Hey guys, good to see you - I’m Scott Flanders. If you're familiar with my work,
you know that I’m passionate about character design, creature design and exploring ideas.
I’m excited to announce that I’ve got a new course coming up. It's going to be launching as part of
Proko 2.0; the Character Design Monster Lab. You can find out more at Proko.com/MonsterLab.
In the course, you get to see my process as I generate a bunch of ideas
and develop them into a more finished piece of digital art.
After filling up sheets of sketches, I pick my favorites to flesh out and explore. Then I scan
my work and transform it into a lineup of unique characters using my shape carving technique.
Along the way, you'll see how I iterate on a concept and select specific elements to
hone in on, hammer out details, thematic focal points. It's also packed with advice
to help you integrate these ideas into your own workflow. And,
if you follow along with the course, there will be opportunities to submit your work for critique.
I’ll be going through the Proko 2.0 community posts and selecting work from premium students
and there's a chance that your work could make it into a feedback video critique.
In this free video, you get to see a condensed version of how the Monster
Lab course kicks off. The ideation phase: From my perspective this is an extremely
important part of the concept process that all too often gets rushed through,
but I think it's important and useful to see how to lay the groundwork for a successful idea.
If you'd like to follow along check out, the complete course
at ProKo.com/MonsterLab. Have fun and go make some monsters.
Typically when I’m starting off, I like to like set a clear - like a goal for myself, a clear aim
or a target. And for me that begins with like my initial prompt, usually a word or a phrase.
In this case it's Harvest Man.
This is this character trope that or character archetype that Alec and I
generated, specifically for Monstober. Alec is my sculpting partner for the Monstober events. He's
helping me film this right now, actually. He's a really talented artist, you should check him out.
Okay, back to the Harvest Man. They're basically little pumpkin-headed monster mutants.
They're really fun because it's just a series of organic shapes, so we can really like play and
freestyle with human anatomy and break rules and push forms and just really do whatever we want.
So, write at the top on "Monstober".
It's like setting your intentions. It's like some hippie [Beep] but it works. It helps
me clarify what I’m up to. Monster Lab, Harvest man. Now I know what I’m up to.
I think it's important to spend some time identifying
previously established precedence. We're going to write that down up here.
If I have an understanding of what has come before, then I’m better equipped to be able to
figure out ways that I can push the needle, raise the bar, contribute to the conversation.
So, I think initially it started off with well, scarecrows.
This idea of these like Harvest Man for the term like you know, the idea of a Harvest comes from.
Pumpkins, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Little Shop of Horrors, Swamp Thing.
Probably mostly the local color of green, just being like a green leafy person.
It might be cool to have a big muscly tanky Harvest Man. Like imagine if you took Swamp Thing
and then plugged the pumpkin head on top, that could be pretty cool.
Oh, the Headless Horseman is one for sure. The idea of like the disembodied head
and the sort of like flaming eyes in the jack o'lantern. There's something about the idea of
a construct that I might have seen it in like World of Warcraft or something like that. Wagon
wheels and like scythes and farm tools - like that to me is very interesting. I could see those being
like interesting accessories. Like the idea of taking Fiddlesticks from League of Legends.
I recommend when you do this yourself, you want to make sure you're in a really
comfortable situation, you feel you know, very relaxing. You want to work in your
comfort zone because you need to be able to tap into like a sense of nostalgia and
memory. In order to do that, you have to make yourself get to be able to be vulnerable.
Avoid judging your ideas too harshly in the early stages.
In order to generate new ideas, I need to actually allow myself
to play and to let things begin to flow. So now is about the time where I’m going to attempt to
play with some ideas and take them a little further. We sort of touched on a moment ago
when Alec asked me about Swamp Thing, what it was about Swamp Thing that I found interesting.
With Swamp Thing, I like the idea of a - like a muscular character or body type.
But that's not enough, that's that's not the only thing I’m looking for,
that's just what I’m taking from Swamp Thing. But then I like the idea of the construct, like the
Harvest Golem or like Harvest Hulk I was thinking. Not like Incredible Hulk, like a hulking thing.
So I take that and then I’m incorporating like farm tools.
There are many types of farm tools and I’m listing them out. So, scythe, sickle, saws,
baling hooks - maybe shovel - I don't know if I’ll use shovel but this is what I mean by
not saying "no" to the idea, because this may take me somewhere. A shovel,
yeah, shovel brings you a pic - a pickaxe, an axe, that's what happened.
So I thought - I still went - picaxe is maybe kind of a no
brainer. I should have thought of axe, initially, but I didn't. So,
I allow my brain to sort of like do its work through association with the words.
I’ve started to generate - I’ve started to engage in some of this associative thinking
process where I started to like pair some of these ideas.
I like the idea of "What does a scarecrow have in common with Jack Skellington?"
There's a kind of like lankiness to it, like spindliness. I’m gonna write down.
So it's like lankiness, gaunt, spindly, skinny, thick - thick boy Harvest Man,
chonk, chonk. In some ways, you could think about this list of terms or of words - you
could think of them like variables, like in a math equation or something, like in
algebra. It's like the more variables you have in an equation, the more complex.
