Deepdive into Creature Design 

There seems to be alot of people going to this video with ALOT of questions! And thats great but unfortunately I can't answer all of them so please consider joining the discord! discord.gg/CV6FAYPmut

"crabs are the one true lifeform" is my favorite line of text in this whole video

This is exactly my type of content, As someone who builds monsters and creatures on a regular basis and thus researches a lot - I think your video might be one of the most informative, well structured, and complete ways of constructing fantastical creatures; the final product is very organic and feels more real than many of the designs made by professionals. Thank you so much for this video, it was such a pleasure watching it and I hope you make more.

this deserves 1 sketchtillion views

Of the last creature, the tail and wing style make me think of it as more batlike, wrapping its prehensile tail around branches to sleep or wait then letting go and flying after prey to hunt. I imagine them in small colonies; think of walking through a forest at dusk and looking up to see clusters of odd, shiny sap-like growths on a tree limb, then one of them suddenly 'wakes up' and comes streaking towards you with a shrill shriek.

I do love how you included that a design being simple doesn't always mean its worse. I feel a lot of people think like that overly complicated designs are better and it causes them to not appreciate the well thought of simplistic designs. I personally enjoy the more simpler creatures designs even though many think not. This was a great watch and is helping me gain some more knowledge and inspiration for my personal creature designs. Enjoyed this, its a very well put together video!

Crab? Crab.

I love how you can change so much about a creature's behavior just by changing it's size, like if your creature is 8 feet i would see it hunt in groups of 2-3 but if it would be like 8 inches i can see it hunt in packs of 20-30 individuals.

Only a minute in, I love the usage of the Monster Hunter sound effects for a lot of your graphics animations and transitions. from that alone i know its quality. *Edit* two minutes in and we actually are using MH for references YESSS SIRRRRR. also legit good design info.

as a artist beginning in sifi/horror creature designs this is amazing thanks

This Video is so well made! All the Examples you displayed are great and I loved hearing the sound comparsion. Your Avatar that is changing with (e)motions is so cute and it's nice to have a face to relate to when listening to a technical topic like this. You explained your method really well, while being open to other solutions. You put your heart into it and it really shows. Educational and entertaining, glad I'm already subbed!

11:37 ICE AND FIRE AMPHITHERE SPOTTED I LOVE THIS CHANNEL ALREADY

This channel only has 1 video, this one, and it was made 4 months ago, but I don't care and I'm subscribing just cause of how helpful and informative this was. Love the little face down in the corner, and the design you came up with looked amazing and felt believable! I'm busy with school, but if I ever get around to finishing my own concept I'll describe it in a reply to this comment

