I've always enjoyed drawing and painting. However drawing dragons is still very new to me. This is because I used to fret drawing anything fantastical. I love fantasy so much that messing up somehow felt unnacceptable, so I didn't really try. I only dared to copy art that I found online, including dragons. I was good at painting still life and from photos, but visualizing something from scratch in my head was too hard.
Original contest post by @anomadsoul is here:
@anomadsoul/contest-my-2018-this-is-my-hobby-or-100-sbd-in-prizes
Things started to change in my junior year highschool. I took IB art course, where I had to explore my passions and inspirations and create new art out of it. However, my work was very simplistic and I mostly did crafts based on some cool things I saw online.
In my senior year I was introduced self help and psychology books, which simply put, changed me and the way I think. I finally started to feel confidence and understanding for myself and others. I was always too critical of myself to the point of creating unneccessary anxiety daily. I'd push my limits on everything, even if those things didn't interest me at all. Moreover I discovered various forms of meditation, but I didn't try them out till much later.
On my 18th birthday I received a digital drawing tablet, which opened infinite opportunities for me. I could try new things, styles and experiment without wasting materials.
Then I discovered Feng Zhu and his Design Cinema youtube channel with free tutorials. 6 years later I still get extremely hyped up when the newest episode is releasted. He doesn't teach drawing fundamentals, rather everything useful and interesting about concept art, game and movie industry. He also explains very well how to use nature for reference to create something completely new. I never really considered this method before.
Afterwards, I finally understood that even the best art can start with a messy and unappealing stage. It's all about improving, pushing personal limits, learning with understanding and putting enough time into the work. A less experienced artist can achieve the quality of those superior, by investing more time into 1 piece of artwork. It could be 5x or even 20x more hours invested than someone with more experience, but it's the effort and willingness to learn everything relevant.
Drawing is more fun for me than ever before and I've had the awesome oppotrunities to apply everything I've learned in my art. Especially my dragon drawings, as without all of my previous experiences I don't think my dragons would look as personalized and unusual. Moreover I find it extremely fun now to experiment with new mediums that I used to avoid like color pencils and watercolors.
I've always found dragons fascinating. One of the first dragons I remember is Spyro. I used to play the game series all the time on Ps1 and Ps2 with my brother and my mother. Spyro is an adventure game where you play the well known purple dragon. You collect gems, save other dragons and beat some enemies. There are many various places to explore and discover. It never got boring and the next games would be even more fun.
The first time I got trully excited and obsessed about dragons is when I was 10 years old. I watched a Dragon mocumentary on the tv and at the time I believed it was real.
My funniest memory from that time is exclaimimg to my dad that dragons are real and that they existed. I don't remember his response, but I think it was neutral, neither denial nor confirmation. I remember sharing this with friends as well. I don't know how long this belief lasted, but it was for longer than a week. The reality slowly creeped in once I realized if dragons were proved to be real that everyone would be talking about it.
Once I learned English better in middle school I started reading a variety of fantasy books. I really enjoyed Eragon books by Christpher Paolini, but I still haven't finished the series. I definitely plan to finish it as back then I had a lot of trouble understanding books and English in general. It's a pleasure to reread my favorite books, as there are many details that I missed as a kid, so it's almost like reading the books for the first time.
One of my favorite dragons of all time is Spit Fyre from Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage. I fell in love with the first book as soon as I saw the covers. The series has the most creative covers that I've seen so fat. The whole story is full of surprises. Moreover, you get to experience the whole process of raising a dragon, from hatching from an egg to it growing to a mature adult dragon. It's much more believable and fun than in the Eragon series.
The last series I must mention is the How to train your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. I first saw the movie and Toothless is just too adorable to resist. I love it so much that I sculpted it together with my youngest sister. I was happy to find out that the movie is based on an awesome book series which is filled with dragon drawings.
In 2016 I came across a fascinating Design 100 somethings challenge by James Parker. He pushed himself to draw over a 100 robots, all different and unique. I decided to try it out and it took me a while to decide on the core theme. My first idea was dragons, but I felt that it might be too generic or that my work wouldn't compare to the milions of awesome dragons online. I considered many themes as you can see below.
In the end I decided to go with my gut. To do what I really want and if it didn't turn out well, no one would know. The first dragon I drew is probably the most generic western dragon you know. I realized it at the time and added long whiskers, the first step in the right direction. The whole first series of dragons I did in my tiny A6 size sketchbook, because having to finish smaller drawing made me feel more confident to experiment.
After the first 50ish dragons I discovered Steemit. I was flooded with postive comments and feedback for the dragons, so I felt even more motivated to push my comfort zone. I started experimenting much more, entering contests and even made my own first Dragon Art contest. The entries were awesome and all very unique. It's great to see the artist in their work and it's much more fun than generic art which only looks cool.
I plan to continue making many more dragons and having fun. However, lately I'm also trying to learn and improve my art skills by drawing things other than dragons. This is because everything is related in art and for example studying birds and bats can be extremely helpful for drawing dragons.
Finally, I'm also trying to share a bit of what I learn and my experience. For those who enjoy drawing, please check out my newest drawing tutorial contest. The goal isn't beautiful art, but rather to have fun and improve your drawing skills.
For those who enjoy crafts and origami I also recommend checking out my brother's first contest.
Thank you so much for reading!
I'm also still doing "daily" dragon doodles and I'll probably expand the theme to simply daily dragons, because I really want to try a few other things like Voxel art. Go check out @overkillcoin and @fabiyamada to see what I mean.
Have a great day!