A new piece in the 'My Shadows' series, a dark collection of digital monsters and horrors that I'm releasing into compilation sketchbooks. Below is also a video tutorial walkthrough where I go through my thoughts behind the piece.

In the video below I go through:

- Drawing several concepts at a time so that you let yourself warm up and get past the initial ideas that msy not be as effective
- Working zoomed out to see the image as a whole
- Working from a silhouette, to make a strong impact
- Using custom brushes from artists through community sites like deviantART, and experimenting to see what works for you
- Making a focal point in your piece by selectively showing the most contrast in one area
- Keeping a portrait 3/4 from the bottom to give your focal point space and breathing room
- Flipping the canvas to get a fresh look on your piece
- Building up atmosphere
- Using free photo textures from community sites like deviantART or forums to add a small polish and experimenting with different layer properties to add a subtle texture to your work
- The benefit of simplifying your work to make it more impactful
- Designing creatures with human or recognisable aspects to make them scarier as they are more relatable.

Hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think!
Cheers,

- Austen Mengler
www.austenmengler.com

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