Happy weekend everyone. I took a day to plan some creatures (and didn't finish yesterday's Zvery in time), so here we have yesterdays but which is actually today's Krictyl:

It's a crystal fiddler crab. I am happy definitely happy with how it turned out. I mean, I took two days, but in general I think it took me the usual amount to finish this. This time, however, I was able to solely focus on the art, instead of spending an hour designing the creature and only then starting. One thing I would like to change eventually are the eyes; I think they could stand out more. But on this size it looks fine, so I am not too worried.

Do not let the gif fool you, I worked in greyscale 90% of the time. I mean I always started doing that, but then I would fill in the outline already with color. I want to make this workflow my process now. I find it hard to describe why this makes it easier for me. It's useful because I generally know what kind of contrast the Zvery should have with the background (here the creature is the dark part, whereas Pteroming has a dark background). So this helps  make the silhouette readable.  What I would do up until now was filling it in with color very early and continue without paying attention to how the shape reads. Also, it's easy to think that because something is a different color it will contrast well. working in greyscale helps me add details without losing track of the whole and giving something more attention than is necessary because of some arbitrary color choice I made.  Probably, it's the following: I am able to focus on one single thing, which is the value of the pixels I am placing. If the contrast is enough, it means it's good enough. The color can come later.

Anyway, I hope you like this one. See you on monday,
Zivan