#tiefling in the Details

[the-nothing-maker]

Riding on your feathers I can see us through the starry night Our shadows high above the floor Like two demons trying to find a brighter soul (Mélisande and Lazuli, my D&D PC and my DM @luposlipaphobya's NPC ! I wanted to make something less dramatic with these two, for a change)

[azperja]

Shes a strong lady ❤️‍🔥

Karlach comm wip

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Making Humanoids Less Human

I did make a small post on this, but now I've got the art for a much bigger and more detailed post! so here we go.

I had several anonymous asks that all came in quick succession weeks ago. Every single one of them was basically just a variation on "how would you take (typically humanoid) fantasy being, and make them look less human?"

This blog does not exist for me to just give people original designs for free, my goal is to show off my own personal thoughts about fantasy design and help people figure out how to adjust their own designs to fit their vision better. That means when people ask me questions about how to do something, I want to give them things to think about so they can come to their own conclusion. I don't mind making original designs to illustrate concepts, but a whole flood of "show me how to make this specific thing look different" all at once like that was too much. I'm not answering them all individually, it's just not what I want to do.

But what I can do is show my own thoughts and ideas about how to take any fantasy design and push it further away from "human", and you all can look at my ideas and figure out your own way to do things!

So here are the main 4 methods I've come up with to make humanoids look less human.

(image description: a simplified drawing of a humanoid face surrounded by four altered versions of the same face. clockwise starting from the top left, they are:

Speculative, drawn as a cat person. Additive, drawn with horns, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and a second pair of eyes. Subtractive, drawn with blank eyes, no nose, and no eyebrows. Exaggerative, drawn with a long face and huge eyes, as well as a wide mouth, narrow nose, and big ears.

end description)

I am personally a fan of the speculative route, which means exploring an alternate root of evolution to create a new design. Through this method, I've created monkey elves, frog goblins, and pig orcs.

the additive option is the most common, I think. adding new feature or doubled features to a humanoid form is a very intuitive way to change the design and make it look less human. you see this in most fantasy and scifi designs, like star trek aliens and the dnd player races.

subtractive and evaggerative are the most common options for people that like the uncanny valley. it's really easy to make uncomfortable designs by removing or exaggerating recognizable features, and they're often used together. Slenderman, for example, removes all facial features and skin color but also exaggerates the limbs and body.

Combining the four methods will give you a really interesting design as well! So for practice I decided to explore an alternate design for Tieflings, the part-demon player race in dnd.

(image description: four examples of differnt tiefling designs using the previously described methods. the additive example is just offical dnd art of a tiefling woman with purple skin, horns, and a long tail.

the subtractive sketch looks very alien, with a bald head, empty eyes, and no other facial featuers aside from a small mouth. it has three fingers per hand and two toe per foot.

the exaggerative sketch shows a hunched humanoid figure with huge eyes and big ears. the neck, limbs, and digits are all long with claws at the ends of the fingers and toes, and the limbs are also quite muscular.

the speculative sketch shows a bipedal figure with features similar to a giraffe, including a long neck, ossicones, and hooves.

end description)

now, because tielflings have such a distinct look to them, obviously my new sketches don't really look like tieflings, do they? the only one that comes close is the giraffe. relying only on one type of alteration to the human form has left the designs rather empty and lacking in the more iconic traits of the original concept. so i tried a sketch that combined my ideas! it came out looking like a completely different creature lol, like it could be a kobold or something, still not really a tiefling.

(image description: a sketch of a creature with a giraffe-like head, long tongue, and sharp teeth. it appears to be roaring at something and stands in a half-crouch. it has long limbs with hoof feet and clawed hands, as well as a long tufted tail curled behind it. end description.)

didn't work out. too far into the animal side of the speculative evolution, I think. so I tried again and got a design I liked much better!

(image description: a digital painting of a tiefling leaping back and casting a glowing orange spell. she is wearing a tunic with a corset and detached sleeves, as well as several pieces of jewelry. Her skin is purple with dark patches like a giraffe's spots, and she has a giraffe's ossicones as well as hoof-like hands and two-toed hoof feet. Her tail is long with a tuft at the end. She has glowing eyes and a flat nose, and there is a single sharp tooth visible poking out of the side of her mouth. end description.)

Brought the face back into slightly more human proportions and that helped a lot. Sometimes designs just take a few tries! that's normal.

and hopefully this is helpful to all of you! there are so many ways to alter humanoid designs to come up with something original and unique to you!

[cydanite]

EDIT: Now that the game I'm running has started in earnest, this post is officially off-limits to anyone in that game! You know who you are!!!

EDIT: Updated a few of the tokens that were bugging me c:

Been in a bit of an art slump recently. I found out about the Decked Out D&D module, Terrors Beneath Deepfrost Citadel, written by @capriciouswriter207 and have swiftly fallen in love. So as a challenge to myself I made some token markers! I left some that can potentially spoil the narrative of the module under the cut.

If you see this and are/want to run this game, please do because this module looks so so fun! I'm starting to ask around to run it myself! You're welcome to use these token markers if you do! :D

[domirine]

en garde! ⚔️

[alifelongpassed]

Just some more Zevlor.

[merrigel]

Been obsessed with Dungeon Meshi lately so... I had to 👀 (Arc's appearance is still a spoiler tho so they get the Silhouette Treatment™️)

[stormcallart]

keep telling myself to stop making tieflings...

[feyspeaker]

windows to the soul✨

[onitekkart]

i really do like rendering faces. super fun

[ribbittrobbit]

local illustrator takes breaks from drawing by drawing (w/ my beloved symmetry tool so i only have to do half the work)

[brighter-star]

Tinkered with my dnd char's design a bit so hes far easier to draw now and also bc I wasn't too happy with the art on his previous reference sheet and thought it needed an update

[ghoulgeists]

oh? whats this? two kings?

purple guy is mine, blue friend is @detect-thoughts tief! >:]

[morrigan-sims]

A totally normal and worthy thing to spend two hours on: giving your OC custom tattoos and body details that literally no one will ever see.

(also a look at my favorite art/tattoo motifs: roses, snakes, eyes, and moon/sun stuff)

[b0sk00p]

"I'm choosing to be your thrall." another day in the toxic dysfunctional fucked up relationship Tav has with the emperor

[chewytongue]

They’re on an art gallery date 💕