Dragon Front

Here is the head and shoulders of a majestic dragon. This beast was modeled on little spiky desert creatures. Dragons almost always look better when they have horns and spikes on them, and lizardlike scales. That is the "traditional" reptilian look although I will be drawing pictures of fishy and birdlike dragons as well. I have not learned to draw dragon bodies or feet or wings yet, so I will not draw an entire dragon without explicitly copying it, just yet.

My dragon and pin-up drawing program is not just for fun. I intend to get good enough to sell my work. Once upon a time I sold my work to individuals and publishers but now that I am in the digital world all the rules and strategies for commercial fantasy art have changed. If a client wants it, I can still produce a piece in "conventional" drawing or painting. I need to redouble my efforts to manage my time efficiently and sell artwork, rather than drift along as I too often do.

I wish someone would comment here so I don't feel as though I'm posting into a void. I do not do art only for myself. I want it to reach other people. I always like to know that someone other than myself is looking at it.

Dragon drawing is in Photoshop, 10" x 7", March 7, 2012.

Moldworld Creature

Some years ago (this Blog has been here since 2008, ancient history!) I posted about my imaginary world of "Mycelium," a planet where molds and fungus are the dominant plants. This image revisits Mycelium, depicting a mold-munching, amoeboid creature called a "mold pig." This specimen is about 6 feet long in its current form. Despite its changeable shape, walking along on short pseudopods, it has some porcine characteristics, such as a taste for roots and blobs, a fondness for wallowing in mud, and a corpulent figure. The dark spherical things on the surface of the mold pig are buds, which will eventually drop off and grow into other mold pigs, if they are not eaten by Mycelium's predators. The mold pig grows eyes when it needs them, but its main senses are smell and touch. Despite its ungainly quality and slow movement, the mold pig can be quite fierce and resistant to attack, as it can suddenly produce spikes and tusks from its interior and charge with surprising speed and strength. Don't bother the mold pigs, and they won't bother you.

"Mold Pig" is Photoshop, 10" x 7", March 6, 2012.

Another Practice Page

"Art Models 6" is truly a wonderful resource. The models are all captured in poses that have a hint of motion, rather than the usual static statue poses. ("Art Models 4" specialized in those "classic" poses, which is why I didn't buy it.) Not only that, "Art Models 6" has more pronounced lighting, so that you can see the 3-dimensional form of the body instead of just a flat figure. Today's practice page features two poses from A.M.6. One of the models is wearing high heels, which no live model I have ever drawn has worn. High heels are the current symbol of "empowered" women despite the impossibility and pain of walking any distance in them. It's a paradox I don't quite understand, but I don't wear high heels anyway. In the fantasy illustrations I aspire to, women even wear high-heeled spacesuits and battle armor! Therefore I must know how to draw this, whether I like it or not. I am going to have to do hundreds of studies like this, both of dragons and human figures. My aim is to attain the spectacular level of proficiency in digital fantasy art that is shown by the young Asian boys on CG Hub. You can see it at the link on this Blog, to the right of your screen.

Two nude studies from Art Models 6 are done in "digital pencil," 8 1/2" x 11", March 4 and 5, 2012.

True Secrets

Remember in my portrait of Lizzie, I included a rendering of a racy girls' "confession" magazine, "Modern Love." This is my copy of the cover of "True Secrets," a magazine in my possession at the time. I was working on my gouache (opaque watercolor) painting skills so I just copied the thing as it was, even the different typefaces of the story titles. I would guess this was about 1969 or 1970, I was still in high school when I did it. I saved the art, but the magazine has disappeared into a well-deserved oblivion.

"True Secrets" is gouache on cardstock, 6 1/2" x 9", c. 1970.

Pin-up Style Nude

Ms. Pin-up from Art Models 6 is as finished as I am going to render her. I could do more on the hands, face, and feet if I wanted to, but I've already spent quite a lot of time on her. At least she's got a nice, mildly seductive look on her face, rather than the ill-tempered mood of my previous pin-ups. A pin-up girl must look like she is having fun, or at least being a good actress. Plain old art models can be as pissed off as they want, and they often look that way.

This study is digital from the beginning; no pencil was used in the preliminary drawing. For some reason, it looks like pastel, maybe because I used some "granularity" in my Photoshop coloring. I didn't want it to look too smooth and airbrushed, even though some of the greatest pin-ups ever, by the renowned Alberto Vargas, were done with airbrush.

More pin-up girls (and maybe a pin-up boy, too!) coming, though I have to work on a big commission which is getting done only a few inches at a time due to the difficulty of blending acrylic paint on a surface.

Ms. Pin-up is Photoshop, 8" x 10", February-March 2012.

Black Bolt Ballet

Superheroes are my favorite figures to draw and paint. I've done pictures of them all my life and only academia and intellectual shame can stop me from depicting them. You can tell a lot about a person by whether he or she likes superheroes or not. I did this tiny superhero portrait to entice a fan to buy it, since it showed her favorite character, "Black Bolt." "Black Bolt" was a Marvel character, the king of the land of the "Inhumans," where everyone was a freak. The royal family was especially freaky and all of them had superpowers and costumes. Black Bolt, as king, was the most powerful. He had control of vast electromagnetic and gravitic energies, which were regulated by a tuning fork that he wore on his crown.

The most characteristic thing about Black Bolt was that his voice had a hugely destructive power. Any time he spoke, things blew up. (I know some people like that...) If he spoke loudly, it was as if an atomic bomb went off. So he had to stay mute all the time, unless he needed to use his voice of doom as a weapon. Strangely enough, you never see Black Bolt using sign language or writing things down and showing them to people, he's always enigmatically silent. I liked him because he had one of the best costumes in the Marvel world, black with silver lightning bolts on it. In this tiny portrait, I used a leaping ballet dancer as model for him, rather than the massive figures of comic book conventionality.

"Black Bolt" is acrylic on Strathmore illustration board, 5" x 8", October 1982.

Lizard Legs and Mammalian Dragon

Most dragons are portrayed as reptilian, complete with scales, long body, and short legs. The closest modern creature to a dragon would be a lizard, even though the lizard is tiny compared to the dragon. Iguanas seem especially dragonlike, but without the long graceful neck. Dinosaurs must have been real dragons, even without the wings and the fiery breath. I did this study of lizard legs, front and back, copied from identification photographs in the Audubon Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians. It's interesting that the lizard front legs can be almost humanoid, with five-digit "hands," but the grasping talons are not at all like our fingers and the lizards have no opposable thumb. The lizards also have a lower stance than a mammal would. There are some dragons without wings, and many of the Old World or alchemical portrayals of dragons were based on fanciful renderings of crocodiles.

Other dragons have a mammalian form, like this one which I copied, with some adaptation, from Jessica Peffer's dragon drawing book. Unlike the reptile dragon, this quadruped is goat or horse-like, though with feet, balancing tail, and horns from other animals. This mammalian dragon has a hide, tufts of hair, and a mane rather than scales and spikes. The wings are adapted from bat wing shapes, another mammal's feature. The mammalian dragon, which was also portrayed in ancient times, looks less fierce than a reptilian dragon.

Lizard legs are pencil on 8 1/2" x 11" sketchbook page. Mammalian dragon is pencil on sketchbook page, 7" x 6". February 29-March 1, 2012. Click on drawing for a larger view.