Varg Sketches

It's been too long since my last post. I've been working on numerous illustrations lately, so I have concept/design sketches and WIPs I want to show! Below are some design process sketches for a wolf-like monster illustration I recently completed for my friend's, Andrew Maul, board game. This, and future illustrations I'll be posting about, will be displayed on the cards in his game. He's been doing some fantastic work that you should check out on his Design Blog!

The look we were going for with the Varg was decidedly canine but with a higher intelligence and a definite evil. In my first set of sketches, the overall look of #3 ended up embodying those traits the best, but there were still elements from other designs we wanted to experiment with. Enter sketch set two - I took the vanilla #3 almost directly into the first sketch, but then gave the second design the elements we really liked from #1 out of my first set, and a more demonic look for the third.

With some slight alterations, we chose design #2 from my second set. Here is a WIP of the Varg illustration:

My concept sketches were created in Sketchbook Pro '12, and the illustration in Photoshop.

I will post the final illustration soon!