Dragons may just live in our imagination, but that also makes them limitless.
The reason I drew only heads this time is to ease into trying out new moods and different styles. As just from the head you can sort of imagine whether the dragon is mysterious, cute, or simply cool. The body is probably the more difficult part to draw and I have to do more practice. I can easily do more basic dragon bodies, but it’s much more fun to explore new possibilities. For which I plan to do some animal anatomy research and studies, to make it feel more real. Moreover, I’ve found that there are still many real animals that I’ve never known they existed at all. An simple example is: Sunda Colugo.
You can open each image in a new tab to zoom in for clearer details.
All of the drawings in this post were create by me.
Ⓒ Kristyglas
Page 1 Regular Dragons
Concept Art
The art form of drawing multiple variations of one object/theme is called Concept Art. Not every idea is going to be used, rather many variations helps to arrive at the best option. It's recommended to mark each drawing with a letter or a number just as I did in these drawings. This way it's much easier to ask for opinion and feedback.
Page 2
Drawing Process
I didn’t worry much about the pencil sketches, I simply picked my A5 size sketchbook and got started. I let myself relax and scribble around, and I finished several dragons before the inking process. The first few dragons are very regular, but a warm up is great to get more comfortable. The only thing I watched out for was to use a circle when starting a head, from which I more easily build the rest of the shapes.
Page 3
For inking I first used the 0.1 pigment ink pen and drew all of the heads on the page. Afterwards I used a 0.4 pen to thicken some lines, mostly in the shadows. Lastly I used alcohol based shading grey marker to add final mild shadow. This is my standard process that I use for hand drawings.
Page 2 Aviary and Aquatic Influence
Inspirations
For the first page I drew mostly lizard and snake like dragons, very common and simple. A few of the drawings move away from the norm, but they still fit right in.
On the second page I already started using more varied shapes and elements, inspired by different animals. I used several avian and aquatic features, to make the dragons more unique. Dragon No 22 is my favorite from that page. It was a happy accident, that would probably never have occurred if I had not tried various heads. It almost looks alien with its point nose and feelers. I also really liked the beady eyes that I afterwards tried on several other dragons.
Page 3 More Unusual
MSP Radio
I finished the first half of this page while listening to @crimsonclad 's metal radio on PAL net Discord. It was extremely fun and definitely recommend to those who enjoy metal and hard rock music.
My Favorite Dragons
Dragon No 28 is so far my favorite for the dragon heads series . It's very mysterious, and it's head has an uncanny resemblance to the plague mask. I left the head clear, to give it almost hard porcelain feel. Certainly plan to use it in my future art and to try even more variations of it.
I picked four of my favorites and decided to give them names and backstories to make them much more personal.
Amaries (18)- A dragon of love, because it's most commonly seen on Valentines Day. They make purring noises to attract mates.
Ralienigen (22)- It's origin is unknown, however it's favorite hibernation place is in the pyramids. It has a chameleon like ability to blend in with the surroundings. It's favorite food is scarabs.
Equiam (30)- A sea dragon. It's very friendly to humans, especially to sailors who feed it bread and fish. It has been known to save a few of it's favorite sailors during shipwrecks.
Arcunpia (28)- A mystery. Only those close to death can see it. Those who are touched by it, always survive what would have been most definite death. Once you see it, you gain the ability to see them forever.
Page 4 Cuties?
Experimenting
Many of the dragons aren't that appealing, but they are an important part of the bigger creative process. A single unique dragon is worth the whole page of discarded ones. I will be making more of these in the future, but I might try something different for a change meanwhile.
Thank you everyone for the warm support past few days, already feeling better. 💕
Which is your favorite dragon(s)?
I'll give it name and description if it doesn't have it -