Visual Journal: Getting Ugly

So I started up the visual journal. I wasn't really sure what to do so I was just searching animals on Google since it was one of the criteria to explore. I started searching lizards first because in my spare time I'e been drawing lizard people and I'm really getting into doing reptiles. The colours can be whatever you want and I get to cover their skin with dimples and bumps. 

                               

I got some pictures of chameleons, snakes, close ups of ther creepy eyes, mantis's and beetles.

I've been dong a lot of hand colouring lately, I like the home made effect and the charm it gives it. On the eye below I did a lot of nice colour blending I was really proud of but then I tried to create the  weird speckling pattern on reptile eyes and I think it ruined it. I think the scribble texture was to rough and I needed to use something more concise and thick.

I drew the mantis from the reference in the quick sketch at the top. I really like it's creepy features, it's such a grotesque insect, but that means there's so much to play with. I started trying out different shapes for the face and eyes, just playing with how far I could take it while it still looking like a mantis. 

The one above was my first attempt at distorting the figure, since I'm focusing in on Character and narrative, I thought I should make it my own. I don't really like the finished thing though because the mouth piece is the wrong shape and he couldn't even eat with a thing like that. It has to be weird but it still has to be plausible. Plus the eyes I used were the same eyes I've been using on my lizard people in my personal work. The don't transfer well and they're completely the wrong shape for a mantis.

In the one below I didn't stray as far away from the original mantis shape this time. But I played with the colours a bit and I gave it spines on it's knees so that I could do more of the blue/purple colour fade because otherwise the whole thing was too green. 

I want to make this more my own character though, so I think I'll make it so it's not even a mantis any more but my own little monster. And of course it needs to step further into the sea of ugly.