Some cute dragons for the Digital Art Contest by . The theme is fantasy.
I decided to finish 3 of my favorite designs for the contest, so that I have more time to work on each one, instead of rushing through many.
The Before
I decided to color one of the dragons to see what direction I want to take the rest of them.
The Close-up
The "Failed" Dragon
You may know from my previous post that I had a frustrating time with another dragon.
After around 3 hours of sketching I was so frustrated with no progress, I decided to give up. Luckily I tried one more time from a fresh start. After the first quick sketch I had the motivation to make many more.
The Process
I used mostly same process for all 3 dragons. The process is relatively simple: base color, shadow, light and texture. However, I spent a lot of time on cleaning up the outlines and experimenting with textures.
When I draw organic designs I use many circles, to create a basic construction. That way I can also concentrate on the overall flow using many curving lines.
Usually after I am done with the first sketch, I lower the layer's opacity and work on cleaning up the design on a new layer.
Before cleaning up the outline, I decided where the light is coming from: often from the direction where the head is facing. This is important, because thicker line in the shadow areas makes the design more solid.
Some Variations
Layer adjustments are really fun as they are the fastest way to see a design in a "different light".
Thank you for reading! What is your favorite dragon?
Thank you again everyone for helping me reach 100 followers!