Aug. 25th 08' UPDATED : 4 Critters + Sketch Concepts

[Mike Corriero]

I felt the need to lay down some wip, sketches and some finished stuff. I really want
to focus on just throwing down unfinished ideas and bringing them to a final, instead
of posting finished work all the time. It's been too long since I've started and kept a
sketchbook up to date, so here we go with a start. Some varied subjects, mostly the
usual creature stuff which I'm really pushing to get away from. So I'm working toward
some more humanoid stuff and slowly into characters, then environments.

If you can take the time to provide paint overs or mark ups, please post them in the form of a "LINK". I would really appreciate paint overs because it's much easier to see where I can improve or what's wrong with the image. Thanks

[Mike Corriero]

A bunch of Creatures done for the weekly activities.

Some quick thumbnail sized sketches



A black n white WIP before a color wash and details were added.



Some process steps from a pencil sketch to the digital B&W render.
I plan at some point to finish the actual color version...



Another WIP before the final was refined and tightened up with color.

[Mike Corriero]

A fictional dinosuar with a fictional skeleton diagram



Some rough sketchbook pages of random creatures

[Mike Corriero]

Some full scene paintings and speed paintings
done for COW

done for Advanced Photoshop Magazine ( I need to work on ID stuff )

A speed painting for 2DArtist..

[Camara]

Sooo cool and soooo good,man!!I love your creatures!!Please,post some step by step if you can!!!

[Mike Corriero]

Animal Kingdom studies - Digital sketches with references used
Some images were created with the use of 2 or 3 photos and others were
created with just one reference image.



















An example of manipulating animal anatomy to create a fictional naturalistic creature design.

[Mike Corriero]

Some humanoid sketches, some wip stuff, some digital and some pencil sketches.



Thumbnails from which you can see the Rock Jaw humanoid was created from.

Two humanoids done in ca.org sketcher...

A WIP of Rock Jaw.... working on him at the moment.

[smokenmirrors]

Love the textures and patterns that you bring with your work! Very nice!

[Madfishmonger]

I love the way you use colour, and your textures are fantastic. Great job!

[technolem]

The spaceship is cool. I never really liked prehistoric era stuff. Definitely would be nice to see some more sketches though.

[Eon]

Thanks for posting your sketches! It's always helpful to see the process behind the works, such as the perspective guidelines accompanying your characters. And creature skeletons is just killing it!

[stoph]

finally, we get to see more of your unfinished stuff! your crab and axelotyl sketches are really cute and fun, and the rock-jaw concepts are pretty nifty too. keep posting mate, it will inspire us all!

[hydeEthan]

Sooo cool and soooo good,man!!I love your creatures!!Please,post some step by step if you can!!!

yea I agree~!!
you should do some tutorial pieces...I'd really want to learn from you
juz love your texturing!!

[Mr.Delicious]

nice stuff! wow, instant 5 stars!

I cant wait to see your progress on some human designs... I imagine the costumes are gonna be pretty awesome

[Inkfish]

I really like the b&w animal studies, beautyful line quality.

[ArtZealot]

This whole sketchbook is really really inspirational, well done stuff. Thanks for putting it here. Cheers'

[Ashab]

lovely stuff here.. everything looks solid and grounded, you have inspired me to do some creature concepts.
If I was to say something is maybe need some more saturation in you colour work just so the creatures pop out from the back ground more.
take it easy i will be back..

[Call0ps]

theres not much to say beside complements ^^ agree with Mr.Delicious, cant wait for your human designs, cant imagine how wild will be the costumes keep sharing plz

[zenarion]

I am absolutely in love with the pencil sketches.

[DAVEZILLA]

I'm speechless.

So many beautiful pieces of work... you have quite the portfolio.

Just... I want to be as good as you!

[Tommoy]

I admire your work Mike, everything is so alive. Amazing how you also do these real animal studies, i guess thats one reason why your fantasie-creatures are so good.

[bumskee]

yo mike.. nice work. hope things are well dude..

[Matthew Forte]

Gotta love how inventive you are with creatures, great stuff! And by the way, most of your designs seem like they are done on a tablet, are they?

[Beelow]

Nice to see you start a sketchbook again Mike. Like I'd said before, I've enjoyed your work and I think your one of the best creature designers I've seen by far. That spaceship image is off the chain. Waithing for somemore works from you. Later.

