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Workshop

Enemy Creature Design for Games: FLESH-TEK — Vol. 1

A Workshop
by J.P. Targete

Photoshop Concept Design Techniques With J.P. Targete

intermediate
4h 7m 36s
6 Lessons
A Workshop
by J.P. Targete
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When it comes to designing an enemy boss character for a game, where do you begin? For J.P. Targete, the answers lie in the process itself. In this 4-hour workshop, J.P. explores, discusses, and demonstrates how to design an enemy/boss creature design, from ideation sketch through to the finished concept design using Photoshop.


In FLESH-TEK — Vol. 1, you will learn all the essential elements of design that you need to know to move forward with your preliminary ideations through to a final colored 2D concept. Throughout this workshop, you’ll discover J.P.'s thought process and see how he iterates from one idea to the next to create variants of a design. You will also develop some easy-to-follow Photoshop techniques that J.P. has been using throughout the years to great success.


J.P. is a highly accomplished freelance concept artist and illustrator with 25 years of experience creating illustrations and concepts for the publishing and entertainment industries. In this thorough workshop, he intentionally uses simple-yet-key descriptions throughout to make his process accessible to all levels of artists. The workshop is aimed at artists with some prior working knowledge of Photoshop, and standard drawing and digital painting skills are expected. 


Project files supplied with this workshop include J.P.’s ideation design and final concept design Photoshop files for your reference. 


Coming Soon:
In FLESH-TEK — Vol. 2, J.P. will take the completed 2D enemy boss concept design and create a fully painted 3D sculpt in 3D-Coat. The forthcoming workshop will walk through all of the key tools that 3D-Coat offers, and discusses how beneficial and powerful they can be to add realism and depth to your designs.

6 Lessons

01Initial Rough Ideations in Photoshop — Part 1Free

In this workshop, J.P. Targete emphasizes that effective concept design begins with clear creative briefs and exploration through volume. The approach stresses that even rough sketches should communicate gameplay mechanics, scale, and character personality through strong silhouettes and thoughtful details. By combining traditional drawing fundamentals with digital workflows, and allowing designs to evolve organically, artists can create compelling, original creature designs that tell visual stories while meeting gameplay requirements.

Duration: 41m 29s

Initial Rough Ideations in Photoshop — Part 1
02Initial Rough Ideations in Photoshop — Part 2

This lesson reveals that successful concept art emerges from combining technical proficiency with imaginative storytelling. Concept artists must constantly question design choices and push for originality within familiar frameworks. By maintaining focus on strong silhouettes, narrative details, and continuously refining a design, artists can create compelling characters that stand out in competitive environments while serving the needs of games, films, or other media projects.

Duration: 42m 2s

Initial Rough Ideations in Photoshop — Part 2
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03Ideations Embellishment in Photoshop

This lesson sets out a technique of embellishment that prioritizes clarity in concept art development, enabling artists to produce multiple polished ideations quickly. By working non-destructively with minimal layers and establishing light sources early, artists can create presentation-ready thumbnails that clearly communicate design intent to clients and art directors.

Duration: 43m 13s

Ideations Embellishment in Photoshop
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04Final Design: Final Drawing in Photoshop

This lesson demonstrates that effective concept art extends beyond creating visually appealing images. By maintaining clear line work, proper proportions, consistent style, and detail placement, artists can create a blueprint that serves modelers, animators, and designers simultaneously.

Duration: 36m 18s

Final Design: Final Drawing in Photoshop
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05Final Design: Black/White Tonal Render in Photoshop

This lesson demonstrates why black-and-white rendering provides a critical foundation for the final character design. By separating the concerns of form, value, and lighting from color decisions, artists can create a solid structural base with a strong visual hierarchy that will make coloring straightforward, and ensure that the character reads clearly. Blending organic flesh with mechanical components, combined with details like animated skulls and multiple weapon systems, results in a menacing and unique creature design ready for final coloring.

Duration: 48m 43s

Final Design: Black/White Tonal Render in Photoshop
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06Final Design: Color Painting in Photoshop

The final lesson in the workshop demonstrates how establishing solid grayscale values first enables artists to focus on color and mood without compromising clarity. The atmospheric final piece provides 3D modelers, sculptors, and texture artists with all the information they need, while stakeholders receive an engaging, context-rich presentation of the character design.

Duration: 35m 51s

Final Design: Color Painting in Photoshop
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Primary tools

For this workshop you’ll need:

Photoshop

* Note that these programs and materials will not be supplied with the course.

