Concept art methods

Initially I tried to re-do my street view using concept techniques I learnt from FZD tutorial. I chose a different colour scheme which I felt suited the environment more and avoided using neon and sharp colours like in my first attempt a few weeks ago. I also considered perspective more and starting blocking out core elements and added some elements of detail. Here it is in comparison to my first attempt of the street view:

Following the world-building planning I started to concept artwork of the appearance of halite-armoured creatures as seen below. I started compiling various aesthetics of salt crystals that could be used for reference: 

I started with combining references of a whale with the pinkish halite (from Searles Lake) and digitally painted the scene below to create perspective, mood and colour. I combined the colour swatch of the following two images to create a colour scheme:

The picture below is my first attempt at digitally painting the salt-armoured whale. I realised that I made the texture quite smooth and it wasn't really the effect I was going for as aesthetically I want the salt armour to be like a crust with jagged edges and look a lot more dangerous than the silky smooth appearance in the first picture below:

In the second picture below I then tried to replicate the crystalline effect of salt by drawing on top of the initial layer. This was taking some time to do and when I showed Josh, he suggested to use photo as collages to produce faster, rougher concepts which still portray the effect I want to show. I left this unfinished as I wasn't sure if I wanted to carry it on or use the new method to re-create the texture:

I attempted photo bashing in the third picture below which I think is a good starting point to bounce off from when creating concept art and can be used as reference when developing more detailed artwork. I used the texture of Searles Lake halite itself which has a pinkish hue and added minimal shading:

Additional photo collage done using jellyfish (unfinished):

Using this I will continue to create concept art for different creatures with the other halite types I found to influence the aesthetics of the creatures. Josh talked about maintaining an aesthetic language which will help identify the creatures as related to one another. See below for different chimera types found in the video game Astral Chain I have recently been playing on my new Nintendo Switch. It is quickly becoming one of my favourite game for combat mechanics as I usually am quite terrible mastering fighting styles in video games, however in Astral Chain I feel very much in control and rarely die when fighting (in stark contrast to other games *ahem* Batman Arkham series *ahem*). I like that you fight as a human and the legion you control via chain as it opens up for much more dynamic play (wrapping enemies up in chains, using the chain to fling enemies away etc.) instead of simply hacking away/shooting at an enemy. The chimera (enemy) types all have a similar aesthetic in texture and shape yet remain anatomically dynamic at different scales, which I believe is what Josh was referring to. Below are 3 I picked of the various chimeras: