Creatures Of The Earth

When you're thinking about a creature, you have to think, what do you want this creature to do? How important is it to your story? Is it a domestic or wild animal? Why do you want this creature to be in your story? You must think of these questions when you create a creature. You can take inspiration from real life to help you as well! Many people, when making films and shows that have fantasy creatures, combine traits of different animals. For example, the Ikrans from Avatar were most likely inspired by dragons and birds of prey to give them their appearances and behavior. In many dinosaur documentaries, designers take inspiration from real-life animals.

Inspiration From Nature

 For example, in Dinosaur Revolution, they created a Temmick’s tragopan-inspired Gigantoraptor. And in the prehistoric planet, the male dreadnoughts' air sacs were most likely inspired by male sage grouse’s mating display. When people first illustrated animals, they were not quite good at it for example, the first illustration of a giraffe was quite… odd-looking to say the least. Not many people had seen a giraffe, so when it was drawn, they took the description of it quite…literally.

credit: Johothan Pointer on Youtube

Credit: Creative Diffrences

Open Your Imagination

But when you're trying to make your own creature, you have to be creative with it! Throw some things together to make it much more interesting. Let's say, for example, you wanna make a dragon that is gonna be the antagonist of your story. We can make him as big as a house with four legs and two wings, and he breathes fire. This is a standard description of a dragon and if you imagine him, he looks quite plain, so let’s make him more interesting. We could say he has long horns that curl back like a goat and that he has a row of spikes from his head to the end of his tail. His scales could be described as a mix of dark reds and orange, like a melted sunset, and his wings are golden like a fading sunset. Now he sounds much better and more interesting. It’s important to be descriptive with details so that the reader has something to imagine. You could also combine creatures to make something completely new, such as combining a bat with a hyena to make a creature that lurks in dungeons and seems intimidating, but in reality, is quite shy towards others. You must have fun when you think about making a new creature

Importance To The World

You also have to remember how the creatures are important to the world of your story. What is the effect that the creatures have on the world? What about the world affects them? Maybe your creature is a companion who provides comedic relief to the story and companionship to your characters. Small moments when the story interacts with the creatures make the world seem much more alive and fun! Having some creatures who play an important part in a culture is also another way you could connect them to your world. For example, one show named Mia and Me had unicorns, which were very significant to the story and world. They were important to the world since they used their magic to keep the plants alive and the land fertile. It is shown that without them doing this, the land withers and dies. This small detail becomes very important to the story since the main conflict of the show is the unicorns being hunted and taken away, and the heroes of the show must fight to defend them

Another media example is once again Avatar, the Na'vi use many creatures as transport, and quite a few are important to their culture, such as Ikrans, Direhorses, Great Leonopteryx, Ilu, Tsurak and Tulkun. Ikran and Direhorses are common mounts that help the Navi to travel quickly and reach places they couldn’t on foot. The Tulkun and Great Leonopteryx are a bit more spiritual to the culture of Navi. The Tulkun can communicate and form deep emotional bonds with the Navi, becoming part of their family, and the Great Leonoptryx is seen as a hero and uniter of people.

Credit: Disney

Credit: Disney

 Having creatures that play a huge or small part in your world makes it seem much more vibrant and alive, or gives your story wonder and Majesty. Something that makes your readers want to read everything about your story. So go outside, read a book, watch a show! Find something that inspires you and then use it to make something absolutely wonderful