Terryl Whitlatch: Creature Designer

From what I've seen, most creature design or animal drawing classes at other schools exist in isolation. At the Academy I've tried to create a specific curriculum with classes that all inter-relate and build upon one another. For example, the curriculum starts with basic courses in creature design, and then progresses to another level of creature design for family games or wildlife illustration, for example, which elaborate upon the basic principles. Students not only need to understand the basic overall anatomy, but are expected to put that anatomy in different poses and contexts and create a story line.

Can aspiring creature designers just go online and teach themselves or buy DVD tutorials and just learn creature design? What is the value of getting a bachelor's or a master's degree these days?

In the university setting, you have the advantage of being able to take courses in art history, history, geography, and other subjects for a well-rounded education. A creature designer who doesn't know history or culture is limited. For example, what if my creature is designed to live in a Minoan or medieval Arabic culture and I don't know what that means or what it looks like? Also, it's important to see what your peers are doing, and see how you measure in comparison.

Building the course is kind of like writing and illustrating a textbook.Then when you get into the class discussion, which is the online classroom, I was surprised how much I really did get to know my students. Each student has a particular way that they write and they post a photograph of themselves, so you get a sense of their personality. I got to know my students on a personal level, perhaps even better than on campus. Online, the students feel free to be more precise and share more information and are less self-conscious in the classroom setting. I think that online education works out well.

How are the online classes structured?

I admonish students to go to their local zoos and museums. If there is no zoo or museum in their area, the local pet shop has all kinds of fish, reptiles, insects, small mammals, and birds. They can always go to a pet store or animal shelter and draw. Then they have to build a library of reference material including good photographs of animals in all different poses and reference on skeletons and muscles. The assignments are designed to address all the overall points of anatomy and basic zoology. In addition, students have to read about the animals and learn to do scientific research. They have to understand what the scientific, or "binomial," name means. Each assignment culminates in a written report about the animal or creature.

Do you have advice for students who don't live in a big city but want to enter the industry?

I'm a small town girl myself. I don't think that in this day and age living in a small town is going to harm any one. One of the best things students can do is network through school and take advantage of the resources that the Academy already has, such as connections to major studios and other industries. They might pursue other sectors of illustration including general illustration, publishing, and advertising, beside film, games, and animation. Their own peers are a very valuable connection. When you first graduate and are starting out it might be a good idea to check out Los Angeles or Vancouver, or wherever things are being done, but it's not entirely necessary. Interning is also a very helpful way to start.

Does the online classroom environment parallel to how the industry works?

Yes, very much and increasingly so. Sometimes your only contact with an art director is through emails and similar formats. There are meetings like we're having here in the Adobe Connect Pro or other types of chat rooms where we can see things visually while meeting.

Creature design, animal design, illustration, anatomy are very competitive fields. Your portfolio, skills, and creativity are what get you jobs in the end. Many people can draw orcs, conventional dragons, conventional Minotaurs, and conventional demon creatures with skulls and smoke bursting out of their veins. You have to do your own style and be as creative as possible in a variety subject matter. If you do manga, develop a manga style that doesn't look like everybody else's manga. If you do Disney-style, find a way to really differentiate yourself. Especially in the Western entertainment industry where so much work is outsourced, I would say you have to develop your own original style in order to get jobs.

Your portfolio needs include whatever is your very best work, be it finished designs, sketches, or roughs. If you are applying for a role-playing video game like World of Warcraft, the art directors do want to be sure you can draw the conventional monsters so include a token one or two of those. After that, you need to stand out from the crowd. Show that your animal anatomy is spot-on. Show your creativity and imagination. And it's very important to constantly re-arrange your portfolio to suit the needs of the particular client you're visiting.

Your skills need to be the best but people who just sit at their desks, not getting out of their studios, probably are not going to get jobs either. You need to develop your mind by reading and learning about your own culture as well as world culture. Talking to real people and being able to relate to people is important, too.

The way to get ahead is to draw, draw, draw. Look at real animals as well as the best possible animal artists. Looking at nature to gets your imagination out of ruts. People get into ruts where they don't question what a dragon, orc, or unicorn should look like and they draw the same creatures that people have grown to expect.

Studying nature teaches you to draw real animals. It's very sad to see artists who grew up drawing Disney, Pixar, or manga characters instead of learning how to draw real animals and people. You don't need to learn to draw Simba; you need to learn to draw a real lion. For example, it's not enough to draw a crocodile character. You need to know the teeth arrangement of a real crocodile in order to design a character with enough detail that the production animators can build the character with its mouth open. In scientific institutions grants can ride on the accuracy of biological illustration or reconstruction.

As you design your creatures, each one serves a story and resides within the world of an environment and cultural setting. How does the creature survive in its setting? How do they fit into that world? There has to be a reason for every bit of the creature's anatomy. Consider why your creature has its particular organs or structures: are they just for eye-candy, or to they perform a particular function?

Another mistake students make is to equate creature design with creating monsters. A lot of real animals fall under the category of creature design. For example, Aslan the Lion and Reepicheep the Mouse from The Chronicles of Narnia, or the guinea pigs from G-Force. Creature design is about being innovative and understanding nature. It's about understanding what makes a lemur in a tree special, and why he's that way, and how you apply those same principles to a character that lives in a similar environment in a world in a galaxy far, far away.

I work traditionally. That way, your files are protected from getting destroyed or lost. I do the artwork traditionally and then scan it in to send it to the client. The art directors really like traditional work because it's real artwork and is not going to get lost. I find that using markers is a lot faster than working digitally. The technology of markers is really fantastic, especially the Copics.

Not everybody is blessed with a supportive family, but it's important to find your people both for support and career development. Find an art community, a mentor, or groups to join. A lot of networking is word-of-mouth. Once you have a friend or a contact within a particular studio or whatever, try to network through them. Social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook are ways to start and then one thing builds upon another. (More resources in the Industry Links section in the left column of this article.)

I'm still learning. If I ever stopped being a student, it would be pretty sad, because it means I'd stopped being curious. It would also make me complacent and give me a false sense of superiority. In reality, I have so much to learn, more than I could possibly learn in my lifetime.

Humility keeps you open and learning for the rest of your life. It opens the door to let you get better and improve. Be proud of working to the best of your ability, but never think that you've "made it." You'll never "make it." I haven't, and the best artists that I know have confided that they don't think they'll ever "make it." If you think you have, you're fooling yourself, because there are always ways that you can improve. Also, life circumstances like injuries or tragedies can impact your skills. Sometimes you have to learn things all over again. That's a good thing, because then you learn things better.

Finally, don't spend too much time playing video games, because people that design video games don't play them. They don't have time to!