Critter creation masterclass

Cory Godbey offers up a series of tips and thoughts to help you incorporate fantastical, creature-centric elements into your work

Cory Godbey offers up a series of tips and thoughts to help you put creature-centric elements into your work.

Whether you’re exploring an exaggerated human form or adapting existing animals, few things are quite so visually satisfying as a well-realised creature. From trolls and mermaids to gryphons and dragons, creatures from folklore have one foot in the fantastic and the other in the mundane. Learning how to effectively translate the reality of what you see in front of you for imaginative purposes is an essential element in the creative artist’s toolkit.

It might sound counter-intuitive at first, but by grounding your work in reality you can create a more real, believable and ultimately more interesting creature. Why do we like goblins and trolls? Because we can connect with a human element at work. Fantastic beasts? Gryphons can help us to see with fresh eyes the real world magic and majesty of eagles and lions. Everything from the enchanting undine to the sneaking goblin, all extraordinary creatures have grounded, natural world, identifiable elements at play. But how do you get there? What does it take to create a creature? Here are a few steps I follow to bring in fantastical, creature-centric elements into my work.