So, it becomes really useful you know, like the more variables - more raw materials I have at
my disposal, hypothetically, the more complex or sophisticated my ideas could become. Now,
I mentioned Little Shop of Horrors in there and part of what's fun about - what's his name?
Alec: Seymour?
Seymour yeah Seymour, Little Shop of Horrors. [Chuckles] Thanks.
Now, what was it about Seymour? He was - he kind of reminds me of one of those like
Mario carnivorous plants but I bet those are influenced by a Little Shop of Horrors, actually.
But part of what's cool about a plant is a plant can have multiple stalks,
multiple flowers, multiple heads - almost like a hydra or like in this case on this guy you
have multiple heads like an Ettin I like a lot from mythology. It's like a multi-headed giant.
Ettins make me think like big and chunk, so I tell you like big guy, big body,
asymmetrical arm - like big massive arm full of tools and then it's almost like there's a pumpkin
patch on top of his body. It's not just a single pumpkin, it's like a whole patch up there, like a
bunch of them - a series of heads with all these different fun expressions and to me, that's part
of what's fun about jack-o'-lanterns, like all those possible expressions when you line them up.
I definitely do. Part of that is lent from those established precedents, these like raw
materials or variables. Or if I mention you know, lanky character and I’m thinking of
Jack Skellington and Fiddlesticks and all these like other creepy lanky characters,
there's a kind of an archetype I’m pulling from that. Comes with like personality traits.
You know, it can kind of seem like hackery. Like you're just like
you know, you're just ripping off stuff. And to a certain extent, you kind of are.
There's a reason Marvel movies work, there's a reason Star Wars usually works [Chuckles]
is because the other - they're taking advantage of that like subconscious like you know, they're
acknowledging or recognizing subconscious archetypes, subconscious associations.
Yeah, ratio of familiar to new, Alec, yeah that's a good way to put it. Yeah,
so I feel like I’m getting to something here. I’ve got the [Inaudible] of the Ettin, the multi-heads.
A pumpkin patch. This is what I need to write,
because these are some of those when I say like "Draw small to think big"
or "Focus on the key ideas or key shapes", this is exactly what I’m talking about.
It's not just pumpkin head, it's a pumpkin patch. It's almost like a large plane or a
large space atop the shoulders, you know and then I could generate tons of different heads and plug
them all over. And I have this big arm with a bunch of tools; saw, a sickle, a scythe - that
just gives me this like really wicked - almost like a claw, like a crab claw or a lobster claw.
My initial idea, like if I look to do something like a Stickmin, it's like just this
standard dude with a pumpkin on top and that's - I actually thought that was like kind of cool.
I was getting excited about that. But look, when it just a little bit for further exploration,
I get to something that from my perspective is significantly more interesting or promising,
and I don't even consider myself done.
I don't really feel like I hit the Swamp Thing but I'm gonna I try it
again because that was like my very first drawing I did.
I mentioned it before when I did the Swamp Thing when the - like the monkey shoulder,
elbow, slope shoulder thing, like the long legs. Like a little more heroic body type.
I’m kind of on a thing right now with pumpkins - like if you've ever seen a
pumpkin gets really big, like because they're full of air inside and liquid,
like there's actually like negative space inside and their mass becomes so heavy that
they start to collapse in on themselves and spread out flat and so, doing some heads like
that seems kind of fun - a little less round. So I’m going to draw that after I fill in this one.
There's a reason I also fill all these in. It's not just design, it's also rehearsal for me. It's
like where I get in some of my mileage, I’m like warming up, flexing, stretching, getting better.
It's almost like going to a life drawing class but this is specifically targeting character design.
So I’m going to try this one again with a lopsided on my ticket and make it like list to one side.
That's kind of fun. Then you get some of that like zombie, like this thing are like "Ohhh,
birds, pumpkin!" Now I’m swinging back around to headless horseman - what is it about headless
horseman? I go up here at the top. So that idea of like holding a head in your hand. Like holding
head in your hand, I like that and I could even try like the headless horseman you know, he has
his cape or his cloak, almost like a highwayman cloak. So I could take that kind of popped
collar and put it on one of my - oh, that's funny because you have like popped collar that's sort of
fancy, almost like a pompadour. You know, like a cool haircut or something - like a slick haircut.
I can take that like stock at the top of the pumpkin, like where it connects to the vine and
turn that into a big wild curly hairdo, but I’ve done something like this before. Just my actual
like immediate instinct is that I don't really want to sculpt to this one [Laughter], but it's
cool for 2D, like it will look - I almost guarantee that this will look good in 2D.
Part of the highwayman thing or the like robbers, like briggins on the road
and they're known for having like pistols and rapiers, like
rogues weapons. So I want to do like a kind of a sword, but I want to do like a kris blade sword.
Again, I mentioned the idea of those like pumpkin carving knives with the pumpkin head on top of
him means got a bunch of almost like pumpkin ammunition and he has, instead of his regular
sword or axe, instead of his cavalry saber, he's got the kris blade. This is how it happens - I say
cavalry saber and I was just going to say "What if instead of calvary saber,
I use the kris blade?" that's like "What if I combine them?".