Project Files

This workshop gives artists access to J.P. Targete's project files, which include complete concept designs exploring futuristic Flesh-tech aesthetics. Inside, you'll find:


  • Layered PSD files – Editable Photoshop documents showing the full design process from rough ideations to final concepts
    - Reference images - High-quality JPG versions of the key design iterations for easy viewing and inspiration
    - Process documentation - Step-by-step files showing how the designs evolved from initial sketches to polished concepts
  • The instructor has provided these project files to make it easier to follow along with the workshop or jump to specific techniques artists want to study.

Skills Covered

Who’s this Workshop for?

This workshop is designed for concept artists and digital illustrators with intermediate Photoshop skills who want to specialize in creature design for games. Artists with standard drawing abilities and digital painting experience will find J.P.'s teaching style perfect for advancing their character design skills.


Game developers, entertainment industry professionals, and freelance artists looking to expand their creature design portfolio will greatly benefit from this comprehensive approach. The workshop's focus on iterative design processes and Photoshop techniques makes it valuable for anyone seeking to create compelling enemy creatures for interactive media.

Learning Outcomes

On completing this workshop, artists will have developed a complete workflow for designing compelling enemy creatures from initial concept through to final rendered design.


Key skills include:

  • How to approach initial ideation and sketching phases for creature character development.
  • How to iterate effectively between design variants while maintaining core visual concepts.
  • How to apply proven Photoshop techniques for professional-quality concept art creation.
  • How to develop strong design fundamentals that translate from sketch to polished artwork.
  • How to think strategically about enemy character design within game development contexts.
  • How to organize and structure digital files for professional concept art production workflows.
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Workshop
Enemy Creature Design for Games: FLESH-TEK — Vol. 1
Photoshop Concept Design Techniques With J.P. Targete
A Workshop by J.P. TargeteFreelance Concept Artist and Illustrator.
intermediate
4h 07m
6 Lessons
Instructor J.P. TargeteFreelance Concept Artist and Illustrator.

J. P. Targete is an accomplished digital and traditional illustrator and concept artist, creating art for books, video games, and more. His career began at the age of 20, illustrating book covers for Avon Books. He soon gained recognition illustrating sci-fi and fantasy covers for publishers including Ace Books and Warner Books, which led to creating artwork for over 300 book covers.


More recently, J.P. has created Magic: The Gathering cards for Wizards of the Coast and collaborated with numerous role-playing game companies. After many years in publishing, he joined NCSOFT, where he became Art Director and worked on creature and environment design for games such as Tabula Rasa and Aion.


Today, J.P. works as a freelance artist for publishers and video game companies while developing a full-color graphic novel. His specialties include concept art, creature and costume design, art direction, visual creative consultation, marketing illustration, and dynamic visual storytelling. His client list includes Marvel Entertainment, Warner Bros., Disney, Pixar, Sega, Blizzard Entertainment and Radical Comics, among many others.

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  • In the last two years, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to join the Valkyrx Gaming team as a digital sculptor. The main focus at the beginning was to convert into miniatures some of the best fantasy concepts and illustrations that J.P. Targete made for Days of the Valkyrx. Following J.P.’s artworks, I’ve had the pleasure to sculpt multiple poses and variations of dwarves, orcs, goblins, elves, giants, and many other brutal creatures that are fighting in this epic fantasy wargame!

    - Francesco Orru
    Digital Sculptor at IDW Publishing

  • As a Concept Artist, J.P. has the unique ability to balance character, atmosphere, and scenery into a single dramatic piece with ease. His work is always abundantly rich with story.

    - Stephen Cunnane
    Previs Supervisor at Digital Domain

  • Ever since I saw J.P.'s artwork on the Magic: The Gathering cards, I was hooked on his style and loved what came out of his fantastical imagination. I was even more impressed to find out that a lot of his work is created traditionally.

    - Gino Acevedo
    Gino Acevedo, Creative Art Director at Weta Digital

  • J.P. is one of the most inspirational and creative artists I have ever had the pleasure of knowing: if I could only tap into 1/10th of that creative stream of thinking!

    - Ron Lemen
    Freelance Course Instructor at TAG - The Artists Guild of Hollywood

  • Ever since I saw J.P.'s artwork on the Magic: The Gathering cards, I was hooked on his style and loved what came out of his fantastical imagination. I was even more impressed to find out that a lot of his work is created traditionally.

    - Gino Acevedo
    Creative Art Director Wētā Digital Art Dept. at Wētā FX

  • In the last two years, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to join the Valkyrx Gaming team as a digital sculptor. The main focus at the beginning was to convert into miniatures some of the best fantasy concepts and illustrations that J.P. Targete made for Days of the Valkyrx. Following J.P.’s artworks, I’ve had the pleasure to sculpt multiple poses and variations of dwarves, orcs, goblins, elves, giants, and many other creatures that are fighting in this epic fantasy wargame!

    - Francesco Orrù
    Freelance Digital Sculptor

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