When starting to draw your monsters and demons, you can do a little exercise called drafting, this is simply a process where you begin to sketch loosely without having a clear idea what you are drawing in the first place, this may sound like kind of vague, but it produces some good results, try it out!!!

Once you have formed some ideas and rough sketches you can then proceed to lay out your art in your own style and exactly how you want it.

Start to draw the rough shape of the head like in diagram One.

Next you can add some spark to your drawings and made up demonic monster characters by adding over exaggerated features such as huge spiky teethed evil grins and over the top cheek bones etc.(usually like a skull.)

The more you draw this kind of stuff, then the more experienced you will become, so remember if you need reference material to start to do your first demon or monster drawings then do so, it's not really classed as cheating y'know, you are merely learning.

Try to draw different variations of monsters as they may come in handy later for use in something else, another drawing or painting or other project.

Diagram two is just an example, just try to draw from your own mind to realise your imaginative creations.

Now that you have drawn the heads or more than 1 head for your creations, they need to be added to some kind of body, usually when I draw the head on a sheet of paper, I draw it in the top right hand corner, so I can then go on to design the full creature or character in the space below.

However, most artists work differently and should not be limited to someone elses way of working, do what you think is best, start everything together next time if you wish.

However, remember try to make the head and the body match or look like they would fit together as there is nothing worse than having a good head (if that sounds right!) and it looks sort of out of place on a mismatched body.

See diagram three to see what I mean.

One of the most forgotten things about creating monsters and even some characters for that matter, is that they are often made mysterious by no one adding any back story to them, this is often important only if you intend to create stories or put them in other media that require a certain level of information about the characters to add depth to the overall project.

One of the best tips I can tell you is, that you can write a brainstorming list of associated words that you think would fit well with your finished monster design, and these could be the basis of your stories.

Try not to limit your words, for instance you could add long sentence phrases to get your imagination flowing an example could be:

"dark castle shrouded in mist in the darkness"

Creating a sense of atmosphere within your drawings is important even if you have no intention of placing your character drawings in an actual story, you want to create an air of mystery and a story within your art, so that you can convey your ideas well to whoever you have to, to get your work seen or even commissioned in whatever you want to do with your art.

When you have finished your main sketches and are happy with them, it's time to refine them so that all the pencil marks become clear and more defined, this is known as inking.

Taking a good quality black ink pen and go over the lines, but there is more to this technique than simply tracing your pencil lines, you need to add shading elements such as cross hatching and other pen effects, remember the face in step 2 that I developed the demon head into the design that I was happy with, well take a look in the picture again and then take a look at the inked version and see how it becomes clearer and even more defined.

Furthermore, at the inking stage with subtle effects in the ink process you can change what surfaces and textures look like with changes in the way you apply the black ink to your drawings, these techniques can make up the clothes and accessories that your evil characters might wear, such as fur,hair and actual clothing and the folds and creases of the creatures garments.

When adding tone and definition to your drawings, always work out where the light source is coming from to determine your light and shadow and how it will fall on to your creations, doing this adds more to the idea of making it more life like, and giving it a sense of tonal value will strengthen this idea.

See how I approached the shading issue in the drawing below, see how it adds more to the black pen and ink drawing and improves upon the original concept right at the beginning.

Having an idea about the light sources and colour schemes if any, beforehand can benefit your drawings a lot more, especially if everything is planned well in advanced.

See another example of How To Draw A Demon