Check out the earlier Ghoul Design process here.

Ghouls

After a few weeks, the Ghoul concept is finished! 

As a art piece evolves its a interesting rollercoaster. At some points you feel like its not going to come out and at others you have some extreme pride, while as others you feel somethings work well while others do not and you constantly rework them. 

I prefer a very high contrast in my style and sometimes that makes creating an effective background hard. Art is always about learning and progressing and I think (and hope) I nailed a good effect for this piece. In the end I am happy with it... until dwelling on it for awhile. But in the end, I feel the background fits the high contrast that I go for. Its a good blend.

To give some context to where this piece began, here is the original sketch (you can read about the follow concept design process with the link at the top of this post).

And with this sketch, the full piece is born from!

Below I will dig into the different elements of this drawing in detail.

To start the blend, I wanted a strong background light from the moon. That eerie horror movie moon with the thin cloud wisps and almost unnaturally bright. As it expands into the sky I feel the swirling really gives some depth compared to a straight black background. Also do to the high contrast I prefer for a foreground character, it was somewhat strange to go with a middle tone in order to create that contrast. At the beginning the background was a lot darker, but it became overpowering and stole the eye. 

I wanted to show the utter creepiness of the ghouls. The ghoul at the pillars top is very much inspired by a spider crawling. I wanted the joints pushed outwards and at sharp angles and the almost unnatural curvature in its spine hopefully give a insect type feel. 

Below the long limbs and slouched form of a ghoul at ground gives the creepiness of these creatures. It makes them look even more sickly, but the feeling that they are ready to pounce!

With the moon's light just touching the central ghoul, we are able to see the details and the horror of these creatures. I wanted the light to catch its collar bone and ribs, to show how sickly these things are. Also the thin yet muscular neck adds to the sickly nature but gives an indication of its power. You can also see the black veins giving its pale skin a more sickly appearance. I am pretty happy with how the light touches its silhouette in a natural, but extreme manner. It helps the central ghoul stand out against the grey background and allows for the contrast that I love so much in art. The hair was the very last detail I added to the ghoul. Originally, I wanted them to be completely hairless, but show how the thin long hair makes this particular ghoul look more sinister, more danger!

Well I hope you enjoy! I would love to know what you think! As always I appreciate your time and if you know anyone that would like this kind of thing, please are my work. It means the world to me! 

Thanks

Brett