I’ve been absolutely buried with moving all week, and I haven’t had the time to scan and post the growing stack of dragons on my desk. At this stage in the game, it’ll have to wait until Monday-ish as I’ve got to dismantle my workstation and move it this weekend, among other important end-stage items.
On the up side, progress continues apace and I should be current again early next week. Thanks for your patience!
Also, remember that you can follow me on Twitter if you want links to new updates as they come out. Hint, hint.
One of the things I’m noticing is that I’ve had a very strong tendency to draw these dragons in a limited array of poses. On thinking about it, this probably stems from a couple of factors: I’m drawing a new type each time, so there’s a desire to show them in a fair amount of detail and not obscure anatomy with perspective or pose; I’m working in a limited time frame and skimping on drawing the backgrounds, which limits my options for poses as there’s no environment for the subject to interact with; and that my illustrations tend a little toward being diagrammatic unless I really focus on making them dynamic.
The first factor is the hardest for me, as I need to let go of the need to fill in detail and be explicit with the character designs. I need to let go of the notion that I’m designing characters, and just focus on the illustration’s intrinsic qualities. These aren’t diagrams, after all.
The third point is related to the first, and I think that dealing with it is part and parcel – I just need to let go and get a little more out there with my composition, and maybe think about it deliberately in those terms before I start drawing.
That second thing, though…maybe I should try some background-centric illustrations where the dragon is the afterthought rather than the focus? Something to consider, at least.
Another marker drawing done while out and about – my schedule until I’m done moving is gonna be hectic at best, and I’m finding that I just haven’t got the time right now to sit down with watercolors or a dip pen and ink to work.
If it seems like I’m on a kick of pencil and marker sketches lately, that’s why.
He curtseys and bows
Then folds his wings
Ever so politely.
He lifts his brows
Then oh, he sings
‘Til you pass on quietly.
Koi Lóng – literally, dragon carp, in pidgin Japanese.
The Japanese get their dragon mythology in large part from the Chinese, who (I’ve heard) believe that a dragon passes through several distinct ontogenic stages in a kind of epic metamorphosis from eel-like creature to full dragonhood and a life in the Celestial Bureaucracy.
In China, there lives also the world’s largest salamander, and it was with this creature as well as dragons and koi in mind that I began my rendering. I’m happy with the creature design, but there are some funky things going on with my perspective in this sketch, and it would benefit greatly from a proper background to show environment and to make it more clear that the thing’s partially submerged and clinging to a rock shelf beneath the surface.
So, yeah, this month’s schedule will in fact be a little odd. I’ve got a stack of updates to scan and post, and I’m gonna try and get them all caught up tomorrow after work. After that I may go to a once-a-week update schedule if things get crazy, and drop back to daily updates in August once I’m all moved and the dust has settled.
In the meantime I am in desperate, desperate need of sleep, so I’m going to beg off scanning and posting the five updates on my desk until tomorrow.
A lithe tracking animal and pack predator, the carrhax is flightless once it reaches adulthood. The bladelike projections on its head and neck are delicate and purely ornamental, and its bite is weak; carrhaxi rely exclusively on their long talons and powerful limbs to bring down prey.
Carrhaxi are known to be adept trackers, capable of trailing prey for days on end before closing in for the kill. They are difficult to tame, although it is said to be possible if one can raise a hatchling from the egg. For this reason, carrhax eggs fetch a high price on the open market.
This one’s another on my growing list of must-color dragons, mainly because my mental image of this guy is cel-shaded in red. He’s somewhere in the Venn diagram overlap between Dino and the Welsh red.
In other news, happy Drunk-Americans-Blowing-Stuff-Up-Yet-Again Day!
