Genuine question, do you have any tips for blending traits for someone with a more cartoonish-style? Like I want to make more biologically realistic creatures, but I also enjoy my cartoony style too much to really desire trying realism routinely.
Good question! My creature design stuff tends to be on the realistic side but I am capable of untold style variation. The thing about style is that it gets better when you know what you're doing. That's because splice/vs blend is about fundamentals
Creature Design Masterpost || Splice Vs Blend || Splice/Blend griffin tutorial || When to splice and NOT blend
Anatomy, movement, weight, balance, and biology are super important to learn on a realism level, because you can then translate that into styles and people will look at your art and say "I don't know why but it compels me..." So hopefully you think that when you see my example today.
Without further ado, let's meet our stylized victims!
We're doing a griffin yet again because griffins are where you see the most splicing, in all levels of realism. I picked a Siamese cat and flamingo because this mix is going to be a Long Boy.
This is a pretty classic griffin format but look at him! He looks like the result of a mad scientist with a "combinonator" ray. That's good for stories where things are made with magic, but less great for "griffins are their own species" or a the child of a flamingo and a Siamese character who got hitched.
A true mixed breed will blend traits all over the body. A super easy way to design the hide is to take one animal's markings and use the other one's color. Blend, bend, and stretch physical features to get something that is both between the critters and more than the sum of their parts.
Doesn't that look more natural? It's still very stylized (Those legs are two dimensional, come on) but still more believable in a fantasy jungle or palace steps than the splice mess.
Additionally; here's a breakdown of my descision making for the anatomy:
There's a lot of thought that goes into every line, even though the cartoony goofiness makes it look easy. Practice your fundamentals enough and these decisions will come second nature to you and bring structure to every creation you make.
I just wanted to tell you that you legit opened my eyes to a whole new level of creature design. I was annoyed that many of my cross-breeding attempts looked like Splicing, but I didn't know how to *define* what was wrong. Now it'll be a little easier to spot and improve on, I cannot express how much your tips and art have renewed my love of creature design. And for that I am sincerely SO grateful. <3
you're welcome! I'm glad I could put into words what bothered me so much growing up HOWEVER
Splicing doesn't make things wrong, but it makes them unnatural. Sometimes unnatural is the way to go!
To refresh splice vs blend: A manticore using Asiatic lion, Indian scorpion, and "ancient Persian bust" statue reference. I like to reference animals and people of the time and place where myth originates
Splicing (top) looks like a creature formed by a bored god; meant to be uncanny and threatening in its familiarity. But the blended version (bottom) looks more like a predator that evolved in the jungles of India that can and will swallow you whole.
Both blending and splicing are valid, but I like blending best in most circumstances. Let's try another one.
I think we can all agree this creature looks super cool. But what is it? There's probably some lion (big surprise, people love making lion beasts) and a goat (kri-kri), and from the mouth/tail/scales probably a snake (Anatolian meadow viper) It's neat but it doesn't match the ancient descriptions enough to identify the myth.
Little easier to tell now huh? I kept the markings spliced as well for even more distinction, but colors and markings matter less to a chimera than easily identifiable anatomy. The chimera is the Original splice, so even though a blend looks more "realistic" it doesn't work. Plus, by chasing "anatomically feasible" I've eliminated the "serpent for a tail" because it doesn't make sense evolutionary. But by doing that, I lost a HUGE part of what makes a chimera and chimera.
Compare the blend map with the different arrangements of splice maps. You can get really creative with your seams and stitches, so treat splicing as a technique and not a sin. True mastery of a technique is knowing when and when not to use it.
Blending almost always makes things look more natural, but sometimes...
Hello! do you have any tips on how you do your character/creature designs? I love all your designs so much their all so cool especially your jackalope/rabbit oc! Love them^^ I would love to hear how you come up with the designs! (I’m planning to make a game and big spooky animal creatures are a big aspect n I wanna do it as best as I can so uh yeah like I said you got any tips?👀✨)
Creature design masterpost
I have been making a BUNCH of tutorials and tips about this and many other topics so check them out!
Yeah! My biggest tip is understanding Splice vs Blend techniques, <- I go into a LOT of detail on getting a cohesive creature here.
