Changing Places: Substituting Fantasy Animals for Humans

In this series of paintings, I continue to explore fantasy with the idea that I develop a style that I can replicate.
To come up with ideas, I look at pictures at random of people doing things, then I identify an animal that seemed like a good substitute. At first, I used common animals (cats and dogs) but I’ve started using more unusual animals, like the kangaroo drilling a hole with a power drill.
The pictures below of fantasy animals were first posted on Facebook and are presented here in the order completed, with the most recent on top.
Concept Art
Concept art, when integrated into a serious project, takes a great deal of planning and skill. At the level you see in my article, creating imaginary creatures is fun and a good way to expand your imagination.
If, however, you wanted to elevate your illustrations into children’s books, games, or other types of professional reproduction, follow the advice provided here:
- Sketching for Concept Art with Donald Yatomi, a video tutorial published by Craftsy.
- The Art of the Picture Book by Shadra Strickland, a video tutorial published by Craftsy.
- Shadra Strickland’s YouTube Channel
- Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals: A Mixed-Media Workshop with Carla Sonheim, a book.
- Search phrase of “Developing Concept Art” on Google.
- Search phrase of “Concept Art Tutorials” on YouTube
- How to become a better concept artist by Donglu Yu on CreativeBlog. Note that CreativeBlog has many excellent articles on the subject.
Karen Little – info@littleviews.com
Note: All art and photos on this website are the property of Littleviews.com and Littleviews-Crafts.com and may not be reproduced in a fee-based publication without permission. Do you want to post these images in a commercial article? Request permission from Karen.