I love how you design anthros and creatures, and I love how your anthros look more dark and edgy instead of being cute or hot. Do you have any advice for how to design characters? Like if I were to design an alien or a robot.
Thank you! And, apologies for the rant this prompted
with MY ocs and not adopts I make, Im often lazy and just use what appears in my dreams and steal those designs for personal use.
but if Im making my own personal autism creature design (scifi at least, for fantasy I generally look at older versions of specific mythological creatures and use that for insp) while awake, it tends to lean towards functionality, varying depending on how humanoid or creaturey i want to make the thing. The more humanoid it is, the more lazy I am and often its down to 'based on its daily activities, what type of muscle/how much muscle would this character have' such as swimmer bodytype, strongman, scrawny, chubby, etc.
Or it can be entirely vibe based.
examples
this guy from a dream but he gets to be thinner and have short ish legs so he can skulk around closer to the ground bc hes a thief man
this fishlady is huge bc she works at a forge/as a metal worker but also she benches and flexes for the ladies in her free time. Also this one is from a fantasy setting so her being huge is a 'werebeast' adjacent side effect for plot and drama reasons. shes also flat chested for hydrodynamics and because im bad at drawing booba.
we ignore the fact this is minecraft but I will explain the reasoning of long but blunt claws for stealing your dirt blocks. Like moles. I also have a encyclopedic sized folder of random animal traits stored in my brain that I go through when picking out features, e.g. 'i want emu feet' 'i want a stoplight loosejaw mouth' 'im going to pretend they have something like a lingcod going for their flesh color or maybe they use something similar to chlorocruorin for their blood like some worms'
i dont have commentary to give on my creeper design but im adding it too
If Im going more nonhumanoid for the bodyplan, I think of things like habitat, evolutionary history/ecological niche, function, etc. to choose dumb shit like 'what shape do I want its claws/teeth? What color do I wanna give it? What markings do I give it? Do I make it skinny or muscular, do I give it short legs or long legs, do I give it a long body or a long neck or a short stubby one?'
this guy eats fish but he does not swim. He has a high body mass density and sinks like a rock, so the fishing style is closer to what bears do or wading birds. He gets hooked claws and backwards pointing teeth so its easier to grab slippery things. He also has a pharyngeal jaw for the same reason.
we ignore the old ref quality and outdated skull bc this is from like 2018 or something, but it shows the pharyngeal jaw
he in specific has some bullshit nonsense in the design that makes no sense bc i also originally made him in 2010, and I blame those senseless parts on him being a GMO creature
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this guy is meant to be arboreal so I gave him disgusting chameleon ish hands, gave him a very low center of gravity, and a prehensile tail, so that its harder for him to fall off trees and die. I was lazy and ripped his markings off a civet and said he has his own alien version of turacoverdin for his colors.
Usually I also tend to make my aliens and stuff have ??? person-ish features? things that make them feel less alien intentionally, idk what word to use here
But sometimes I just go heavy on the spec bio flavoring and make some shit like this where its still 100% sapient but it doesnt have features that make it as relatable to the viewer. This lady was also made in like 2018 or something so dont question the quality
i think this is my most known/distinct creature design, but I could not tell you anything about how it was designed. This one is 100% from my dreams so no thought went into its design, I simply slowly adjust its appearance based on what my dreams give me
FOR ROBOTS
this depends on the type of robot Im making. The only consistent thing in either case is I always try to think of where their joints hinge and how much mobility the layering/plating on top of it would give them.
Transformers? lot more plain 'cool' factor goes into the design. I pull from medieval armor and from nature (crabs, bugs, whatever exoskeletony thing).
i accidentally made her way too crabby but its fine I can say shes a predacon or something
outing myself as enjoying the concept of plane monsters but for some robots, e.g. the flying or aquatic ones, I do not add exposed joints and make them stay covered up by. ?? idk I dont know anything about robotics lol so I dont know what materials would make the most sense
unfortunately my pc crashed while drawing this one so i got mad and never tried to start it again and have no example art, but other times if Im in the mood for a more crusty robot/more generically 'roboty' one, I will do the opposite and leave a lot more parts exposed.
add in more stuff like this. Throw in a bunch of pinch points that would make people lose their fingers (or other parts if theyre freaks), which I like doing around where the tendon on the back of your calf would be and on the underside of your forearm where all the little tendons would be. Leave some wires/cables hanging around near the neck for the ability to swivel your head around 180/360 degrees without something snapping is fun too.
Depending on the function of it I also might add little glowy lights. If its some stealth/murder robot, I avoid the lights or at least give them the option to shut the lights off so they dont get spotted, but if theyre functional robots like factory workers or they do spaceship maintenance or something, I throw lights on
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