Swamp God - Creature Design & Illustration

Final illustration of the Swamp God! He illuminates the area with his glowing bubbleback and leads travellers to safety - or into their sure death. Depending on how he perceives you.

Exploring how illustrations are usually built up. (Warm up before the project started.)

Some studies and eventual ideas for the task. The "Swamp God" as a small, cryptic frog, seemed like fun for someone who never draws animals or environments. :'D

Throwing together some reference for the environment and animals I'd like to use.

Frog variations. Wanted to make him very regal and fancy, like he has authority.

Color concepts based on other frogs you can find in the wild. Since he is so extra, he needs to look the part, which is why the pink version won in the end.

First ideas for the composition. Trying to find a good balance between an intimidating, but also welcoming and relaxed feel!

First few stages he went through.

First pass after the black and white stage. The colors are still very dull at this point and it took me surprisingly long to go ham on the saturation.

Some different color stages I went through while working on the environment. It was hard to get the courage to make the colors more extreme.

After some changes and feedback from my professor and classmates, I ended up at this stage, leaving him much brighter and eyecatching!

Teacking the colors a bit more and adding highlights where they were necessary. I'm really happy with how colorful and exciting he looks, but also stays kind of royal!