It's pretty clear visually here, but splicing is cutting and pasting animal parts together with no or minimum blending at the edges. Classic and real life genetic chimeras are splices of two organisms, and their boundary is very clear. It looks really unnatural. Hybrid animals and mixed breeds shuffle traits all over, so learn from nature to make things natural.
and then consider what traits you add and ask "how did this manage to evolve?" why do they have glowing eyes? Is it for communication? intimidation? warning of poison content?
What adaptions did they develop to best take advantage of their niche/biome? What was the process like? What did the intermediate stages look like and how did they function?
Make something cohesive, give thought to "how is it going to hold up its own weight?" how does it fight? Even rabbits have tools for fighting, and they're built for running and fleeing above all else.
How does it communicate? How would its body adapt to that?
These are all important aspects of Worldbuilding
Don't forget that animals will have instincts and behaviors, while sentient creatures will have Culture. A HUGE thing I see is people giving sentient creatures normal paws but somehow using and building tools? You gotta adapt that sort of stuff dude. They dont needs hands if you can come up with an alternate method of fine motor skills (prehensile trunk, tail, tentacles, weird teeth, an extra set of limbs just for manipulating things, etc) if your creature physically cannot hold and build a knife, they have no business wielding it.
If you cant draw them crafting something, don't draw them using it unless they got it from someone else.
But don't get too carried away with fancy digits you forget the primary purpose of limbs: locomotion and weight bearing.
Here is an unfortunate dragon where I picked my favorite traits and put them together. I also added vestigial arms for some reason and now I have to explain why they're like that. The same goes for any other Just Cause trait you wanna slap on. His name is Dinkus
he's got some problems and you can kinda feel it just looking at him, but it will help you way more to name them. Every part of your creature should influence every other part. A horse has a strong neck and strong haunches because its a domino effect. Let's make this guy hefty
Though a biped would be Possible, it would just look like a t-rex, so I brought the wings down and reverted them to load-bearing legs. But because they used to be wings with long fingers, I'm having her walk on her knuckles because shortening the bat fingers takes a Long time and if evolution finds a shortcut, it will exploit it. But that's a flightless creature so is it really a dragon?
There's dinkus turned in the other direction. I wanted them to fly and so all their adaptions are for that. I also wanted that funky head and made up a reason for it to be that way. You might automatically have this small dragon hunting lizards and rats and such, but if you consider their physiology for a moment, their diet, you just expanded your world and filled out the vulture niche without even trying.
BE CAREFUL THOUGH!
While you cant worldbuild too much, you can infodump too much. So once you have everything built, you need to ask yourself what is appropriate for your project. If it's a dramatic story, you do not need to pause the battle to describe how the buzzard-dragons that are waiting to feast evolved. Just show them off, in writing or visually, and let the audience infer how they evolved and what their behavior is like form their anatomy.
Some people (me) want to engage in the worldbuilding details and get into the nitty gritty of biology/textiles/trade/politics/culture/etc but most audiences are here to be entertained. If you have dragons instead of vultures, a few people will go THAT'S SO COOL but most of them won't even notice... consciously.
Worldbuilding makes a world more believable and immersive. By having dragons eat the dead of war, you remind the reader that this is Not earth, but rather a place that is so whole and complete you know who is going to clean up the roadkilled jackalope stinking up the cobblestone.
Buuuuuuuuuuuuutt....
If you want to create a national geographic journal (which is what I'm doing) and your audience wants it too? (or if you dont care what your audience wants you do this for YOU) Go for it! roll around in details. daydream and doodle new ones. Go crazy go stupid go have fun
OH YEAH! And the biggest tip of all is study nature!
Try to guess what developed and why. How stuff is used, and then you can turn around and put both form and function into your own creatures.
Almost forgot: I clean, document, photograph, and assemble animal skeletons/skulls as a hobby. soooooo that helps me study Real Good.
Play games, make up challenges, and then make it harder
Studying what exists is the best way to create what doesn't. Study work you like, study my work and see what choices I made and ask yourself "why did he use THAT trait?"
Speaking of my work
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