Carlos Huante is a character designer working in film and animation. His book Monstruo: The Art of Carlos Huante and it’s companion Mas Creaturas: Monstruo Addendum feature his monster character designs.
What is impressive with Huante’s designs is that while many designers seem to bolt different pieces together to get a character, Huante develops his designs more organically so they feel that the characters are a unique and believable creature. What I mean is that instead of taking a human character and giving him wolf ears and feet and calling it a monster, a Huante-designed monster have muscles and mouths and eyes and teeth and horns that feel like they all belong together even though they’re put together in unsettling ways. His monsters feel like they would have evolved that way rather than gene-spliced from two different existing animals.
Huante is an amazing draftsman and can effortlessly springboard off his understanding of human anatomy to morph and distort his figures into truly terrifying creatures. His books give a great overview of his skill and is a great lesson on how to create convincing creatures. It’s also a great example of how to adapt your knowledge of anatomical figure drawing into creating something unique and personal.
If you buy using the links below, I get a small commission that helps me buy more books to feature.