Create a Mythical Creature

1. Introduction: This is one of the most popular topics I teach today. We're going to create our very own mythical creatures. We're going to take different animals, combine them together to create some fun and unique characters, And then we'll set them into a scene. All you need with you is pencil and paper, or sketchbook, and a black fine liner to outline. All right, let's get started. 2. Owl-Wolf: Here's a little inspiration to get us going creating our mythical creatures. A couple of characters I did before. He's a red squirrel. Red squirrel, I think he's a fairy. He looks a little surprised. And we've got a dear bunny. With some reason he's got a little rainbow tummy. Okay, so that's what we're going to do. We're going to be combining characters and seeing if we can come up with some good mythical creatures. But to start with, I always like somewhere to be placing my characters. I want a little bit of a scene, I don't want them just floating around. So let's get in a little bit of a landscape, so we've got somewhere to start our characters off. I'm picturing maybe a couple of hills that could be mountains or something. Maybe one that's a little bit bigger and one that's a little bit lower down down here. Okay, so just a couple of curves, again, sketching lightly because these might move around depending on where our characters are or what they need. I'm thinking we need a fair amount of sky, that's why I've kept my hills fairly low down. This one's about two thirds of the way up, and this one's about at least a third of the way down. Probably then I think I'm going to put in a little bit of water because we may want something out in the sea here. And again, like a fair amount of sky space because I'm picturing a, at least two, maybe three characters kind of up here. All right, so when I'm at this stage, there are a quick sketch out of what my scenery is going to be. And then I even sort of like place into a few little shapes so I can picture how my characters are, where they're going to be placed on my page, so that they're going to create a full scene that feels fairly balanced. So, you know, maybe there'll be somebody here in the sky, here, here, here, something in the water, or it could be an island. Who knows, I may want, you know, maybe a little bit more for the landscape. So maybe there are a couple of, a couple of trees. You might have a character here or maybe it's somebody coming down the hill or flying overhead at the trees, you know. And maybe, you know, one, maybe a character looking out here into the ocean, maybe one other character here. All right, so I'm looking at sort of, you know, six characters or so. Okay, and I think that will be good for this composition. So let's start with, let's start with something a little fairly simple. Over here on the land, maybe he's looking out to the sea and checking out what lovely creatures out there. Let's do something that is, I'm going to do an owl slash our wolf. Okay, this is going to be owl wolf. So I'm just taking two characters and combining them. And I'm thinking that the primary characters, like his face, is going to be owl. Okay, so that's where I'm going to begin. So I'm going to sketch in a shape for my character's face. He's going to be pretty round and I think I'm going to make him so that he's on all fours like a wolf. Okay, so sketching a few little lines, imagining where my feet will be, okay, my legs of my wolf. And then here this circle is going to turn into my owl's face. Okay, The other thing, other main feature is going to be the tail of the wolf. So let's picture it out there. A shape for that? I'm my kneatail. Neat this up a little bit. So that's step one. Step one is shapes for the main parts of my character. So there's my owl face. Let's start there. The wolf tail, okay, keeping sple and then on all fours. Okay, so little sticks for the legs. Now into the character's face first is going to be getting in some eyes. Okay, so I'm going to do big round style eyes for my owl. All right? And if I want to look cutter, I'll lower them down in the shape. And if I want to look a little more serious, I can put them higher up. I'll make them lookueIkelks. Lower these eyes down in his head. Okay? And he's looking out to this C here. Okay? So we'll circle first pupils and we'll put his beak in. Okay? A little diamond shape. Okay. Could be trying a little diamond shape like that. I'm not going to give him any eyebrows, but I am going to give him a little shape above that will be represent the feathers of the owl. Okay. And I'm going to give him a little point. We could be looking this way. I'm going to. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's see what that looks like. Give him a little, little pointy, little pointy owl ears. Little feathers. Okay. He's looking out here. He's having wolf feet. No wings, but I will represent his chest coming around. I'll continue this line here and maybe kind of circle that around so it looks like he's got a little shape of his chest. I could put a few little feather shapes if I wanted to. I'll see how that looks. I'll leave it off for the moment. Smaller details, I want to leave off until, closer to the end. Okay, so there's that then the next biggest feature is going to be his tail. Okay, I'm just going to make it a little bit, a little bit jaggy. He could have, I could give a little separation here. So it looks like here's two different colors. Might do that. Let's see how that looks. I don't want to run too close into his head. You know, I'm conscious of where my lines start and end. Right. So there we go. And lastly, little, maybe he could be pointing point, he's a little, maybe he's doing that. I'll do him on all force. I'll do him all force. Okay? But he could be pointing out to whatever little monster he's seeing out here. A little mythical preacher and the legs are not super important. So I'm keeping them simple. Okay? They could be quite simply little, you could be that simple. You know, I was going to do him with a little paws, but maybe he will. You could do with paws and claws or you can do them with super simple with little little stubby legs. All right? They're just little little cylinders. Okay, So it could be like that. Or you could give them a little little pause. I'll give them a little pause. We'll see how it looks. Okay, so play around with it. See what feels right for your character. Okay, there we go. And that's it. I think I'm ready to outline this guy, grab my pen and I don't think he needs any other details other than I might do a second outline in these eyes. Let's see how it looks. Okay. Pupils first. Around the shape of his eye. He's big and Paul is tried. Give him a bit more details of, let's see how that looks. Then I'm simply going to go around my character's face. Okay, so the main outlines. And we've got the little peak of his feathers. And then say, Shell, you do this simple. I'll give him a little little paws. He's a wolf. There he goes. This leg isn't behind. So I chop that off. Yeah, this one we will. We'll see. Okay, and then, sim, please, tail, just lining his tail then. But before I do my last actual lines, I just, I can have a look and decide does the character need it? I think in this case I'll do it. Okay. There we go. Anything else? No. I mean, he could get a little feather shape here, but I'll erase off my lines first and then I'll just lock that. Okay. Just give a little 2 seconds too for the ink to dry. It's a little bit quick racing but alright, first character done nice. And he could have, I could block in this eye if I want a bit more contrast, guess I'll do that. I just use the, a thicker black mocker versus my fine liner. Perfect. 3. Leopard-Ness: Correct. First character in let's look out to let's look out to the water. Okay. I'm picturing somethings lock, nest like. How about, what about a lock, Nestles, lock, nest, leopard. We're going to do a lock here is this will be the lock. Nest leopard. All right. So I give myself and this is where the water line will be, he'll come down. Okay. So all we're going to see is have a few curves of his Uh 12 and maybe his tail popping out. Okay, His tail, tail popped out like that. And a shape for his head. All right. I'm going to do him fairly oval I think. How's that? A fairly oval head. Fairly prominent. All right, so head fairly big and then little curves for his, his serpent like body and then he just, he just gets cut off by a wave. Okay. Fairly, fairly level one. It's not too windy there. Alright, so there he is. Okay, so his basic shapes in. Let's go to this character's face eyes first. I'm going to make them, I'm going to make them slightly oval and a little bit angled. He's going to be looking up, he's looking up here. The characters are all sort of leading us around the page and in where they look, that's what I'm imagining anyways, and his eyes are fairly central, be a little bit high. And his nose, let's do it. A little oval, maybe. He's got a little smile. He's seeing something nice in the sky. I guess this character, I might give eyebrows to you, let's see. And his ears, not too too big. I just think of them as shapes. They're just little half circles. And they go, maybe it doesn't need any. He might give him a little tuft of hair, I don't know. We'll just slide that after he might need that. Okay. Of course. He's just going to get spots. I think I will give him a little inside to and the spots I'll just, you know, I can quickly sketch them on. You know, I think their tail is probably striped there. I'll quickly sketch them on just so I get an idea of where there might be, I'll really just draw those in as I inc, Okay, so let's have a go at this guy. He might need a little bit of, a little bit of fur texture around. I might give him that nice character. I feel like he needs one more. Little features, a little bit of fur texture. Maybe he does need a little. Yeah, a little 'cause you know, he should be a little bit fury there to go. Let's try outlining this guy