalks silently until well-nigh enough to strike, driving its pointed beak down with enough force to pierce tough skin and inject strong toxins and enzymes. The wounded prey is then tracked by the Needlejaws' not bad sense of odor, and drained of its torso fluids past a potent muscular pharynx.

Powerful, precipitous edged claws usually held flat against the chest are used to manipulate prey to facilitate feeding, or to tear open organs and other tough tissues. They are also utilized in carrying prey to a safer feeding location, where it will be protected from other, larger predators.

This power; to exploit different food resources during both day and dark cycles, has allowed the Needlejaws to diversify profoundly, and the grouping is establish in large numbers in many habitats across the planet.

Preparation

This conflicting fauna with its circuitous mouthparts and pare details requires a large canvas. In this case a new file of 5000x3750 pixels provides adequate resolution, without adversely affecting arrangement performance.

Save this new canvas with a descriptive name and number: The numbering allows fill-in (iterative) saves to be made every bit the epitome progresses: Select File > Save Equally and increment the number value of the file proper noun past i before each major change. These saves enable the recovery of elements from earlier versions of the painting which would otherwise be lost.

Pace 1

Conduct your research by collecting images relevant to the design brief, which in this example is the illustration of a plausible alien life form. To this end, gather references of unusual or interesting earth animals that could inspire aspects of the pattern.

Stride 2

With these references gathered, arrange them on a new canvas with a large enough resolution to display them all without losing detail. Create an image of 4000x5069 pixels and organize the references inside it.

Step 3

To hands view these references while working, the canvas will be duplicated and arranged around the main image. Select Window > Accommodate > New Window for References and create a re-create of the canvas. Adjacent, resize and relocate both the original and the duplicate, ane atop the other, on the left hand side of the screen. Echo this step to create one more duplicate, resizing and relocating it to fit beneath the Layer Palette on the right side of the screen. Now, using the Zoom Tool it's possible to view different areas of the reference canvas simultaneously.

Step 4

With references gathered, take a small Size half dozen brush and sketch in the general class of the alien. Equally the design progresses, keep in mind the hunting style and habitat of the creature and let that inform its anatomy. As the creature hunts in forests, a slim shape will permit it to motility easily between dense vegetation. Since information technology is an ambush predator, small slender legs and anxiety enable the silent stalking of prey, while a covering of small venomous spines help to protect information technology from its ain predators.

Pace 5

With the core body form divers, begin working on the face of the creature. The organism is a liquivore, injecting enzymes into its food and sucking out the fluids. Earth has many examples of such creatures, and so inspiration for the mouthparts is drawn from horseflies and other insects which feed in this way.

Pace half dozen

When designing alien life forms, calculation eyes can pose a challenge; viewers tend to find optics familiar, undermining the creatures' alien nature. In the case of this creature an alternative sensory system is used; taking inspiration from both the biting flies and the infrared pits of the python to design two sensory antennae. Although non providing the kind of resolution traditional eyes would, these infrared sensors allow the animal to hunt warm-blooded prey in full darkness. Equally these infrared sensors would be of piddling use during the solar day, draw a vertical slit down the front of the face; this slit contains two elementary, retractable eyes for daylight navigation.

Pace vii

With the line art consummate, masking the major areas of the alien tin proceed: Reduce the line art layer's opacity to around x%, leaving information technology simply barely visible. Below this layer create several more than for each component of the conflicting such as Foreground Legs, Background Legs, Body, and Spines. The face, with its multiple small and circuitous parts, volition as well need a set of its own layers such as Antennae, Proboscis etc. Color each of these layers with bright hues that allow the individual parts to be easily discerned. At this phase any combination of colors tin exist used, as they will be changed in the side by side stride.

Step 8

Now with the masking layers in place coloring tin can begin. When selecting colors consider the aliens' environment: The forests in which it hunts are dominated by plants with red leaves, so in order to cover-up itself a similar skin color may have evolved. Select the main body masked layer, excepting the mouthparts and spines, and depress the Lock Transparent Pixels part from the top of the layer palette; this will foreclose any brushstrokes from leaving the trunk layer. Take a soft castor and paint in a brilliant ruby color, repeating this procedure for all other layers except the mouthparts and skin spines.

Pace ix

Note from the Python reference that many animals have a dark upper surface with a lighter belly: this is an evolutionary phenomenon chosen 'countershading', and is a method of camouflage. Apply this to the alien past selecting the main body layer and, using a soft castor, painting in a light cream undersurface to offset the uniformly blood-red body. Repeat this procedure and add countershading to the inner surfaces of the limbs.

