Darwinist Beasts

Here are two creatures from an upcoming illustrated book Leviathan from Scott Westerfeld and I.

The Entente powers in this alternate history have made such massive inroads with Darwin's discoveries that they now structure their whole societies on genetically modified animals custom bred for specific applications.

These are Lupine Tigeresques, being used by the Navy to pull an armoured carriage for an inspection.

This is a Huxley Ascender, a jellyfish creature used for recon and signaling by the Royal Air Navy.


In contrast, the Central powers have raced down a heavy industrial path and use huge walking mechs to square off against these creatures in WWI. Here's a trailer for it:

Comments

[devin platts]

holy shit dude! that looks really cool!!!

really loved the video ahah ;)

[William B. Hand]

:)

A-Ha!

[Brynn Metheney]

Awesome work! I'm loving this book project! The video was great, I've never seen a trailer for a book before...

[conceptships]

So nice! Loving the motion graphic work in the trailer.

[Jim Pavelec]

I've always loved your drawing Keith, and they just keep getting better. The composition, perspective, design, and everything on the Ascender piece kicks ass.

[Melody Lu]

AhhhH! I just read the entire book in one night, and your illustrations just made my month. Got me back on the computer painting, too. You packed the most amazing composition into all of them, and the costume detail blew my mind! I heard about the book from a talk Scott just gave in Menlo Park, and my jaw fell off when he popped your drawings up there. AMAZING.

Did working in such a tight vertical frame (I love where you bust the edges on most of the compositions) ever get frustrating?

Some of the scenes seem like they'd be impossible to not draw as full wide-screen ratio (i.e. a giant hydrogen whale, crashed on a glacier), but you made it work beautifully anyhow. Did that take a lot of drafts, or just come easily? I'm trying to do a bunch of illustrations in a similar style for my friend's novel, and the vertical format is kicking my butt.

I can't wait to see the next 3 books! This sounds stupid, but you're my hero.