again. Eyes first coming in with getting his eyes in and no eyebrows, they almost look like spots themselves. And then around my character's face, like I wonder if his ears needed a little bit of fur texture. But I'm going to leave them simple. I could maybe do it inside his ears. Let's see how he looks. When I get a tiny bit of texture around his face, I think might well, let's, let's do it in his ears, let's see what it looks like. Maybe a little, you know, like that. Just a little. Yeah, that's cute. Then down my character's body, serpent body, I just make sure that I'm stopping at the place where the wave is going to be here. Picture my pen going along here. And the other way to do it, of course, is to draw on the way. First I like to practice, practice with my eye, see if I can get it so that it, I'll wind up throw in a few spots. When I'm doing a pattern like this, I try to do it so that, you know, some of the spots kind of go off the character. And some of the PR, you see the full, a little bit of variety there. And then he hears a little stripe for his tail and then the wave, okay, Then I draw the wave and I just basically, you know, connect that up. And unfortunately, because it's a wave, you know, I don't have to have gotten him perfectly aligned here. And if there's any little bit o fix those up. I almost want to color in his spots here. I'm not coloring here, but let's just do, I'm going to do this. Character's eyes block. Let's see how this looks. Yeah, I think that makes that way he kind of pops out more. And I almost want spots colored quickly. I'll do, I'm not supposed to be coloring but Well quick little wants over on his spots. You can do this or leave this up to you. Then I'll just do, I like him the leopard. What do you call Leopard Ness Lebardness. Okay. 4. Dragon-Bee-Croc: I think let's go along with where they're leading us. Okay, they're looking up to the sky. Let's get in something in the sky. I feel like we need a, whoops, we need a dragon type of character. We've got a wolf one, a lock nest one. Let's get something. Something dragon like, you know, he's flying through the sky like we can combine more than one character. He could be like he's got his mouth opens, along's mouth open. He's going to be a crocodile. He's to be nice guy though. He's got to smile, make smile. He's a crock, it's to be very streamlined. Okay. He's fast. He's like a speeding bee. He's a dragon crocodile. Okay. And there he's going to be. So this character, you know, strongest feature of him is going to be his shape, right? It looks like a little dart and we'll give him open mouth. He's carrying some honey. All right. He's carrying, he's carrying a bucket of honey. So let's get into shape for that. He's got to be at a little bit of an angle, right? Because he's flying along, maybe the honeypot sort of flying back a little bit, you know, like that. And then his eyes, he's going to be like, we better give him a cup. Maybe he needs a couple. Instead of having antennas, he could have antennas like a bet organ of horns, like a, he's going to be a dragon like so have a couple of horns there and I guess he's got wings like they're all there. There a little round. He's having a good time. He's just simple little closed eyes. Okay for him. I'll give him some teeth. Maybe he breathes, he breathes. Don't. If he breathe fire, he breathes honey. You know, here he is, He, he's taking honey. A few drips of honey coming out. He could have little crocodile or dragon type of legs or could, could do six of those. Might be a bit much. I may do really simple little legs like a bee. Okay. Little, little, tiny little legs. Up to you decide, you know what's going to lokot for your character. His tail is just a point. Like it, like a stinger back there. Okay, there he is. I was quite a simple character. I find sometimes the characters that are the most simple in shape can be some of the most effective. This character, I'm going to start with his eyes. They're just, they're just little curves, you know, so I'm not too worried about getting the expression in there. I'm really focused on the shape of this character. Okay, so I like his little smile. Shall I do teeth all along? Let's see how he looks Now, the bucket, I'm going to make sure I draw in, you know what's on top first. So that is the handle of the bucket, right? And then his jaw then it comes in underneath. Right. A couple of teeth there. Alright. You can draw teeth. Ali, put a few more teeth then, just just for fun. Why not? Yeah, that's good. That's good. Nostrils are all put in a couple of little nostrils. Sure. And then down along his body. Okay. Or maybe his horns should be striped like, you know, like a, he's a bee as well. Strike his horns, it won't be too many stripes. He's a simple wing shape. Okay? And then some stripes down his body. Go do his legs here. I'm not going to All way down that. That's a stinger down there. You know, when I looked at the sketch, I thought the legs are too spread out. I'm going to bring them