#Basically just surf wikipedia or buy a good book on marine life and you'll be good to go | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aeriona · 4 months

Note

Do you have tips for drawing/designing Xeno styled inkfish? They’re so shaped

of course!

Generally when I draw xenos, I try to emphasise non-human traits as much as possible by incorporating in real-life cephalopod biology. Basically I try to make it extremely obvious that what you're looking at isn't human, but actually something else entirely.

A good start is to do away with joints/bones entirely, and to add spots/patterns to the skin to make it appear less mammalian. Suckers on the fingers and faintly-pigmented skin also help as well.

The eyes are also another important thing! Most pelagic squids have round pupils in real life, but I tend to draw inklings with horizontal pupils anyway as it helps achieve that creaturely effect I'm going for.

Of course everyone has their own unique approach to xeno inkfish, these are merely suggestions and not a ruleset or anything haha. It’s taken me a while to find a style I’ve found most comfortable, and even then I regularly change stuff as I learn more about cephalopods. The beauty of xeno designs is that it's entirely up to you where you decide to go with it. You don’t even have to be realistic, literally the only baseline is creature!

I hope this was helpful to you!

#the long awaited return of the Creature-ification Ray #Basically just surf wikipedia or buy a good book on marine life and you'll be good to go #my art #inbox chatter #xeno tag #xeno inkling #splatoon #splatoon art #speculative biology #speculative zoology #creature design #squid #inkling

195 notes · View notes