Aliens

Far-off worlds often come with inhabitants, and those inhabitants, by virtue of being something completely outside our realm of experience, offer a huge opportunity for unique designs. Let’s be real—a lot of the aliens that influence science fiction are humanoid just because it’s cheaper to put some face prosthetics and makeup onto human actors. With art, you have a lot more freedom, and designing alien creatures is one area that lets you really flex your creative muscles.

A HUMAN FACE

If you’re going to draw a humanoid alien, start with the human face as a guideline.

BUILD UP YOUR FACE

Once your guideline is in place, tweak the features or add new parts. You can resize eyes, noses and mouths, or remove them altogether.

ANIMAL INFLUENCE

Try taking inspiration from Earth creatures that aren’t human. Add some animal or insect features. You’ll notice that the more you put in, the more your design starts to branch away from humanity.

Alien Anatomy

In a lot of sci-fi media, alien bodies are humanoid and bipedal because the actors playing them are humans. It’s easier to dress a person in a costume than to create a creature from scratch for a movie. Lucky you, drawing gives you a lot more leeway with your design.

A HUMAN BODY

When designing an alien’s anatomy, start by sketching a regular human with average proportions for comparison.

BUILD UP YOUR BODY

Now that you have standard human anatomy – throw it out the window. Edit the proportions, features, sizes and weights. The more you change, the more alien the creature will seem.

NON-HUMANOID ALIENS

The plus side to drawing aliens as opposed to filming them is that you don’t have to pay for special effects or elaborate costumes. Your aliens can look as out-of-this-world as you want them to.