Team Twist - Harpy.

I think that this character really deserve it's own post. Working on a harpy was really challenging, due to the fact that we weren't sure of how it could look. We had couple ideas in the head but in the end we really pushed ourselves with this piece and I think it looks really good, as far as the design go.
Although I usually start with silhouettes while designing my character, we came to a conclusion that there is not much to explore when creating a harpy. A lot of silhouettes end up looking the same due to the humanoid body shape and a set of large wings. Instead I have went straight to the sketching phase, which I think worked really well with this particular character.

Above you can see some of the sketches that I have done while trying to figure out the design. The only guidelines that I have received while designing Harpy was that we wanted her to have a child's face. At first I thought that this would not work with the creature, but I quickly grew to love this idea.

And here is a final painting. Quite a jump from sketching stage straight to this point, but I have decided to figure out things along the painting process. In the bottom right is the sketch that I used as guideline while designing this creature. I've decided that going with female-like body would work really well with the design. The mix of bird features with human proportions really stands out from this design. For the wings I have closely looked at various birds, but what really struck me was the vulchers. They wing span can be quite large, and I think their overall behavior would really fit with our character.
Overall I really enjoyed working on this piece. I think it turned out well and definitely looks unique compared to previously shown creatures.