This isn't strictly fantasy anatomy, but an acquaintance of mine has been asking me for help with their character designs and it's become very clear that they haven't got a clue how to use references.
They are trying to locate one or two perfect references. Pictures of real life people that match the character image they have. Unfortunately, this is ultimately not that helpful. They could search and search and maybe never find what they want. They will restrict themself by only being able to draw characters based on real life people.
So for my next post series, I think I will cover the basics on how to use references to design a character effectively. I will talk about how to find references, provide some useful websites, and show you how to analyze your references.
By doing that, you can then take your skills forward and you will need specific references less frequently. I use very few references for humanoid characters these days because I have studied so many references in the past that I no longer need to look for them every time I draw a new character design.
It's an important skill to develop. So that's what I'm going to work on next, just some basic tips on how to analyze references effectively.
If you want, you can drop a basic visual character description in the replies on this post, and I will pick a few to use as examples.
Hm, what about a Elf-like race that evolves from Chalicotheres?
