After some struggle I finally managed to finish the dragon I sketched a couple of weeks ago.
This one has been a bitch. I made a first coloured version, and it sucked. The face of the dragon was awful, the colours were all wrong, the composition was meh.
So I did what every decent artist does when their work is unsatisfying: I moved the drawing to the trash and I started from scratch.

I’m quite happy about this last one, even though there are still quite a few things I would do differently if I could go back in time.
For a start, his head could be more tilted sideways to avoid breaking his teeth against the ground while dropping on the first sheep at full speed.
I meant to give him a flat under-throat, like a crocodile’s, to emphasise this. Then I ended up with something closer to a pelican pouch, which after all makes sense for a big predator used to swallow whole sheep three at a time.
I’m not sure whether this last solution works better or not. If this were a paid commission I’d draw two versions just to make sure.
Anyway.

The other thing I’m not entirely happy with is his body. The middle section doesn’t follow the curve suggested by the tail, or at least it does it only partially.
The dragon is supposed to make a sharp turn around the top of the hill and then drop on the sheep. Maybe his body could be more twisted?
Again, I would experiment more if this were proper work. Thing is, other ideas sprang to mind while I was working on this, and I just wanted to move on to the next one.

For the environment I took inspiration from the peaks in West Yorkshire, where I lived for a few years.

Those barren, dull-green hills under that constantly grey sky.
The reign of diffuse, unsaturated light, with the occasional, enterprising beam trying to pierce resilient clouds always heavy with rain. Often unsuccessfully.
I thought it would have been the right background for a dragon, especially because that beam of light would have been useful to put the focal point under some kind of spotlight.

Plus, I didn’t mean to draw the magical/smart/ancient/wise/treasure-hoarder kind of dragon. This one is more of a predator with just the basic instincts of flying and hunting.
The Peak District seemed to me quite appropriate for this kind of scenario.
Hills, sheep, savage nature and rain. And a dragon looming over all this.

Image with the process below.

by Paolo Puggioni

2 Responses

1. maffa says:

   November 5, 2012 at 17:52

   i’d twist the head more clockwise, for the very reason you said i.e. avoiding a large serving of rockbed as side dish. that would be a movement it should do in any case

   Reply
   • Paolo Puggioni says:

     November 5, 2012 at 18:26

     Yeh I know:( Too late now though, it’s in the past now!

     Reply