DEV WORK AND STUFF | Union Gryphon (Patreon)

Similar to this post - I GOT ME A GRYPHON TO CREATE!

COMMISSION DETAILS

A Character Design: Male Gryphon based on flag.

An important note is that the character must fit within a world with 2 existing characters.

NOTES FROM COMMISSIONER

"One of my friends said to have the body colours be the union ones, given they're not on the other two griffons, and then have the green/yellow/black present all together on just one element, like a crest. I think that's what I'll do, I'm just really curious as to what you would do, you did seem to have an idea."

My response:

Because I want to keep the male gryphon looking like he is the same species just male I used the Gorgós undersketch as a starting point.

The original sketch is a good start but needs to fit a male body. So now we start to grab specific features and beef them up.

I am going to be using big cats, specifically lions as my guide to beef this boi up. Male lions are often bigger than females, mostly because of the mane fluff. Taking some more commonly human male/masculine attributes; broader shoulders, thicker necks and larger arms I am going to apply this to the new design.

Why? In design there are ways to portray a character with certain visual cues to help the viewer quickly identify them. I'm not going to argue that there is not black an white when it comes to feminine and masculine body types. There is just a particular visual language that helps artists get their ideas across.

Beefed his front end up and added a mane beard with feather/fur tufts that resemble ears.

BLOCKING IN SOME COLOURS

Because the commissioner was still pretty indecisive about what colouring I wanted to get a clearer direction earlier in the design incase I had to re-create his body proportions.

Commissioner had suggested switching the red and blue.

Locking in the red variant. 

The commissioner also requested a split tail. I redrew the tail with the adjustment and tail fluffs. Due to the body changes I cleaned up the coloured elements.

I love how this boi came out. he looks so fluffy.

Keeping with the thin 8pxl brush I drew in the line art. I did copy over the feet from the Gorgos Gryphon with some small edits. I very much liked how I drew them and I wanted to keep consistency between the Gryphons.

The usual process of setting up my colour, HERE.

The commissioner settled on the name; GRENADIER.

For the final lay out of the reference sheet I wanted to include some bold geometric shapes, similar to the flag that Grenadier is based on. Rather than using red or blue, I introduced the soft yellow from the eyes as the base.

Fitting all the areas together like a jigsaw, keeping balance and composition. I aligned all the square elements in a grid like way.

Added some flourishes to frame the reference to add some British style class.

I am very happy with this fluffy boi. The colours look great.