So you still get the curve of the cavalry saber but then I can bring in the wavy edge that you
get on a carving knife. Cavalry sword plus kris knife. So this brings me to a point - I sort of
fast forward. I got caught up in the actual act of what really was my next point, which was
how to push your ideas like beyond your initial form.
So you saw - like if you look back, like some of my initial ideas - they're not
bad but they're just - they're kind of simple, just like simple pumpkin guys.
But as I began to ask more questions, look a little deeper into what it was about each of
these precedents, each of these archetypes that I liked, I didn't just say "Oh, I like
Swamp Thing" or "I like you know, Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors" - I didn't just
copy his shape and add into that little pumpkin because I asked myself "What is it about Seymour
that's cool to me" and then I use that to inject or integrate into my character design.
I have to actually think about this, like where to begin from sort of like take a step
back and ask myself a question. Scarecrow - so I put scarecrow down. That was like one of the
first things I listed. So I’m gonna go back to scarecrow here. I started to go down the road
of like "Oh, pumpkin head like covered with the straw hat and the flannel", blah blah, but
that kind of took me into Batman territory and I just am not interested in going there. It's
like done enough, like scarecrow is cool, I just don't even want to bother with it.
But what I like is the scarecrow as a potential prop. And how's the scarecrow used? It's used to
ward things away. It almost looks like a flag or a standard and that got me thinking like "Okay,
what if I had on one of my big guys, like my big characters, like this big dude,
he's all mutated and [Beep] and monstrous with his like big patch of pumpkins all over his body,
pumpkin patch back, but just call him pumpkin patch, his name, pumpkin patch.
"The pumpkin patches got up and walked away... Pumpkin patch".
Oh, and then I get props. Scarecrows to scare crows, but what if the crows are sort of like
props? Like little like accent characters on you know, there's like the crows - it's like
when you know the land [Beep] is when the crows just sit on the scarecrow, there's no fear.
And put the lantern in that guy's belly. So, look how it starts to grow, like you see like
okay here's that idea over there but then it starts to get nuttier and nuttier. It's
not that necessary has to become nuttier but it's useful for you to see the sort of like evolution
of the idea. It's like a nuclear arms race of idea - it grows and grows and the more - again,
the more variables, the more good variables I have access to, the more elements I can test.
I can say, "What if I combine these?" you know? I like big guy, I like asymmetrical
arm. I like scarecrow back, I like lantern embedded in the you know, in the rib cage,
like in the thorax so you get a little bit of like a glow, like maybe it's like a soul in
there or a spirit or a will-o'-the-wisp, the ghost of Paw... Paw! Oh, that's fun.
Just like what if the scarecrow had like lashed to his arm, a scythe. So, he's got this like
tattered flannel, pumpkin head covered with straw hat and a crow and then his far hand,
he's holding a scythe up. It's getting a bit nuts but you can always pull back later.
This one is almost like an experiment and like "Can I combine it all?"
[Laughter] "Can I take every damn thing and shove it together?"
Instead of erasing this, because I don't hate it actually, because it's kind of cool
and I like to have the record of the things I’ve tried, so I can share with people
and for my own - like sometimes I might find some something useful for the future
in some of these, so too much going on basically and I point a little arrow.
If you want to be a concept artist, you got to pay attention to this [Beep]. You don't
necessarily have to do it just my way, definitely not, but pay attention to this kind of stuff. Like
this is the meat and potatoes of concept art is thinking; sharing your ideas, generating ideas,
iterating on ideas... You need to be able to just sit and generate ideas forever all day.
And if you're like freaked out about like "How am I gonna do that?", you know how you do that? You
develop a process, that's why I do this. You know, having a process can help deal with like anxiety,
pressure, stress - so, I know if I follow these steps, I’m going to get to something. You know, it
can be the best thing I ever do in my life but I am going to generate an answer.
I’m not going to come up empty-handed, I’m going to come up with something that is like on target,
that solves the problem. I’m gonna treat it like an exercise. Like I’m going through
the same kind of exercise I’m encouraging you to go through.
It's not that you always have to,
but the process of going through it a few times in your life I think is gonna up your game
significantly. It's going to make you a lot more sensitive to your ideas, to your shapes.
I’m going to sign this down here when I’m done. Always going sign my little initial. The old grade
big fat F. This always makes me laugh a little bit,
keep me humble. And you'll see tomorrow, tomorrow's shoot
we're going to get this. I’m going to show you how I take my drawings to the computer.
It's not rocket science, I’m just going to walk you through exactly how I do it,
that's part of the point; exactly the specifications, exact scanner that I use,
all my image correction techniques that I use to get the page looking nice.
You're just optimizing your drawing. I’m actually going to like push and
pull my values to make things pop, probably inject a little bit of color.
It's pretty fun, like you can make a page of drawings like this,
you can turn it into a kind of like a piece of art, like a portfolio piece. Okay cool!
Okay guys, that's it. If you enjoyed this video and you want to see me develop the
next stages of my Harvestment, you can check out the full course at Proko.com/MonsterLab!