Fantasy Anatomy

While reading Fantasy Art Drawing Skills by Socar Myles, one particular chapter talks about drawing fantasy anatomy. In other words, body parts that don't exist. I thought to myself, why not give that a try? I'm not a professional drawer, but here was my attempt.

One tip for creating a creature would be to distort proportions. Socar Myles suggests that even if your creature is roughly humanoid, you can stretch, compress, distort, or exaggerate features to create something fantastic (88). Here, I've begun with a basic human shape except I've stretched the body out, elongating the legs and torso.

Then, I've decided that since my creature is thin and tall, I should stick with that idea of it being thin. I chose to add bat wings, since they are considered delicate and frail. One tip Socar Myles suggests for drawing bat wings is to remember that "the bones in a bird's wing bend similarly to the bones in a human arm" (90). I used very light strokes to avoid too much contrast in the wings, since these are supposed to be delicate.



How Socar Myles drew the bat wing.

Then, applying what Socar Myles said about distortion, I decided to distort the face by giving my creature long pointed ears. Hopefully, this creates the impression that the creature belongs in a fantasy realm. Then, just to complete the picture I added some spots to add some texture to the skin.

The end product turned out much better than I was expecting. I didn't think that just a few tweaks to a human body could create a drawing as interesting as I did. I've never really drawn a creature on my own, so I'm quite pleased. Although, this was based off of a human. For all of my fellow drawers out there, what animal could be tweaked or distorted to create something eye-catching?

Citation
Myles, Socar. Fantasy Art Drawing Skills. N.p.: Barron's Educational Series,
     2012. Print.