The following drawing is my first entry for the Artists Challenge on LeoFinance Zealy's Choose Your Own Adventure Campaign.
Leo the Dragon Slayer is the illustration I drew using ibisPaint for the Rookie Challenge "Slay the Dragon."
- Imgur Link: Here!
My Process
1st Step - Concept
Right after I saw the Artist challenge on Zealy's website I had this idea in my mind of a Lion-faced knight fighting a Dragon. I drew the concept art for the idea right away.
Note: This was on the same day I drew my practice piece for this challenge: @ahmadmanga/what-s-your-opinion-on-leofinance-s-zealy-campaign-
Check ibisPaint's Interface in this screenshot:
2nd Step - Sketching
When I started to draw, I decided to change the knight to an actual lion. I started sketching the dragon and the lion. I call him Leo, by the way.
The way I do digital art is to draw multiple rough sketches on top of each other. Once I finish a layer, I tune down its opacity and draw the "better" version on a new layer! Until I get a cleaner image, (In this case I did it two times,) then I move up to the Inking stage.
3rd Step - Inking
In this stage, I use the Pen tool to draw the outlines. (I use the Soft Pen tool on ibisPaint.)
Sometime in this step, I realized my habit of not naming layer was in effect, which isn't good if I'm going to screenshot my whole process for you guys.
Leo looks cool, right?
At this point, I haven't started with the background yet. I had two ideas for the battle's location. One of them is to have mountains in the background, I chose the other idea...
4th Step - Treasures
I chose the setting to be inside a Cave. I drew the background and add colors to it but I ended up with too much blank space so I added Treasure Boxes too.
By the way, I wrote and drew a short series called I'm a Treasure Box in the Final Boss Floor. The series has a similar scene to this with its own Dragon. Read here: @ahmadmanga/i-m-a-treasure-box
The way I color monochrome images is to use only Black, and make a separate layer for each gradient of it. Manipulating the value of the color only through layers opacity levels. This doesn't really work on complicated images, but my art is simple.
5th Step - Golden Lion
The next step would've been adding white outlines to the Lion and the Dragon to make it easier on the eye. I got a better idea though: Make the outlines Gold, and add Golden Sparks to the Treasures in the Cave.
If Leo wins. When Leo wins, he'll have huge amounts of loot. This fits the #LeoFinance community much better, don't you think?
6th Step - Golden Roar
I considered the illustration done with the previous step, but I realized I could fill the extra space with Comic sound effects. Leo's would be "Grrrrrr" and the Dragon's would be "Drrrrr." I wanted it to feel like a Pun but I'm not sure.
So this Final step was unintended but made the drawing that much better, I'm proud of the results:
Here you go!
That concludes my drawing process for "Leo the Dragon Slayer" art piece. This was my entry to the Artists Challenge on LeoFinance Zealy's CYOA Campaign.
At the time of this post, I'm enjoying using Leothreads, and even though I'm late to the party, I'm excited to see what other challenges and events are there on this platform.
What do you think?
Please provide me with any feedback, whether it's about my art. Formatting, or even my attitude, don't be afraid to hurt my feelings if you must. (Of course, I'd love it if you were nice about it.) I know criticism will help me grow.
If you enjoyed reading this, you'll probably love my parody story "I'm a Treasure Box in the Final Boss' Floor." You might also find a story you'll enjoy in my "Where to Start?" List.
For now, I hope to meet you again in another post. (إن شاء الله)
Thanks for reading
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