Once upon a time, 6 giants lived in a black abyss. Their names were Gimby, Gomby, Gumby, Gamby, Gemby, and Gymby. They were bored, but one day, they got an acorn. It grew into a giant tree and the giants decided to go live on it. Sometimes, roots would break off and rot, turning into soil. They wanted to fill this tree with life, so Gomby shaped the soil into a dragon. Gimby gave life to it, and she almost died doing it. This was not a fire-breathing dragon, though. This was long before the dragons were cursed. No, this dragon breathed life. Knowing Gimby would not be able to give life to more creatures, Gomby would shape more creatures and give them to the dragon who would bring them to life. Eventually, the dragon decided to start making its own creatures. It made fantastic things, like raptors and sheep, ostnakes and horned falcons. I could fill a book with many of the dragon's creations and it wouldn't be all of them. But one fateful day, when the dragon had given life to many creatures, the wolves and wizards, the goblins and mastodons, even the sky and the sun, the forest and the ocean, he gave life to fire. He believed that the creatures of Amongusland could be trusted with the power of the sun, but he also had mistakenly given life to chaos. Harm was inflicted onto every living thing and many creatures died. Gamby was hired to be the war-stopper, and the giants cursed the dragon and all his brethren to never breath life again, only chaos; fire. Gomby, in an attempt to save the creatures from their now limited life-spans, invented parenting. I don't need to explain to you what parenting is because, well, I think you know. Anyway, it worked, but chaos still ensued. Gimby was given the job of looking after the births of all creatures, Gomby just kinda did his own thing, Gamby did the whole stopping wars thing, Gemby would guide dead souls to the afterlife, Gymby also did her own thing, and Gumby also also did his own thing. One time an evil wizard king, named Plonky, tried to conquer all the goblins and enslave them. Then a legendary [goblin] hero, by the name of Gerangouf, defeated Plonky and saved all of wizard and goblin kind, as well as all the other creatures. Right after that though, strange little fluffy things appeared on a strange silver bird. They called themselves the gurbalshnirbs, and were a peaceful race. They wanted to make friends with everyone across existence. The gurbalshnirbs were welcomed with open arms and everyone lived happy lives. For thousands of years, everything was happy, until bees came from who knows where. They were evil bees, and conquered Amongusland. A good amount of gurbalshnirbs escaped, though, and looked for help all across the universe, because they loved Amongusland. But a lot of people were caught up in their own problems, so they went to the last planet they could think of: Earth. They had befriended monkes long ago, though they may have forgotten. They crash-landed in a sixth-grade classroom in Utah and everyone was confused why they kept finding pom-poms with googly eyes. We never actually got the chance to help because we're kids and the authorities probably wouldn't believe us, so I took custody of them for a while before realizing my dad would probably kill them like he did Tartar sauce the tapeworm. I sent them to my friend to live with him and they remain there to this day. We have no idea what happened to Amongusland, so, yeah, that sucks.

The Monster Hunter sound effect gave me a whole another level of nostalgia🥰

monster hunter is such a good example for this, i am very glad you love it as much as i do!

Crab. Crab.

Absolutely Great Video. The audio, the tips, the art, the editing, etc. Perfect. Would love to see more from you. The other video ideas you showed off already sound so fun and interesting. You just got a new subscriber.

By watching this video I realise how many mistakes I have made when creating monsters and how I could improve. Thank you!

Educational and very informative, would try again

Quality content right here. Not only very good tips that one should take note of when doing creature designs, but also very good editing, which is quite rare for a smaller RU-vidr. I like how you used different points of reference, like Monster Hunter, Avatar, Horizon and obviously real life. As someone who loves creature designing and speculative biology, I can say that I use almost every tip from this video, though I approach some steps of creature design in different order. This channel has great potential if you want to continue with it

that's a cool flying skull crawler

I created a type of deer called a Bead. It was inspired by a mountain goat, elk, and unicorn to create a graceful and elegantly powerful animal of legend. The bead would infuse its muscles with ether to strengthen them as both an intimidation tactic and a self defense mechanism. Due to the mystical nature of the bead, their hides and antlers are highly sought after by hunters and collectors, even though they are under strict protection by the elves. And due to their long lifespans of nearly 800 years, I decided to make it so that they could only bear one offspring every 60 years from the age of 120 to 680. While feeding her baby, the mother would infuse her milk with ether for the baby to consume, thus making a type of strength potion so that the young bead may grow to be strong and graceful. And while a bead has a generally wild nature, some form special bonds with humans or elves, and allow them to ride on their backs. And this bond lasts until the death of their rider, from when they then mourn for a week before moving on. The bead always shares a connection with their past riders, but once the riders die, new bonds are able to be made in their stead.

I love drawing random creatures in classes so it was really interesting seeing your way of doing things. I'll try it out

For your veneer creature, maybe the skull size can be the sexual selection. Tbh I love the premise of your creature! I was thinking that the mucus into bark thing would make it move by stickiness, and so it could climb trees. Also since the saliva hardens the mucus, maybe the production of mucus itself either causes the stuff to get soft, or it just peels off like mica. Maybe mothers nurse their offspring with such peelings, or humans hunted them to take their scales in order to make decorative ornaments/baby teething items or smth (maybe the bark stuff has an alright taste). Also maybe the skull is malleable and has a very thick mucus on it, allowing for skulls to adhere to it. Also the tongue could be thick and forked (in terms of width) instead of being a little thin twig thing, better for the lickin'. Ok I just geeked out there. I also create creatures (have some timelapses of them if you wanna see, but it is only the tip of the iceberg so if you have any questions about them lemme know) and have these same ideas in mind, so your video was amazing as it summarizes my process into a simple video!

