Original Artwork by Scott Riddell
#RiddellSDesign
Friday 31 October 2025
Happy Halloween!
Tsawinn
About This Sketch
‘Tsawinn’ is a creature that Scott designed quite recently when he began to think about what a character might look like if it was designed to blend in with its environment. The key inspiration came from Barlow’s Guide to Extraterrestrials which was a text Scott found very inspiring when he originally started coming up with designs for his own creatures.
The Tsawinn is more lizard like, but it is intended to be an alien with an exoskeleton and scales. It is a snake-like creature if a snake were to evolve as the dominant hominid species on it’s home planet. The environment Scott pictured the Tsawinn living in is intended to be a like an arid desert, so hot during the day that it would not be possible for humans to live on this planet.
When the sun is it’s highest the air can make living things dry out and burst into flames, so the Tsawinn buries itself within the sand until it is cool enough to move from oasis to oasis. The Tsawinn can burrow its long tendrils deep below the sand, often able to find water trapped below the sand that no other creatures would be able to access.
The original image of Tsawinn was hand-drawn using coloured pencil on cartridge paper.
The featured image of Tsawinn was edited by DS Coremans using Photoshop. The background for the image was generated and enhanced by boosting the colours of the image using a colour filter. The original hand-drawn image was edited in photoshop, enhancing the image to give it a fuller colour and a darker outline to help the image stand out a little againt the backgrounds generated.
This hybrid work between Scott and Darren is something they have been working on together since early 2025, so that both of them can learn new skills, but also so that Scott can get a better sense of how these characters could be developed as he continues to work on his skills as an animator.
Key inspirations for Scott at the moment are from some of his favourite animated movies. These stills have been taken from the three animation design styles Scott is most interested in developing: Hand Drawn, Stop-Motion, and Digital Designs.
If you would like to see more of Scott’s work, or find out more about his designs, consider following Scott on his social media platforms, or by liking and sharing his post here on scottriddell.org
Stay Creative. Stay Safe. Stay Inspired.
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