Gryphon prompt: Lets share our inspiration and WIPs

[Fey Realme]

@Tash that is fun! I'm glad you're making this prompt an opportunity to riff off of something you love. I think you are off to a great start, especially in the sketch where the gryphon is holding its snake tail and waving.

I have some tips for you as you go forward

if you look at the design of the Gryphon you referenced from the Quest for Camelot the repeated triangle shape (in the ears, the green eyes, the general chest shape, and even in legs and wings and beak) make it look really menacing and even evil. another element that makes it work is the variation in size within the design. small head, big chest, bigger wings, small legs. like they guys said (a few times ago when they were critiquing the rock fortress of Jeremy ross) you want to follow the small, medium, really big rule to avoid sizes that are too similar.

I like the really big beak and the small wings you have on your design right now, you could reduce the body size a bit so it is sort of medium to finish out the rule.

also, if you want to make your gryphon sweet you should use a lot of circles and ovals (so a toucan is a great choice, they already have lots of ovals and a happy face). Jaguars are kinda scary, but in the movie zootopia, they made a cuddly jaguar (officer clawhauser) by making him round and soft, so you could do something similar.

see how many circles and ovals you can work into the gryphon, and make the snake as full straight lines and triangles as you can.

I would also recommend doing a few draw-overs of pictures of cats to get the anatomy bits in the right places. Ill add an image of what I mean here later. there is no shame in getting a little help from photo reference! In fact it is a best practice.

@MarcRobinson this is your submission for march? wow I hadnt thought of putting the gryphon into a story, I suppose next month both the boy and they gryphon will show up? that's exciting!
I'm just going to do a few poses on a white background

[skeletortoise]

@R-Fey-Realme They actually did request an illustration with story I believe. If you go to the page for the prompt, it says to put the griffin into a story.

[MarcRobinson]

@R-Fey-Realme yeah I'm settled on the design and composition, just need to do my convoluted process of pencils, scanning and painting ha! Yeah I prefer to do stories/scenes for my designs so I can use the illustration in my portfolio.

[MarcRobinson]

@skeletortoise I hadn't noticed that, but you're right!

[Joshua Chennault]

Figured I would toss this in here as well. Working on the character design and hopefully next week will have a scene ready to go.

[skeletortoise]

My favorite bird is probably the crow, so I looked up crow griffins and LOOK

[Tash]

@R-Fey-Realme Thank you so so much for your feedback and advice! I definitely feel out of my element when it comes to character design and your advice really helps to de-mystify the path forward!

[Haley Browning]

I am a bit late to the party, but I LOVE creature design and never did much story with my drawings. I questioned whether the bird half of the griffin would dominate the lion half or vice versa. These are ideas on mostly cat behaviors with a griffin. I am stumped with which thumbnail direction I want to go into more exploration. I personally love number 3 with a baby griffin pushing a glowing goblet off the desk, but my husband loves number 5 after the griffin pushed off the cup. Number 8 was an idea on what if the cup had a potion in it and a normally small creature drank it and grew.

I would love some feedback on your picks and what could be done to improve them. Thank you all!

[MarcRobinson]

@Haley-Browning love the idea of the gryphon acting like a kitten! I like number 3 because of the composition and sense of depth created by the foreground elements. Although it might be hard to see a lot of the design of the gryphon due to the pose hiding some of the body.

[stayhomejoe]

I have been drawing griffins in different ways, but I haven’t landed on one yet. I could spend all year on this one. I’m a big fan of fantasy.Untitled_Artwork.pdf Untitled_Artwork 2.pdf

[stayhomejoe]

More griffins Untitled_Artwork.pdf

[Fey Realme]

@Haley-Browning I love number 3 two! It really shows that you are feeling it because of how much more developed it is (look at that shading!) I love the gesture of the griffin, how it takes up the whole space, how we know its scale from the surrounding elements, and we know what is a bout to happen. I think you could push it a bit farther by making the object more mid topple (obviously tilting off the table and having the paw more connected/showing more movement. You might play with the object it is pushing over and come up with more interesting objects (story wise. for example, what if it was the growth potion it is about to push over? If it is obvious enough we might start wondering oh no will it break and will the griffin get so big it breaks the whole house?? your stuff is so beautiful! I love birds, but dont draw them so Im not good at them, but you really have them down! its gorgeous!

@stayhomejoe you have a lot of interesting style options there! Im interested to see what you come up with! keep up the good work!

[Haley Browning]

@Joshua-Chennault This should be a tv show!

[MarcRobinson]

Slowly working on the pencil drawing. It's my favourite part by far. Drawing has always come easier to me than painting. I'm experimenting with my style a bit and will try to retain more of my pencils in the painting process.

[skeletortoise]

@Haley-Browning I love the idea that the griffin is acting like a cat. I also think 3 may have the most potential as we are anticipating something about to happen. I think it would be useful though to zoom out a bit and show where the cup is going to fall. Giving the illustration more breathing often helps and we will understand the action better if we can see where the action will take us.

In addition, I wonder if it would be funny to include normal cats in the illustration as well? Sort of the duck, duck, goose thing Lee talked about during last HTFYA stream, where you set up a pattern and then break it. Showing a bunch of normal cats, maybe even looking unnerved or scared by the griffin could potentially be really funny.

[skeletortoise]

I am currently working on the story for my illustration and would appreciate some feedback as I'm getting a little stuck.

My basic idea is that someone steals an egg from a griffin nest.
Some questions I'm asking are:

• Why does someone need the egg? Collecting? Selling? Using for some magical/medicinal purpose?
• How are they transporting the egg?
• Does the mom griffin know they're stealing it? If so, how is she responding?
• Are the thieves good or bad?
• Where is the nest? In a huge tree? In a cave? On a mountain?

In my sketching, I'm leaning towards it being for collecting/selling purposes and the thieves will be carrying the egg in a net as it is so massive. Perhaps there's a ship they're heading for.

I'm getting stuck with the mom griffin's reaction though. Should we see her in the background being mad? Should she be asleep? Maybe they left a boulder in place of the egg while she slept? If they're stealing the egg for malicious reasons, should I not include a humorous element like that?

My mind is going in a thousand different directions, but I know with the deadline looming, I will have to make some decisions very soon, so any help is greatly appreciated!

[MarcRobinson]

@skeletortoise I get the same issue. I found bouncing back and forth between thumbnails and story decisions works for me. If I try and nail the story fully first I find it too difficult. I like to let the sketches guide me a bit. I like the idea of theives stealing the egg. But remember they want to see the griffin design in the illustration as the main element.

[Mike Babich]

This is my first attempt at a griffen. I liked the idea of Aprils promt so I sketched this out. Im super new to this so I hope its good enough tot post here.

[skeletortoise]

@MarcRobinson Yes sometimes I don't have ideas until I start drawing. And yeah, the griffin being prominent will be have to be taken into account. I guess for that reason, it's probably easiest/best to make the griffin the primary agent of the story. Maybe I'll do some sketching with the thieves in the background and really focus on the reaction of the mother.

Thanks so much!

[skeletortoise]

@Mike-Babich Love the idea of the griffin aiding an escape! Makes me wonder what the backstory is. My immediate thought was that maybe this is a prison tower of sorts, but seeing the object clutched in the rider's arm makes me think a robbery with a getaway griffin? Excited to see where it goes!