I have watched millions of videos of videos about designs of all sorts of things and this is the best one and no one can say otherwise.

This actually helped me a lot! Not just with creature design, but character design overall. My art style suffers from same-face syndrome and a lack of diversity in details. This helped me open my eyes to a new perspective on ways to design characters!!!

Both your videos so far are amazing and exactly the kind of notes i needed to add to my own project

This is the quality worldbuilding content I'm looking for! I hope this channel lives long and prospers. You've earned yourself a subscriber! (with notifications on, obviously)

Extremely solid video, loved the way you explained it all in such an easily digestible manner and added your own flair! Subscribed, and hope you keep making videos :D

I have an idea for a creature, Im calling them "Scalewinds" they are basically just dragon birds Hense the name They are kinda small and live up to 200 years, insane for bird standards but nothing in dragon standards- Im basing alot of it off dnd dragons, so each breed is based on the different types of dragon Red=fire Blue=lightning Silver= ice etc I don't have too much of it so far but I'm slowly getting more details of it And I'll probably come back to this video to organize my thoughts on it so thank you :D

The capybara being used for the "vibe with everything and everyone" is so real 😭. I've seen capybaras just chilling with alligators

You can't have an entire world filled with Dragons Wing of Fire Fans: "Sorry, I don't speak Wrong"

This video was great!!!! It comes real handy since im really new at chacter design in general, i was shocked to see it didn't have a bigilion views, definitely passing this one on to my artist friends. Keep it up with the great content!

I'm not much of a creatures person in my worldbuilding and this is definitely a great step toward filling my world with more of them. Love your personality, definitely hoping to see you post again!

13:05 this just gave me the idea for shedded dragon scales to have large fungi growing on them.

Came from Bio-Pyrism, then was led to your channel and this video. I'm just so glad to have stumbled upon your gold mine, and to others who share the same creative mind. Feels good to be at home. To more videos from you.

Crabs? Crabs. Crabs(slight dread on last one) This was Brandon Sanderson making stormlight archive creatures

please continue this channel and make more videos like this this was so well edited as well its crazy

I have thoughts along similar lines when creating creatures. Good to see your systematic process laid out like this.

Probably the most helpful video I’ve ever watched! I thought I hit a roadblock in my creature development journey, but THIS? This. Changed. EVERYTHING. Thank you so much, friend! Truly a great video. It was very helpful, informative, and just downright entertaining. I feel like I know what I’m doing now.

when it comes to creature design, I immediately go down the route of speculative evolution. "what do I want it to look like, what do I want it to do, and what has to happen for said creature to exist" by that route, It's easy to expand upon the world that created your beloved species.

Got through the whole video, and it took you a while to make it but a while for me to watch. I am a world builder and “novelty” writer. So I often have these ideas for creatures that I are difficult to flesh out. While I have managed over the years, finding this video has allowed me to design my very own broad ABC System for all my CAC projects. Something amazing Id like to share is how sometimes we have ideas of what the other side of the hill looks like, but until someone else comes back from that side and shares to others their personal interpretation of experiences, we dont really have a solid blueprint of what to expect…from over the hill or the characters in our minds. Some of us can just draw them others will realize this method will help us to describe our visions to those with the gift and the pencil to translate. To you and those amazing people I thank you for your hard work👏🏾

This video is so interesting because I've been doing some of the steps without really thinking about it, but now I think I'll be able to do it better and more throughly

This video is great!!! :D As a newbie writer, I was a bit lost about how to properly create fantasy creatures, so I'm glad I found this deepdive ^^ I'm not really a visual artist, but I think a lot of the points shown can be applied to writing

This is so awesome I am definitely gonna use this to at least brainstorm creature designs in my sci-fi world! By the way I absolutely love the Monster Hunter bias haha

I absolutely loved this, it is exactly what i was looking for. Please can you make this a series? I need more 🥺

This is crazy good content and so helpful! i really love the style of this video and really hope that you gain some subscribers because the world needs more of this!