a little bit closer together. So I did that breath. I don't know, there's a breathing fire. I mean, honey, fire, honey fire. Brilliant. He's good. He's good. He looks like he wants being colored. Anyways, we'll leave him at that. 5. Medusa-Sloth: So this age I've got a few characters in my picture. I want to think about, you know what, the generation, the sky. I want to think about where I want to draw next in my picture. I've, you know, I've got something in the sea sky land. We definitely want something else up here, but that might be a smaller character. I want another main character and something happening down here. So that's where I'm going to go in my composition. Okay, so something here running down the hill, I think, but they might be smaller. I want to get in anything else that's large in my picture. Okay, so I'm thinking that I want some trees here with some character in the tree. You know, maybe sloth, something, something that climbs the tree. What about this is going to be a sloth. I can hear he's on, but he's in Medusa. Causes Medusas. Loth. So again, same process in the shapes. All right, so in this case, the landscape is quite important for this character. He's clung onto the trees, right? So in go those shapes first, then the shape of my character's head. I decide where he's going to be. He's looking over at something. Something of a character that's doing something here. You know, I don't know what Medusa, so I've got to make sure that I've got enough space around to kind of, you know, he won't go in behind the tree. Let's make, I'm going to make the tree time bit bigger. Okay? Make the tree time bit bigger. I just drawing that, the lines of where I imagine my snakes to be. Maybe we can do a snake character as well. Maybe there's a snake, something. We need a serpent, another serpent. Maybe. There we go, the shapes and then whatever is taking up the bulk of the space around. Okay, so here are snakeliybe. This one's looking over here at something. They're simple little snakes. All right. Now let's focus on the character's face, all right? Keeping it maybe my picture, inscribing a little bit evil. Okay, so he's looking over this way. So I want to rotate my eyes a little bit around my character's head. All right? He's looking over here, he's here. We're going to lop off the top of his eyes. He's cross. Smaller, smaller, cute little nose there and he's a sloth that will give him half circles around his eyes. Look at that s little, teeny, little, teeny sly smile. I think. I'm going to give him, you give him another little mouth like that. It's up to you. I want to look a little, looking a little bit like a baddie. I take the mouth off to the side. Okay, we a bit of asymmetry in this character then. The snakes. Why do I feel like I was about to make them cute? I don't think they should be cute. They're going to just have really simple little meany eyebrows and dots for eyes. Okay? You know, a picture, you can draw them differently. Where I want, maybe one's looking at all. These two are going to have a fight, okay? To these two are facing off. I don't know why. All right. These two are having a little face off. They've had a fight. This one's going to look back at whatever's happening up here. This one's take a peek up here. We've got the last little snake here. Might need one more. He's looking over at, he's, give me a evil look to this character over here. This guy is looking out to the sea. I've covered him. And that guy looking out to the sea. Perfect. The rest of the character's body. I'm just going to keep extremely simple. Okay. Oh, maybe you want to give them at a little clause. I don't know, Not so cheap. So let's do the hype people See, looking over here, I'm giving an evil little look. All right, let's get him. I'm not doing eyebrows on him. I want to keep him, I want to keep him quite simple. I think he has enough expression with the look in his eye, so I don't feel I need to add any more eyebrow eyes. Little cute nose, even though he's not, he's a little bit of a meanie. Any other feature that I would normally be doing? Eyebrows, but any other feature that's around the character's head, right, in this case, the ovals around eye, around his body. He might need a little claw. He might need a little claws. Let's give him, let's give him a little claws. That sounds better. A little claws. And then here's a little snakes. I'm not giving the Mel. Maybe you want a little little tongues? I don't know, I used to having a little face all. They're cute, these are cute. And our last little one here. Okay. Yeah, they might need tongues. They can have a really, really simple little, you know, just a little line for their tongues. How's that? That's good. Ooh yards, a little smile. There we go. Okay, so yeah, that's good. I'm going to, I can draw the treason 'cause now I know you know where this character is going to be, right? So there we go. Most of lands I would like to leave till the very end, until I know where my characters are in my