I’m working through Marc Taro Holmes’s book, “Designing Creatures & Characters. Right now I’m on project 5. It’s about mutations and monstrosities. The task for the project is to come up with 9 different creatures. From there you’re supposed to make 3 presentation quality drawings using the same mutation type or theme. I finished the first part. I have 9 sketches. I picked the type of mutation I want to use for presentation drawings, but I want work on it some more before I show anyone yet. So allow me to share the sketches for now.

I like the sprout scout, but I don’t think I want to go with a vegetation mutation. Mushroom-man feels too generic. Pinecone girl just feels silly. I like the look, but I’d rather do something different.

Monkey man hiker started out just as a random scribble that I turned into face. I feel like I’m loosening up with this sketch. The beetle man and cat are closer to what I was thinking about after looking at Holmes’s crustacean mutations. It’s such a good choice, but I didn’t want to just copy his designs. Maybe I should though. He talks a little about technique, but I would like more. Maybe he does in further chapters, I don’t know. Crowman feels generic to me, so I’m not going to use that one.

Porcupine girl’s pose is dumb. I like the concept, but I don’t think I will do it justice. Multi-limb man is interesting to me. I think I can do some interesting variations with different ages, jobs, and genders for this one. Tentacle woman feels like an afterthought. It could be cool, but it’s not impactful right now.

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