I love how much monster hunter you used and mixed other themes with it I feel like you and the monster hunter company know how to make (except about the too much detail that you talked about like it glowing/element/spikes/zenith tigrex I play monster hunter but I have never seen that I play monster hunter rise/sun break but I do agree with you about how to make/draw monsters

Great tips and great video, I like to make animalistic creatures a lot and while your process is similar to mine,I found a ton of helpful tips like keeping different body plans and animal types to make the world more interesting, just great stuff 😌

OMG AMAZING!! BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!!!

Wow, just wow. I was not expecting this much quality when I clicked this video. Subscribed. Cant _wait_ to see more!

Honestly incredible. Sooo good! I'm in love, can't wait to see what you do next

Bro I haven't seen anyone like you. I was exactly looking for who has the knowledge to create creatures. You gave a lot of inspiration. Now I will be able to see what are my mistakes. Thanks😃

Thanks for the guide. I'm starting to create Fakemon and still haven't gotten a grasp on it, but this video has given me a better understanding at least 🎉

Thanks for this video! As a creature designer this helps a ton.

So glad I found this channel so early on :) Great video!

I do a lot of analysis for storytelling and world building in my free time, which I have plenty of, and I have found no video that explains creature design quite as well as this guy does. The only person i've heard that can precisely explain something that you have to imagine by yourself this is truly a tour guide into imagination.

The A, B, Cs of creature design. Thanks for sharing. I hadn't thought about behavior as more biology than character. I might have to look into Monster Hunter as well, now.

I'm working on my own DND world around magical anomalies and you have helped me so much with that.

I already make a lot of fictional creatures but this video is so helpful for organizing thoughts and for if your just starting out. Thank you so much the amazing content!

Bro now I feel the strong urge to play monster hunter and watch httyd. Im not super interested in this topic on a whole but your videos are very informative and fun to watch! I might never use this information but now I feel like I know more about the subject and thats super neat! Thank you for sharing

This video is lovely! Thank you, and the bloopers made my day.

I started to work on an alien world a little while back and deeply suffer from same creatures syndrome. Great video! I’ll definitely implement some of your tips

Love the monster hunters sounds made this video %100 better

awesome video! super high quality and informative- i can’t believe it doesn’t have more views

Can’t wait to see more, this was amazing!

As someone who loves to create creature designs for a sci-fi world, this video is great :D

This video was amazing i have been looking for a video like this for a while but this is much better than i expected and plz continue making more videos like this and I think some sort of discord for creature desfin would be real cool.

My project involves alien creatures that are somewhat synonymous to Earth flora and fauna, so this video helped expand my horizons a lot!!! Great video!! :3

As a Worldbuilder and Creature Designer I absolutely love this

Love your presentation and just went to binge download your videos, saw that you had two and was like WOAH super new love it. Hope to see more :)))

A favorite source of inspiration is just paying attention to some of the weird critters I see in dreams. Got a bunch of cool stuff.

This, this is the type of help that i need, and i like it, thank you

I just watched GxK, JW2 and 3, read All Tomorrows, and those thing sparks my interest in monsters/creatures again. So I decided to finish one of my Kaiju from 2021, then I found your video Thank you, I will use everything here to improve my next creatures design (Fun fact while I was watching the vid I was thinking of a creatures with similar design to your leshin and I didn't know at all lol)

I am very new to the concept of creature design and this video really helped. thanks alot

THIS IS SO COOL! I made a map during math class today and this is definitely going to help me expand that world. 😁

9:49 “the cat from ipanema” I love that it’s so good

Heyo! Love the video! 🎉 This has also helped my produce some of my creatures in my upcoming project and it was so fun using your "method"! Keep up the good work! (I mean.... you already are but... you know what I mean 😅)

This man is so underrated

I like how theres mh sound effects in this video

This is amazing, thanks it helped out a ton I’ll definitely use these tips when making creatures.

