*chuckle* Okay, okay. The following is how I go about drawing dragons and all those wonderful scales. Fun!
(sketch)
The first thing I do is tape down a piece of transparent vellum paper onto my high-tech drawing board. Well, okay, it's an old kitchen cabinet door upon which I've taped down a piece of white paper topped with a sheet of acrylic. You see, I always draw either on the couch or in my lazyboy chair. Sitting at a table to draw gives me pains in my back and neck. Whatever works, right? I use transparent vellum so that I can easily flip the page over to check my proportions as I go. Okay, so here's a picture of my first sketch. You'll notice that the sketch is a mirror image of the final.
(transfer)
When I have worked out the line drawing, I then transfer it to the final paper. My favorite papers are those that are fiber enhanced like Strathmore Artagain but I also like Stonehenge for some things. 99% of the time I use a toned paper. White scares me and is difficult with my transfer technique. Anyway, I simply flip the vellum paper over and burnish over the sketch with a popcicle stick. Don't laugh, okay? *winks* I've been doing it this way for years and see no reason to change.
(color)
Okay, now things start getting fun. I always color in the basic background first. Before I do so, I decide on my overall color scheme. It's then just a matter of laying down layer after layer until things start to look like something interesting. I don't worry about completely finishing the background yet as long as the basework is done.
After I have the background worked out, I then take a white Prismacolor and lightly define the light part of each scale. I'm careful to avoid drawing over the graphite lines because doing so would seal in the graphite. Once I have that done, the scales are safe from being lost and I take a kneaded eraser and carefully tap out the graphite. The graphite comes up easily and there are no embossed lines unless I put them in on purpose.
To color the dragon, it's layers, layers, layers, layers. For the first layer, I gently cover the whole dragon with his base colors. Important: I go right over the white. There's no need to color in each scale individually at first. I gradually darken my darks and put in my highlights. Subtle shifts in color along the dragon's body are easy with this method. As I get down to the final layers, I go over some individual scales for emphasis. The eyes go in right before I put in my final highlights and shadows over the entire drawing.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed seeing a bit of how I work.
Linear Mode
