Hello everyone, and welcome to the first installment of “The Art of the Werewolf”. In this Article I am going to take you step by step through the process I use when designing those cuddly, huggable creatures we all love, Werewolves. This isn’t going to be one of those how to draw articles. When it comes to beasties, and creepy crawlies, who am I to tell ya if you are doing it right or wrong? We all have our idea of what is scary, and when it comes to werewolves; I say the more ghastly, the better. What I am going to show ya is how to create a werewolf that best fits the project you are working on. Alright, I guess I better shut up and get to showing.

In this segment I am going to take you through the creation of the werewolves for my upcoming project “Willow Creek”. For this project I have the luxury of being best friends with the writer, so from the get go I knew exactly what he was looking for monster wise, but I am going to approach it as if I never threw up in his car.

The first thing I have to decide after reading the script is what type of werewolf I think will best fit the story line. I break down werewolves in to two types. Ya got your classic “wolf man” type monster, and you have your “Howling” type monster. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite from these two, because I am a huge fan of both, but if I was held at gun point I’d have to say I lean more toward the “Howling” version, just because it looks so brutal. However when it comes to creating a monster for a script my favorites don’t mean shit. I gotta make the writer happy.

When trying to decide on what type of werewolf I am going to go with, the main thing I consider is terrain. If the story takes place in a large city I would probably go with the wolfman type werewolf. The reason for this being, I feel that a werewolf, when transformed, would have a better chance of surviving in this setting if he could some what blend in with the people and scenery around him/it. A wolfman type werewolf still looks like a man when hiding in the shadows getting ready to rip out some hooker’s throat. If a howling type werewolf is hiding in those same shadows, that hooker’s running home and calling it quits for the night, sore crotch or not.

Now I’m not saying its wrong to stick a howling type werewolf in a big city (see An American Werewolf in London) this is just my way of approaching it.

“Willow creek” is set in Northern California, where you have large forest, and mountainous terrain. So for this project I chose to go with the “Howling” type werewolf. I fell it would be best suited for this environment.

With that decided, its time to start sketching. Well, after playing Xbox 360 for a bit.

Ok after sucking it up for a while on the Xbox live (my gamer tag is Jmeds23 if ya want it ? ) it’s time to get started. We have decided to go with the “Howling” type werewolf now we have to try and come up with a look that is unique. Something that will make it stand out from all the other designs we have seen before. At this point I decide if our beastie will walk on all fours, or if it’ll be bipedal.

I’m torn when it comes to this. I don’t want the monster to look too wolf like but I like the idea of him chasing after some one running balls out on all fours. I figure that seeing as how the story is set in mountainous wilderness, our lycanthrope can’t snack on humans every meal. It’d have to settle for a deer or something very now and then. The idea of him chasing his quarry down like an Olympic sprinter just seems silly to me, so I decided to make him both.

I like the idea of a massive shadowy werewolf walking out of the trees on his hind legs, then dropping to all fours to chase after some hiker.

To pull this off with out it looking humorous, I designed the creature’s arms to accommodate this. As you can see I lengthened the arms, and shortened the legs. This gives the werewolf that unique shape we were looking for.

I also want the werewolf to look as if it is able to compete with other predators that it’d run into such as bears or mountain lions. I bulked him up to accomplish this. You have to be strong to wrestle food away from a bear.

Taking all the things I mention above into consideration, I design all the other aspects of the beast. I lengthened, and widened its hands so that running over rocky and snowy terrain as well as slashing grabbing and ripping heads off would be easily accomplished. I also gave it a nice fur coat for the cold.

At this point I pretty much have my final design, but I want to add a few things that make it even more unique. It may seem like minor details but these can make you design stand out. One of the things I did was getting rid of the creatures’ lips. I have its teeth going right into his snout. I feel this gives it a more menacing look. Its teeth are never covered. This gives you no doubt what this monsters intentions are when it’s coming after ya. Another thing I did was get rid of the typical eyeball. I went with nothing but dark sockets with a hint of a glow. I feel the eye shot with the dilating pupils has been done more than a 60 year old porn star. The dark sockets with the small glow, gives you the opportunity for some very nice silhouette shots.

Ok I guess I have rambled on enough. Hopefully you can make since of all this. I never said I was a writer but I gave it the old college try. After putting it all together this is a sketch of what I came up with.

Now I am going to give you guys some home work. I am going to give you a location, and using what I’ve discussed in this segment, I want you to come up with a werewolf that would feel at home there. I’ll do the same. I’ll show you what I came up with next time. I’ll also be talking about transformation, and creating a wolf man style werewolf.

The location I want you guys to keep in mind when designing your werewolf is Southern Georgia/ Northern Florida. I’m not going to give you the terrain info. You’ll have to do some research!

Until then
Josh Medors
www.joshmedors.com

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