Some good points here! I wonder if you use thumbnails, its a good way to quickly put down ideas without much time investment so if one idea doesn't work out you can quickly move on to another idea right away.

This is amazing and really helpful! I'll be using this style a lot for verbal descriptions, since I'm no good at drawing. :)

Love this dude, you definitely need to make more 🤌🏼❤️🔥

i love your style it maches mine your such an inspiration your my favorite youtuber ever i've subscribed hit the notification button liked and shared with my mom, brother, and twin all in both videos your a huge inspiration

1:37 experiences too, ive made some great creatures based off of experiences

Love the monster hunter sounds, loved the video

9k on the first vid is insane dawg, you better keep these videos consistent. I wanna see moreeee

it PAINS ME that you only have one video because i wanted to binge all your content off of this!! guess imma just have to rewatch whenever im craving the content!! /lh

I TOLD YOU THIS VIDEO IS GONNA BLOW UP!! CONGRATS!!

Great final product with that leshen salamander thing, the way its biology and behavior complement each other is very clever. Your creative process is very thorough and a great starting point for worldbuilders unfamiliar with biology. As someone with a background in zoology myself, there is only one point you made that I'd like to expand on. You discussed how shapes can convey a character's disposition, for example circles being soft and approachable. This is great advice for character design in general, however if someone is attempting a more scientific/speculative evolution project this advice may be constraining. Body plans of course don't evolve based on what humans think is cute or scary. Some of the deadliest animals alive today are often considered cute because of their rotund bodies or cozy fur, like hippos or wolves. Therefore in a speculative evolution setting it may be more helpful to consider what kind of anatomy best suits the environment a creature is being designed for rather than what kind of character personality the artist wants to convey. Your shapes-disposition correlation is still great advice for creature design in a more fantasy setting though where ecology doesn't necessarily matter as much.

Ok the medieval merge music caught me so off guard! Wonderful content!

I'm starting a fantasy story with my bf as a potential thing to publish. We've got a loooooong way to go. This video really helped me get started with the creatures we're planning to make. Time to make him watch this too! Subscribing because I want to see more from you!

Im in heaven after watching this... like seriously, this video did a goodjob explaining creatures

Firstly: Crab! And Secondly: Creatures tend to sacrifice an asset to enhance another. For example the birds of paradise - they sacrificed their ability to defend themselves to enhance their mating success. Lion with their a main but at the cost of getting heatstroke for mating. Whales with their enormous size at the cost of dexterity disable themselves from scratching their own backs or each other's. And here is a criticism for your creature: You said you wanted a sneaky boi but the design showed otherwise coz of the following: Resin tree bark armor: + 1 armor - 1 stealth when moving. Due to rigidity and chafing noises. Replace it with glue/slime where they can attach ornaments or live plants on itself for camouflage/noise dampening. Flight with bat wings: +2 mobility - 1 stealth when flying. Bats aren't stealthy nor are flying snakes. They make too much noise either before, after and/or during flight and wings are cumbersome. Especially inside a dense forest. Horns and other protruding ornaments: + 1 charm - 3 stealth and - 2 mobility. They will bump or snag on things inside a forest. And you don't have to limit sounds since it is the most effective weapon, charm or deterrent. Make it emit loud sounds when mating to attract mates, make it be silent or deceptive when hunting, or make it loud or horrifying when provoked. Sound is the most versatile of all the traits you can give to a creature without affecting its current situation in a negative way. But anyways, your design is more effective in desserts or dry and well elevated regions where there aren't a lot of things it could bump into. And the resin armor will even help it cool down in the heat and help keep moisture even. So yeah, a perfect desert stalker but it'll die pretty quick inside a forest.

This helped me alot! thank you so much. This really helped me create a world full of believable creatures

I dont comment. Just wanted to say this video was a youtube recommendation and was exactly what I needed. I just needed some guidance since I was going in every direction. Thank you. I'm looking forward to another video.

Amazing videooo!! for a first video. Amazing output good sir!

16:06 holy shit, the backless version is absolutely gorgeous