picture. But this guy, you know, he's on top of these. We know where that is. So let's leave that at that. 6. Goat-Snake: Let's think about our next character. This little is gonna be a serpent, serpent, something, something that would be on, you know, a mountain or a goat. We're going to do a goat. This is goat. Here he is. It's gonna be goat. Snake. Yeah. Okay. So simple little, simple little serpent like body. But let's turn this head. Okay, so there's our main feature, so I'm exaggerating the size of that. Let's turn this into our goat. These two are going to, they're having a little face off themselves. Okay. So I'm going to do a similar style eye. Okay. So small. I might need this nose to come out smaller. And you know, they're both little, both a little, little cranky here. Okay. And I always say he needs a little, extend his nose of sage. Needs a little little beard, I think like that. And does a goat snake have a tongue? I don't know. Maybe you just thought on that. Just thought if you wanted to have a tongue or not. He's going to have little horns, cute, cute little ears. He looks semi cute and semi scared. He's going to have a little, he could have a little like he could be gritting his, you know? He could have a little. That's it. I think he has a little He's gritting his teeth. Okay. He's gonna grit his teeth. I might push that back a little bit further in his face the more sort of, you know. Yeah, there we go. Okay. I play on where the mouth is. Okay. So that he here's the expression. I want more angry. I want him to be, the more I'll exaggerate the features. Okay, let's erase this off. Oh, I need a color in this guy's eyes. I need a little black. Just in, Just in people's. That'll be enough. Let's do our lovely goat guy here, focusing on his face. Eyes first in Go. I've connected these eyes up in the little er, around his face, a little beard and Down's buddy. Perfect. I like him. I wonder if he needs a little stripe or something. Let's give him a little, He's gonna have a striped tail or like a rattlesnake. Okay. He's a goat rattler. Let my pencils dry enough here. Blacken in his eyes. Oh, I'm gonna stripe his horns. He needs a tiny bit more texture on him, I think. Or a little more patterning, I should say. That's good. That's good. So I can almost draw in this hill. I'll do it at the end though. 7. Hami-Corn: Let's get in our last couple of characters. Something here, Okay, Something here we need maybe like a unicorn something. You know. This is unicorn. I don't know. Unicorn something running down the hill. Okay, Unicorn something and other, one other character in the sky. Okay, I don't know what this will be. Some bar type of, I don't know. So let's start here. Let's get our unicorn. He's going to be a unicorn something. A unicorn hamster. All right, We're going to do unicorn hamster. I want to leave. I'm thinking he needs something moving him forward. Because I'm thinking he's going to be small. Okay. Fairly small. But I want to show the tail and I want to show a little stars or hearts or something coming off the back of him. Okay. So that's why I've moved him forward. I want to think about whatever else, you know, whatever's around my character, whatever other sort of features he needs. Sort of like like the Medusa Sloth. Right? I wanted to leave space for that. So let's do this character. He's going to be made out of a very simple little oval. It's going be fairly small. He's going to have a tail like a unicorn. Okay, there is tail like a unicorn. So that shape I'm imagining that the character's head and body are going to be one and the same. This is just going to be, his face is going to be here, you know, eyes are going to be something like, you know, something like there. Okay. So maybe he's got a cute little chubby cheek or something? A little chubby cheek, little teeny ears, hamsters. Pretty teeny ears. The he may or may not need a man. Decide if your character needs a man. I might do a little, Let's go a little tuft of, you know, rainbow little forelock. He's got, you know, he's a hamster with a fore lock and he's running down. He's running down. He's looking, I don't know what he's he's a nice guy. I don't know. He's going to be happy. He likes the goat or something, and he's going to have a little, teeny legs. Okay. Simple teeny little legs. A little half circles, you know, a little half circly legs like that. And then out of the back of him comes we can have some stars. Little hearts. I'm little, he's a nice guy. He's a little hearts coming out the back him, okay? And a little magic dust. Okay. That's like, I need that guy face first. Go his eyes. I'm going to make him smile. I'm going to round up. I'm going to chop off the bottom of his eye and round it up. Okay? So that's, you know, I'm adding to this sort of appearance of him being kind of a smiley little guy. Okay. I'm going to skip the I'm no eyebrows on this guy and then round out his cheek is image okay. Around him we just see little little half circles for legs and his fore lock there he is right on the back of him tail. I'll give it give it a few little lines as if it's, you know, rainbow cuts. I mean, his forelock might need that. I don't know it. Give it a few little lines. Yeah, that's good. That's good if he was a bit bigger. You little hearts or something on his bone, but I'll leave it like that. He's got little hearts coming off of him and you know, I want to show his trail. He goes off my page, right? Unicorn dust. There we go, Bright. So now I can almost draw that hill in probably. I'll draw that hill in. Here we go. So no other characters up here. A little bit of grass, you know. Yeah, here. A random little bit of grass. 