A Change of Direction!

Over the past few days i have been pondering over ideas in my head and this morning i was set on researching into how animators and designers start creating a character, and the uses of basic shape initially...

THEN... I received a book i had ordered called Animals Real and Imagined by Terryl Whitlatch, and i was blown away by possibilities! The Book is filled with amazing Creature Design work and she too has included skeletal and muscle drawings to help build a better feel for the character.

The idea of 'mix and match' animals to create new creatures, using inspiration from one animal but applying it to another really excites me.
Before i received this amazing book i had also been reading about creature designer Bobby Chiu in Issue 72 of ImagineFX Magazine (Aug 2011), which also started the 'Creature Design Cogs' turning, and discovering Terryl's Book was the icing on the cake.

Below i have put together a simple flow chart just to explain to you my thought process so far and in green i have circled my next area of research...

Creature Design!!!

I aim to find out what the Creature Designers out there do to gather Inspiration.