[roidvoid]

very nice
what are your feelings about going straight digital vs scanning pencil lines?

im always conflicted about this in my own work

[Iridyse]

It's so great so see all your latest work posted in one place! I've been a huge huge fan for so long now, you were one of the few who really inspired me to get into creature concept drawing. I love your designs and everytime I start feeling a wee bit proud of myself when it comes to my work, I just have to check my Mike Corriero folder to remind myself how much more I need to practice.
I love the humanoid thumbnails too. I think the bigger humanoid sketches are a wee bit weak compared to your other stuff, I'd love to see them on the same level of confidence as your fantastic creatures. Some sliiight anatomy issues here and there (haha I feel like such an idiot saying this).
One thing I'd really like to see your push yourself more in is lighting. Your designs are some of the best I have ever seen but sometimes the lighting makes the whole form fall a bit flat. I'd do a paintover but I don't think I'd ever manage to get myself to post it hehe. So just some more lighting experiments (some dramatic rim, bounce light off the ground, environment contribution etc) and some more material prperties (subsurface, iridescence all that) and you'd be untouchable!

All the very best!

[Mike Corriero]

Well.. first off thanks a lot guys for all the positive feedback. I really appreciate the kind words and encouraging compliments.

Camara@- Thanks, I'll try to post as much "rough" work and work in progress stuff as I can. I did post a few step by step pieces, I guess I tend to post stuff that's already too far into the first step? Not sure if you mean you want to see more on the idea of going from rough shapes to a finished pencil sketch?

SmokenMirrors@- Thanks

Madfishmonger@- Thank you

Technolem@- Glad you liked the spaceship, I was very unsure of it. It was pushed more toward graphic shapes than an actual working design. I'll try to post as much work in progress pencil sketches and digital sketches as I can.

Eon@- Thanks, yea laying some grid lines down just helps to ground whatever you're working on... some times I'll extend it below the ground level but a cross line system just helps to keep things in perspective and symmetrical. I should do more fictional skeletons of creatures and humanoids, it helps to try to figure out how that stuff works or looks and helps show you where you're messing up.

Stoph@- Thanks, I gotta finish up that Rock Jaw humanoid.. gonna work on the fire giant and the other crypt giant. Glad you dig the animal studies.

hydeEthan@- If you go to www.youtube.com you can look up my name "Mike Corriero" and you'll find my profile with recorded time lapse videos. I've also got tutorial pieces in magazine workshops in 2dartist, advanced photoshop and imaginefx. I'll see what I can do for free stuff here in the sketchbook. I haven't had time to do a new time lapse video lately though.

Mr.Delicious@- Thanks, man so long as I don't stray from my goal.. I hope to break out some interesting characters eventually.

Infish@- Thanks

ArtZealot@- Thanks you

Ashab@- Thanks man, I appreciate the crit too. I often think "some times" I'm over-saturating hmmm.. so I'll have to work on that. I feel like a lot of my stuff is some times too colorful, I dunno.

Call0ps@- Thanks!

Zenarion@- Thank you

DAVEZILLA@- thanks man

Tommoy@- Thanks man, the studies were done as a part of a series workshop for 2dartist. It was the beginning stages to an introductory creature process. Using animal anatomy as a basis for creature concepts. I love drawing animals in general, more so than humans..so I'm gonna have to start focusing on my characters and human body structures.

Bumskee@- Thanks Min, you've been kicking ass man. I gotta stop by your sketchbook soon. See you around IRC some time

Matthew Forte@- Thanks, a lot of these are done digitally with a tablet but I do keep a pencil and pen sketchbook. I just haven't been doing a lot of traditional sketching lately.

Beelow@- Thanks man, again.. was unsure of that spaceship so I'm glad someone else mentioned that they like it. My main goal is to really push the human anatomy and characters, humanoid or other. Though after that I'll try getting into more environments and probably a bit of industrial design stuff if I have the time.

Roidvoid@- If you start out digitally things can progress quicker and smoother. Though I feel a good pencil sketch can often give off a more precise definition of what's really in your mind. What I mean by that is, for me at least, I feel drawing with a pencil and the rough look of it really shows through your technique more than a tablet drawing. Digital sketching especially line work can feel too clean, it feels like you need to push too hard to get that rough dirty sketchy feeling. That's something I really enjoy about scanned pencil sketches.

Iridyse@- You hit the nail on the head with a lot of your points. I agree and I'm working toward a lot of those areas when I have the time. Thanks for taking the time to pin point what's missing. A paint over of something would be cool but I know it's time consuming. Though for the people who aren't afraid to do so, and feel they can show me visually what to do.. I would definitely welcome a link to the paint over. Thanks again for the crit.

Some rough concepts of a similar creature/humanoid..mainly having fun with some quick rough skin textures.


Some fun little melee arm weapons and a couple other more advanced but low tech weaponry.

[The Curehead]

really awesome stuff,my favorite is the newt study.really interesting creatures too.

[Bojee]

Really nice to see all these, thanks for posting them.

[Maestro Andres]

Always being a big fan of your creatures, may sound redundant but it is. Thanks for sharing your new work in this SB. Very inspiring.