Pace 10

To define the class of the aliens' body shadows need to be added. Create a new layer folder above the body and fix its Layer Alloy Mode to Multiply. Within this layer folder create a new layer and paint in a shadow on the torso. To continue the shadow within the torso layer, hold Command/Ctrl and click the preview window of the aliens' body layer in the layer palette: This volition form a selection boundary effectually it to go along the brushstrokes inside.

Step 11

With the shadow in place a nighttime boundary is added to aid define its extent. Double click the Shadow Layer to bring upwards the Layer Style palette. Select Inner Glow and alter its Blend Mode to Multiply. Alter the color and size settings until a harmonious artful is achieved. With the shadow fully established, use it as a colour guide to paint in shadows on the inner surfaces of the legs.

Step 12

Next, add definition to the trunk spines by using the zoom tool, and with Lock Transparent Pixels selected add a nighttime base to each spine, helping visually dissever it from the skin.

Pace 13

Select the diverse pare layers and apply a soft castor to add in highlights and shaded areas of skin on the legs and head. Pocket-sized redesigns are made as the painting progresses: The head was too narrow and so is flared to give more visual interest, while the rear leg is repositioned to residuum both the animate being and the composition more effectively. With the legs in their new positions, add together in the basic shape of the tree roots sketched earlier with a night brown.

Footstep 14

Zoom in, and with attention to the reference images add item to the mouthparts. Keep the colors subtle for the well-nigh part, and harmonious with the rest of the aliens' coloration.

Stride fifteen

Merge the Shadow Layer with the principal body layer past selecting both in the layer palette and pressing Command/Ctrl + E. With this operation complete refine the shadow boundaries and forms of all body parts, paying particular attention to the manner the highlights help ascertain the muscles and ribs below the skin's surface.

Pace 16

Add more than spines to the limbs and caput, and zoom in close using the Magnifier tool to add modest unproblematic shadows beneath them. Forth with diverse general refinements correct the unacceptably shaped trunk using Edit > Transform > Warp and distorting it into its new position. With this consummate add fine hairs effectually the mouthparts to add detail and go along the beast in line with its existent life inspirations, especially biting flies.

Pace 17

Now confident that further leg revisions will not be required, the roots on which the animate being is standing tin be refined using your references. Use a combination of soft brushes to accomplish an effect like to the Eucalyptus image. At this stage the line-art layer is disabled as it is no longer required.

Pace eighteen

As more detail is added to the general body surface, spend time analyzing the references and develop the anxiety. Take care to visually link them to their contact points with the tree roots using dark shadows where they come across.

Step 19

Add together some final refinements to the face up, and add together a colored edge to the center slit to help requite the head a point of focus. Farther detail the trunk by adding modest spines across the pare surface.

Step xx

Correct the perspective errors on the torso and spines to bring them more than in line with the direction the head is facing, and reposition the well-nigh-side antennae with the aforementioned perspective in mind. This alteration reveals bug with the positioning of the larger back spines as well, and so they are brought in line with the new, more refined perspective. As the colored border to the eye slit attracted too much attention away from the rest of the design, repaint it with a more neutral hue.

Now on a new layer paint in the forelimbs, which will exist used by the organism in gripping food or subduing prey. Paint them the aforementioned ruby as the body to suspension upwardly the plain white chest.

Footstep 21

To give an aged, textured appearance to the image, several methods are employed to give the illusion of the illustration existence fabricated by a traditionally trained naturalist. Outset, accept a large crude edged or soft castor and paint a subtle varied texture onto the groundwork layer. Next, apply the provided Paper paradigm, pasting it in place on its own new layer at the height of the layer stack. Set its Layer Blend Mode to Multiply and alter its Brightness/Contrast settings until a subtle aging effect is achieved.

Step 22

To unify the colour palette, effects layers are used to heighten the dissimilarity, coloration and mood of the painting.

To create these effect layers, select the Solid Color pick from the divided circle icon at the bottom of the layer palette. This volition create a new layer of solid color, which should be moved to the top of the layer stack. Once in identify, repeat the higher up steps to create a second layer. Now, set their Blending Modes to Overlay and choose colors for each that tint the painting below in an aesthetically pleasing style.

Step 23

When ready to consign the image, flatten all the layers using Layer > Flatten Image and change the image size to the dimensions required for publishing. In this case 600X800 pixels is ideal.

Use the Filter > Acuminate > Smart Sharpen tool to fine melody the concluding appearance of the piece: Keep in listen that the settings used volition piece of work dissimilar at different resolutions.

The image, now consummate, can be exported into any file blazon required.

Final Image

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Alex Ries is an illustrator and concept creative person from Melbourne, Commonwealth of australia.