Chimeras and hybrid creatures: Imagining living beings to make them believable

Project overview

How can you invent a fantastical creature whilst making it look like a believable living being?

Through this illustration project, second-year students on the 3D Animation Film course stepped into the shoes of concept artists by devising a creature for a fictional film. Their challenge was to create a chimera – that is, a hybrid creature resulting from the combination of several existing animals.

Far from being purely a product of the imagination, this exercise is based on a thorough process of observing living creatures. The students thus learnt to draw inspiration from nature to design original, coherent and believable creatures.

Exercise brief

Each student had to select three existing animals, then study their anatomy, morphology, materials and physical characteristics in detail.

Based on this research, they devised a hybrid creature by combining the most relevant elements of each species. The aim was to create a completely new being, whilst adhering to anatomical and functional logic to ensure the creature was plausible.

The project comprised several production stages:

the production of an A3-sized anatomical and morphological study sheet for each of the three reference animals
the creation of a descriptive sheet presenting the creature’s design (research, anatomy, details and characteristics)
a final colour illustration depicting the creature in its environment

Learning objectives

The aim of this project was to develop essential skills in concept art and the creation of fantastical characters.

In particular, the students worked on:

conducting documentary research and analysing the animal kingdom
studying anatomy and morphology to create believable creatures
the ability to make design choices by combining several species
the representation of materials, textures and volumes (skin, feathers, fur, scales, etc.)
the transition from naturalistic observation to imaginative creation, in order to design coherent worlds

The exercise also enabled them to gain an understanding of a methodology similar to that used in film, video game and animation studios during the visual development phase.

Techniques used

To carry out this project, the students utilised:

observational drawing
anatomical and morphological research
traditional illustration
colouring and rendering of textures

Through this project, the students demonstrated a remarkable ability to combine scientific rigour with imagination. Their creatures are the result of genuine research and observation, giving rise to worlds where the fantastical draws on the laws of nature to gain credibility.

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