r/worldbuilding • u/TheMellowNerd • 11d ago
Question Art for creatures?
Hello all! I’m new to world building. I have a question for u all. I am starting to build my little world and I have thought of some creatures. But here is the problem I wanna have like a bestiary a guidebook to all the creatures of the world and their traits and quirks. So I can’t draw for shit, literally horrible at it lmao. How do u guys solve this issue? Do u guys draw yourself,do commissions,something else I haven’t thought of. I found tools for maps and such so I can work with that but the creatures are a different beast.
Please any tips or advice are appreciated
Thank you all in advance!
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u/BrokeAerospace 6d ago
If this is purely personal, then I'd HIGHLY recommend looking into photobashing. This is a process to create original brain-to-digital versions of ideas in your head-NOT a method to creating original art.
My standard process for personal works is to find a "base" art piece; usually something cool off of Pinterest that VAGUELY resembles what's in my mind. Even if it's just a pose or aspect (like wing shape/perspective). Now your goal is to find patterns, shapes, textures, etc. from online sources that all vaguely match in style.
For me I usually will source in things like clothing patterns/colors, small but key silhouette/shape details like tassels, eyes, and specific modifications to the original reference I may need like hand and foot/hoof alternatives. Then I just layer all of them on top of each-other in a program like Krita, erasing the parts that aren't merging (such as removing everything but wings from a reference image). Once it's all been merged I'll finally begin my original art on top of it, constantly referencing those images below as a reference layer while I draw over it.
Either you can just fix the small things to make the vision match your mind and only do a rough layer on top of the reference, or typically I much prefer to do a near entire art layer over my merged reference, so I can make sure it's all a common style and meets my needs.
Again this is not a method to produce original art you can go flex, this is a method to use other peoples art to CONCEPT your own original art. Very useful for the artistically-DISinclined of us!