This is a cross between a lizard(I believe my inspiration...

This is a cross between a lizard(I believe my inspiration stemmed from the leopard gecko) and a large dog breed( I believe like a grey hound or something similler i’m sorry I can’t really remember…) It stands at about 4'6’’,Seekers themselves are completely blind and have slits in their face to help filter partials in the air so they can better tell their environment, Seekers also have a patch of bio-luminescence near that area,mimicking the pattern of a beetle on their planet, to lure prey into a false scene of security… Seeker males have large gold colored chest scales that they use to court females and small gliding wings to help with ambushing prey from above…

Anyway, I wanted to know if any of you had any ideas for drawing scales I’ve always had a problem with them and can never get them to look quite right Seekers are so-post to be completely scaled…

I’ve also thought the wings attached to the front legs have always looked off but no-matter what I try I can’t get them to look right…



What a very nice concept and species ya have made here! I am loving all the info so far about them!

For the scales, they can be quite tricky to do, especially for the first time but rest assured I will do my best to help you out!

One of the biggest things I’ve seen (and even done myself) is where folks incorrectly draw the scales in the wrong direction! Mostly I see this happen on the limbs though but always make sure the scales go down the body heading back to the tail as we see in the image below.

For the limbs, scales actually go down the legs towards the feet, not going up starting from feet to hip (which when I designed my own dragon long time ago, I made this big mistake WHOOPS lol)! This is taken from real-life reptiles and if you want to stick to more realistic approaching, the direction will matter but if you aren’t wanting to, go wild and do it the other way too!

Now you were wanting help with drawing scales and the first thing I recommend to do is go look at real work scales and even other animals for inspiration (Like in list below, one of those images below actually belongs to a mammal!).

By looking at all the different styles and ways scales form naturally, this will help you decide on what kind of scales you want to use on your design but also remember to explore other shapes on your own too like I show below with my past works. There is no rule book saying the scales have to come from references of real creatures after all!

Now one last thing with the scales is you have to decide how much scales you want to be shown or implied! This will greatly affect how much time, effort and work you will need to put in the future when redrawing the species again. However, this can also greatly depend on your own artistic style choice too. You may decide that while you love the look of the full-body but your own style may not look good with such design unless you change it up, so really the amount comes down to personal preference that you want!

Also, remember the amount of effort redrawing scales each time will also affect how much of details you will add! If you want something quick and easy, fewer scales are better over a full body covered in them! More scales mean the more concentration you will need to put into getting the exactly layout of the scales again.

Last is you wanted help with the wings and the first thing you need to ask yourself is “Will these be functional wings meant for a flight of sort or will these be meant for display rather than flying?”

If you want them for display over actual flight, I would recommend approaching them with the thought of they are actually fins of sorts or even movable sections of skin and muscle like elephant ears. You can then have them coming directly off the limb and not worry about how any bones or such would work anatomy wise.

If you want them for flight, I would say approach them like a batwing and look at their anatomy, and it has a bone coming out of the limb where the rest of the wings bones all lead back to. With this then the wings can be larger then you see visually because they will be folded up and out of the way of the creature’s own movements for the most part. I also made them slightly longer in the redline below to give more wingspan to help nudge in a realistic approach if you want that edge to it as well but if not, it can be as short as you want! Remember this is your own design in own world with different rules, anything is possible there!

Here are some more links to help with scales:
https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/188073886712/hey-so-ive-been-interested-in-drawing-reptiles

https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/188073886712/hey-so-ive-been-interested-in-drawing-reptiles#

-Best of luck and I can’t wait to see more in the future, Mod Ryr

from The Redline Station https://ift.tt/38tYCyv
via IFTTT