Draw and paint mythology creature monster design Chimera

Draw and paint chimera a mythology creature monster design. This post is somewhat related to the previous post, How to draw lion head study. Intentionally I was going to do a creature tutorial and one of the creature that are often under represent is Chimera. So I am doing a step by step and video tutorial of how to draw and paint the Chimera creature from Greek Mythology. Well, originally it does have wings, but I put them in because I thought that would make it more powerful and such.
A brief statement about the creature, Homer's brief description in the Iliad is the earliest surviving literary reference: "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire".
Anyway, I usually started off with just line drawn to get a sense of shapes, forms and possibly composition. Then I will just go into the image and block out the big shape as a whole first. Then later I will define the main shape using values, most likely two to three values should be enough to get the illustration going. As an underpainting or speedpainting, you don't need much of values or color to represent your image. Just enough to make it read, but most of all the lighting is a crucial element. Because lighting is very much every thing (or it make image visible) so I am trying to painting according to the light. Whatever is in the shadow, will basically has similar values, not necessary exactly the same, but real close.

Here is what I have so far, it is still work in progress.

Creature design work in progress.

Here are step by step drawing then painting creature concept:




Here is the finale image so far:

to be continued
Also a larger image here: Creature concept design process

*Video tutorial is coming soon* Be patient :)

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