FARP : Drawing Dragons

By Hannah J. Spute (Ahkahna_Dragon@hotmail.com).

The first lesson you will learn is how to draw your dragony critters. Try not to get frustrated! It's fun, and it just might help you to better understand how to flesh out what's in your head. If you get stressed, stop for a while and come back to it. While working on your dragon, use pencil and sketch the areas out lightly (so if you make a mistake, you can easily erase it). Don't worry about starting over, it happens. Just take your time and don't worry! :}

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1. First are your basic lines and shapes. Dragon heads can be any odd shape, mine tend to be rhombus like (rectangular with one end much thinner, almost triangular). The back of the skull should be rounded. Draw out the general body shape, ovals, rectangles, etc.

2. Second are the legs and wings. As with any imaginary creature, the legs can be any length, as can be the wings. Feel free to adjust your critters proportions! Remember, lines and general shapes!!

3. Third are the horns and eyes. Although you don't need them, most

people consider dragones to have spines, fins, horns, snarlies (or in my case, manes), whatever tickles their fancy.

4. Lets give this guy some muscle! I've drawn out the general placement of where muscles should be, beefed him up a bit.

5. Lets not forget his legs and wings! I like my dragons muscular yet lithe, others like them pumped up, everyone's different ;)

6. Fingers and Toes, fingers and toes, wing fingers and footsie toes. Most of my dragons are equipped with 5 digits (fingers/toes) on each hand, foot, or wing. Yours of course, may vary.

7. This next part is tracing over the most important areas of your critter. Don't worry about detail yet, that comes later. For now, just follow the line concepts like I have done, try and keep it simple. If you mess up, just erase and go over it again. If you have trouble with the toes, don't worry, it takes some getting used to! Trust me :)

8. Now we're adding a few simple areas of detail around the body, areas of tension, folds, giving character to the face and body.

9. Okay. Now we'll get into a bit of a harder situation. But first, take a break. Go get a sprite, some tea, or something to eat, go outside, something relaxing. When you come back, take a nice stretch and a few happy breaths. If you must copy the same scale structure I have, please do. I don't want you to get frustrated. Follow the direction the scales go on the body and see the differences in scale size and shape. Try and figure out the purpose of these things.

10. Stressed or frustrated yet? Don't worry, just take another breather and break for a while. It's healthy, get's your blood flowing. This is the cleaned up image. You may clean your artwork by inking it, or by erasing un-needed pencil lines. Again, if you erase a part of it, just look at the picture :} That's what it's there for! Once you've inked it, erase the pencil, and viola! You can stop here, or you can go onto shading.

11. Easy as pie on Christmas. Shading is wonderful and simple.

12. Step two of shading, darken areas farthest away from your light source, are under a flap of skin, body part, etc.

Well, that's it for your Drawing Tutorial. I hope you didn't rip your hair out or have too hard of a time. It's not an easy thing to do the first round, but over time you'll learn. One WONDERFUL suggestion would be to draw some still lifes before doing idea or concept sketches. Drawing from life helps you work not only with your eyes but also with your imaginative eye. You'll be able to flesh out your characters better. Feel free to show me your artwork!E-mail me at: Ahkahna @ SummerDragoness . Com

If you are considering color, go to the next page! :)

FARP : Coloring Your Dragon

By Hannah J. Spute (Ahkahna_Dragon@hotmail.com).

So you've already drawn your dragon, and you are pretty happy with it's outcome. Here's a photoshop coloring tutorial for your dragony critters. Again, try not to get frustrated! It's all in fun, and it just might help you to better understand how to flesh out what's in your imagination. If you get stressed, stop for a while and come back to it. While working on your dragon, save it as different files (so if you make a mistake, you can rework them). Don't worry about starting over, it happens. Just take your time and don't worry! :}

Working with your layers: once you've scanned in or drawn your dragon, clean it up first by using the Level tool, and then Brightness and Contrast. Duplicate the image and delete the old one off of the layers list. Rename your new duplicate, "Line Work," to prevent you from going, "oops!" Make sure this layer stays at the top of your list. Set it to Multiply.

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1. First is your base color. I chose blue, blue is my favorite color. I used the pencil tool at 100% opacity and didn't realy worry about making a mess. Since photoshop is awesome, it's easy to erase your mistakes. Intentional or not :) For this, I only used one transparent layer. Name this layer, "Base Color."

2. Next I cleaned up the outside lines and messes I made. I like to keep it crisp.

3. Because I am a lazy fool, I chose to use the burn tool for shading. When doing this, keep the pressure to a minimum and work your way up. The lower it is, the easier it is to manage. Also, I tend to work using midtones first, then shadow or highlight.

4. More Shading.

5. Now, use the Dodge tool for highlighting. Same as before, lowest pressure to highest. Midtones, Highlight and Shadows.

6. Here you can add finishing touches! If you feel something isn't dark enough or light enough, fix it. I added some areas of shine on the scales and more transparency to the wing membrane.

Well, that's it for your Tutorial. I hope everything I have here helped! It's not an easy thing to do the first round, but over time you'll learn.

Another WONDERFUL suggestion would be to draw some still lifes before doing idea or concept sketches, but only with color rather than graphite pencil. Drawing from life helps you work not only with your eyes but also with your imaginative eye. You'll be able to flesh out your characters better. Again, feel free to show me what you've done!

Comment board for this FARP artic

ice tutorial--the first one I've seen about

Drawing DragonsColoring Your Dragon