8. Koala-Fairy: Over here, we've got one more space for a character here. I know you, something fine. Maybe something bathing bat or it could be a fair fairy. Like what about we'll do a Koala. This will be the al, here he is. He's a Koala fairy. This is the Koala fairy. Okay? Koala fairy, they have a nice, big, cute face. Okay? So big, cute face, pretty big ears. And then he's going to have these fairly like small, you can make them butterfly style wings. You know, he maybe wants, you know, like maybe I'll do those. Okay. I was going about to do more small insect wings, but I'll make it here. It's going to have butterfly style wings. Okay. Maybe this is a girl here. She is Super nice cut here. What her eyelashes to the nose. Fairly high. Fairly high up along with the eyes. Okay. Exaggerated oval nose and that tin, small body. Okay, small here. She just has little, tiny, little, tiny arms and little, tiny legs. Okay. There, there she is. You could do a bottom. You could make a real butterfly like. Okay. You could do a bottom. A little wing there. Well, maybe I'll do that. Okay, that's good. That's good. I'm eating this up a smitch. There are my nice large semicircles for my ears and I got to act. Does she need eyebrows? Let's see. Maybe maybe I'll give her a little eyebrows. She's looking over here. She's coming for some honey. Okay. She's coming for coming for some honey. I think that her ears should be fury, kind of, you know, she's a alder fury. I, I'll give her a little smile there. Or it could do it here. Let's see. Okay, I got a couple of options. Second, I kind of do it here, you know, symmetric, but I don't think so. I think I'm going to push it further back in her face back here. Yeah. She she could be carrying a honey pop. She's cook for honey. I, I won't though because the body is very small. Okay. So I'm going to leave it simple. Leave it simple there. Nice big wings. I'm going to do her nose first because it's even larger than the eyes, and that's going to locate my eyes. Okay. So that's why I'm popping that in first. I put on the eye lashes too, because I want to make sure that nothing else, like my ears aren't going to interfere with those lashes. Right. If I'm adding them after, then all of a sudden I'll realize, oh, it goes into the line of the ear or something, right? So I don't want to do that. That goes in ears could give her a little tough to here. I'm going to leave it. And I don't know if she needs the insight to their I'll put it in, let's see, decide if she needs it or not. I think I probably could have gone without. There's enough going on in the face. But that's all part of, you know, designing characters you see as you go along. And just, it's just for funny. You can always redo characters. Characters I decide I really like, you know, I'll draw them multiple times. Play around with them. She's good. Darken her. Oh, I'm gonna do darken the inside of the eye. I see how that goes. Yeah, that's good. This is a picture where you almost want to start coloring these characters. Perfect. All that needs done is the rest of whatever landscape you haven't inked in, ink that in a right down here maybe, you know, a couple of if you want to, you know, if you're feeling like there are spaces that are a little bare, you could do their character or, you know, that could be the top of a tree here. You know, going off off the page just to, you know, complete the composition. Just complete the composition. Haven't erased this guy. Little blackening of his pupils and then erasing my last character and any final little touches you want in your picture, right? So I need my horizon here. Maybe a hill or something in the background. You may have a who, a little, a little hill in the background. You had whatever, maybe a little cloud back here from my viewers getting some perspective. And that's it, that's the end of our mythical creature creation. I hope you had fun. I hope you enjoyed that You try out some more creatures, you combine some animals. Could do a G, didn't do a griffin. Could you could do something, We didn't do anything, Bali. So have a go at some more mythical creatures. And I hope I will see you in the next video. Thanks for cartooning. If you enjoyed this video, please leave me a review. And don't forget to share your drawings. I love seeing everyone's work. See you next time.