Tortle Anatomy Studies

Here are studies of the process in which I drew Sincarf, the blind, elderly Tortle commission I did last year.
In truth, my actual sketches were much rougher and simpler, but I decided to clean them up for upload as I want to post more of my process sketches.

First, I sketched some rough shapes to establish some possible initial directions for Tortle anatomy.
The character was an elderly spellcaster archetype and I went with a sort of triangular, bottom-heavy one more resembling long-necked tortoise that didn't really use his arms to hold weapons.

To be honest, I spent very little time on that part as I knew the character was Elderly, and I immediately knew I wanted to make this slow, massive creature that grew to such a size that it would barely be able to carry itself. But I still wanted to imagine what it would have looked like when it was young. I mostly just sketched rough shapes in my actual process, but I re-sketched them for upload.

The tricky part was its clothing, considering its shell was supposed to be exposed. Ultimately I went with a simple robe that was slit at the back and tied with a sash. Even if it wasn't visible in the final illustration, I try to make every piece of each of my characters clothing is realistically applicable.

After that was adding all the junk on his shell, which was part of the client's description. This was a collaborative commission, and my co-artist @artofbka8 was responsible for the rendering.