Hold mouse over selected parts of the picture.


This arm belongs to another woman. Ratings!! This is a gun disected and redrawn. To give a more realistic look to glass, try hazing over it. For reflections in glass use PSP7 Double Draw option. This is the same monster in practicly all of my pictures. I just keep redesigning him. I'm not clever--just lazy! These controls are taken right out of an airplane. Most of the background you see is made up of textures. To get a drool effect, just use the Lighten Option but on low oppacity. The floor is nothing more than a texture that has been angled. This lizard was trying to sleep when its picture was taken. To design a tentacle, use the outline options and then fill with a texture. Shadowing makes a big difference here. Same teeth that are on my sea serpent but modified. For reflections always set the oppacity on low.

Features
TEETH

Teeth are probably the most scariest element of a beast to me. The problem with teeth though is that many artists try to make them perfect, when I think a jagged edge has a more grueling effect. The good thing about them is like all other elements of computer art, all you need is one tooth. By drawing one you can then clone and alter the rest. (PSP&: Use the PUSH option or DARKEN RGB to modify your original. )
HORNS

Like teeth, horns can also distinguish your "critter". My advice is to, once again, avoid making perfect edges. Have one of them broken or even grinded down. Give your beast character and battle scares. And you may have already figured this out, but the teeth, horns, and claws of this dragon are all from the same tooth. They are simply modified. For the horns, I merely selected a tooth, copied it as a new image, changed the size, modified it and then paintied it on as a new layer.
CLAWS

Ok now claws are different. They should always look similar to one another. On many of my older pics I would have varied claws on a creature's hand but it just didn't look convincing. So here's when exact cloning and paisting at a different angle come in handy. (To get the sharper edge go to the FREE-HAND SELECTOR and actually draw your outline claw, keeping a +1 feathering. Then use the PUSH option to bring down the colors into your design. And always use the SMUDGE option for softing edges.)



Creatures
SERPENTS

Sea Serpents are pretty standard in the sci-fi world. In the other words they've got to have tentacles and shiny skin. The first can be done by using the FREE-HAND SELECTOR tool and outling one tentacle at a time. Then proceed with cloning in your choice of skin design by using DOUBLE DRAW or drawing in a with TEXTURES. The rest is just shadowing. Use LIGHTEN RGB for the shine effect.
BEASTS

Land beasts can be a challenge since they are out in the open and not submerged in water. Skin is probably your greatest challenge here. And for this I generally go for something real. In all three beasts here I used the same source for skin, a komono dragon. The land beast shows a clear pattern since I hazed it and altered its color, while the others I glistend or darkened.
SPACE INVADERS

Ok, on my alien I cheated big time. I simply put my serpent on a diet and gave it more wacky tentacle job. But then again thats me. The point is that you can build off your own pictures. You can even totally change the skin color in the COLORS/ADJUST menu. As far as tips for aliens go, I think they shouldn't really have to conform to anything, the more original the better. They're alien afterall. And as far as effects, slime, ooze and drool can come in pretty handy.



The Outer Limits
ALIENS

The Trekies have arrived! Alien humanoids have always infactuated me on both Star Wars and Star Trek--"Hammerhead" being my favorite. You can easily modify humans into fiesty creatures. With my alien women, I used the same steps as the tentacles on my serpent. I use FREE-HAND SELECTER to outline the design, and then a bit of cloning and PUSHing to get the effect.
MUTANTS

For this one I colorized and then grafted the scale toning unto her. (PSP7: to do this go to the COLORS/COLORIZE option. Set the HUE for the diffent color choice and the SATURATION for the amount of color brightness you'd like. Grafting can be done by using the DOUBLE DRAW option and cloning from a different source. Always put the oppacity down low for this.)
FIRE WALKERS

My firewalker is a simple trick of special effects. Most of you will probably figure this out. The woman was first framed from the negative itself and then colorized red. The flames were then softly hazed over. (For Reverseing the negative in PSP7 go to COLORS and select NEGATIVE IMAGING.