#codexartchallenge

[thecreaturecodex]

Announcing the Creature Codex Art Challenge!

Inspired by a conversation with @doomboy911 . I figure that, with almost 1900 monsters in the Creature Codex, there's enough fodder for a full 30 Day Art Challenge.

The categories are chosen so that they represent a wide variety of monsters, and are relatively easy to find via the Index and the tagging system. I will be following the #codexartchallenge tag, and will be reblogging stuff that people post.

[doomboy911]

Theme Animal (Tree Octopus)

Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

See now this would've been perfect for yesterday. The tree octopus is a hoax whipped up in the 90s. For this piece I was thinking of rendering of a octopus actually up in a tree but instead decided to go for a travel poster design. I really like it and will be trying to make more in the future.

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme

Fearsome Critter (Jackalope)

Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So I had an instant thought with this little mythical guy. El-ahrairah from Watership down. So my thinking was to make the antlers hard to see and broken up to kind of look like stars so please give it a click to see it against the black. Also here's a variant for fun

Palette picked

[doomboy911]

Theme D&D Monster (Beholder)

Prompt List Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

First off god bless CC for giving me the beholder in pathfinder both as a dm and as an artist because this beauty is a treat to make. I drew this nightmare creature while watching the Bluey special. I knew I wanted red and grays and the bath palette worked great. Teeth are good and the eye is stupendous. Happy artist happy piece.

Here's a version without text.

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Magical Beast (Mock-Turtle)

Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So there I am scrounging through the magical beasts looking for a fun little guy I could do some real work with when Creature Codex puts out the Mock Turtle from Alice in Wonderland and boom immediate idea Koopa Mock turtle. So I checked out their older designs and whipped up my own little version. I also used a nice pastel palette to try and simulate an old Yoshi's island vibe. I might experiment with this palette and try to make more Alice in wonderland characters.

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Bonemound

Prompt List

@thecreaturecodex Art challenge (Last time I'll ping them.

Commentary

So I'm happy to be starting on this challenge that I brought upon myself. I spoke with the creaturecodex about producing an art challenge as the month of April has terrible art challenges to work with, they presented a lovely challenge rendering their monsters but now given a lot of freedom of choice I decided what would be fun is to give the choice over to another so I partnered with an old friend D6Damage they picked out some beasties and I'm going through rendering them. For this piece I decided that rendering the bones individually would be an exercise in madness so instead I focuses on the skull and implied a jumble of other parts here and there and for that 1 bit was perfect. I even got some dithering in there I'm very happy with. The best part though is definitely the ram skull, maybe I'll cut that away for later.

Palette picked

[doomboy911]

Theme

Your Favorite Monster (Phooka) Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So I try to set goals and things to accomplish each and every month in terms of my art uploading to new sites, attempting difficult areas like drawing people or drawing bigger and apparently this month the goal was networking. Creature Codex has been a huge help in more than one person seeing my art so I decided rather than making what would be my favorite monster and instead make theirs, the Phooka/Phouka(?). A nice hairy fellow which is always a fun challenge.

I was initially struggling to think of how to portray this guy when I saw that they apparently enjoy those in an altered mindset so boom Beer bottle label. I'm happy with this piece and thankful to Creature Codex for giving me some great art to whip up this month.

And here's the winged variant

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Familar ( porcelyne )

Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So today I set the goal to go through the motions properly. A lot of my pixel art is by the seat of my pants more akin to painting and then adding onto what I paint. Today I made layers, I even labeled the buggers, I drew an outline and adjusted it before adding colors and I think that help quite a bit now the trouble is that I have to keep consistently doing it. I think I could've taken this piece further but I was kind of drawn to the palette which was a grey nebulous blob that while perfect for the skin tone made adding shadows to the dress difficult. This piece is kind of a yokai (another of my favorites) and based on the little china girl from Oz because she had a great look. I'm happy with my construction especially in the hair but I definitely chickened out elsewhere.

Palette picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Humanoid (Spellscale)

Prompt list

Creature Codex art challenge

Commentary

Simple work here playing with only five dark colors. Back to working on faces. While I lacked the room for proper runes I think the white worked well for them and the eyes. I wanted to work with just a simple bust rather than building out a full body. Love the skin tone and I think I'm getting better at expressing it.

Couldn't put a lot of time in due to work coming up but its still pretty good.

Palette picked

[doomboy911]

Theme

NPC ( Venger )

Prompt list

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So yeah I love Venger I had a whole campaign lined up where they were the main villain with four lieutenants (They were the Elite four from pokemon (it was weird but I am weird)) So outside of dealing with car troubles there's not much to say. Bit of trouble with finding a good size while still working small. Maybe I'll come back and try it in different sizes.

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme

Construct ( Sarmak Fighting Machine)

Prompt List

Creature codex Art Challenge

Commentary

Eternally a fan of the design of tripods from war of the worlds this was an easy pick. I wanted to match that feeling of something massive looming down on you with a horizon of death and devastation. All in all I'm rather happy with how this turned out. I had a different suggestion from d6 but it would've just been a spiked ball and I wanted something grander. The outlines could use some work.

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Video Game (Chocobo) Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

I was working hard on Tyrant but time was short and it just wasn't coming together in a way I liked. So I did another pass through the lovely Codex until I found something else I could work out. So I put some colors together and made this lovely boy.

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Anime (Mori-no-shihaisha)

Prompt list

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

Oh life is easy when all I gotta do is draw a cute hamster and make them big through exporting then exporting that image to make it even bigger. I think I captured their menace. If folks tell you that using a reference is cheating showing them this so they know cheaters always prosper.

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Arduin(Tri-Color Dragon)

Prompt List Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So yeah pixel art is my passion. I had a three headed dragon and a vision. While I may have lost some detail like the red wings I think I captured what's most important. I put all my heart into making those big ol eyes perfect.

Palette picked

[doomboy911]

Theme

Outsider, Elemental (Ember Fox)

Prompt List

Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

That face looks like the cat from Courage the cowardly dog. I had a vision for this I wanted city ruins as an excuse to try and draw cities (as preparation for Kaijune). I like the fiery tail and the vivid background .

And here's a gag version

Palette Picked

[doomboy911]

Theme Dragon (Watchwyrm)

Prompt List Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

Made the arms last because it was rather lacking without.

Just looks wrong without the little hands. I often struggle with drawing animal heads so managing to pull this off was a treat. I had an original design with the beastie more coiled up but I wanted to show off those spikes. This turned out good and I'm happy.

Palette Picked