Perseverance Pays Off

Drago & Chloe

creating a realistic dragon

Continuing on from my last blog entry, I've been determined to create an authentic 

looking dragon for my artwork.  I spent almost a week creating this piece and am super happy with the end result. 

I wanted to create a dragon that I can call purely my own. I didn't want to use someone else's already made dragons for my art. After my last attempt of creating a dragon, I decided I needed to start slow with just a dragon head and work my way 

to a full scale dragon so I don't overwhelm myself. 

Creating a realistic dragon without a drawing, clay model, or already made creature is no easy task. 

Drago was made up piece by piece, scale to scale by hundreds of layers of photos to create one image.  

I have my very amazing model Drake, the bearded dragon to thank for the form of Drago. In case you we're wondering Drago is actually named after Drake not the hot ass guy on Game of Thrones.

Drake lives next door and has the best personality! He loved having his first photo shoot. He was curious about the lens and the beeps the camera made cocking his head side to side questioning what this odd device was.  Thanks buddy for all your help you're a natural!

 

There we're many phases of Drago to create the final image. 

Like I said I had to first create a dragon head. I started with a horrible sketched drawing I did myself and built on top of it. Adding layer to layer, detail to detail to finally get a final solid dragon head. I knew once Drago was moved  into the actual photo I wanted to create I could work on his lighting and shading so I didn't worry about that just yet. 

Here's Drago's original state.

Next it was time to have a photoshoot with my next amazing model Chloe. I told her my vision and to  pretend her dragon was her friend that she's worried about getting hurt. She did great.

After our shoot and placing her in the pic with Drago I realized 

Drago's mouth shouldn't be open. He looked like he was going to bite her hand off! 

Plus I wanted to show a soft relationship between the two.

So back to the drawing board I went! Now I'd have to reconstruct Drago's mouth to make him look less hungry.  After another hour or so this is what he looked like...

Now with my two models fitting together,  I can finally try and create my art piece! 

Here is the first cut of Drago & Chloe. To me and others he still looked so fake. I wanted the feel of a realistic dragon not a cut out storybook character. The lighting and shading was just off!

I often ask my son for his advice, as he's an amazing artist himself, and knows so much about shading and lighting. Frustrated I asked him what the heck am I missing? He said, "I'm guessing the dragon is not supposed to be realistic so that's fine." and then went into the need of shadows under Chloe etc. 

WAIT! Did he say not supposed to look realistic?!! No! It needs to look realistic that's the point! I told him this and he emphasized  on shadows adding dimension, and creating a 3D look. That's it!! 

I felt like a damn fool. I knew better than that but sometimes when your brain is so overworked it's hard to see what's so easily needed.  I went to bed to refresh and hit the computer first thing the next morning. 

After another full morning I finally got it! Well sort of! 

Now I know I'm nit picking but I think it could still use some highlights which is exactly what my son told me as well. See if you can tell what was changed  to create the final piece below.

Well after all is said and done I gotta say I'm definitely happy with the final outcome. I see many dragons making their debut in the near future but for now I'm gonna just love Drago for a bit and think about how to give this guy a body. 

Thanks for reading along! Till next time, 

Amber