And it's done. The piece that broke the art block. I'm so incredibly proud of this and I've been itching to finish it all week.
Process gif and some rambling beneath the cut
I stated this piece really fighting my brain to just draw something, anything. I had exactly 0 composition ideas and I was really winging it from start to finish. The first 5 steps of the gif were drawn on an airplane where I had no references so I just had to draw from memory. Not having references also meant that I had to manually choose my colors and that was fun. I think if I hadn't nailed the color palette at this point this would never have been finished.
After I landed and was able to grab references I began rendering the waves (Ivan Aivazovsky paintings my beloved) and was originally trying and failing to add a boat into the composition (which was still square at this point). The gif shows one boat but there were many in various places. Note to self, don't draw water before you try to put a boat in that water!
Landed on the lighthouse (did the perspective wrong, later fixed that, not understanding my perspective was probably the cause of the boat problems), changed the design of the dragon to be whale inspired, and eventually added the baby looking at the lighthouse keeper so the story of the piece strengthened.
The lighthouse introduced a problem that I may or may not have successfully solved: the bright yellow of the artificial lighting really stands out and draws your eye away from the dragons. I gave the lighthouse keeper a yellow coat to try and counter act this, as well as giving the dragons bright yellow eyes.
Overall I'm very satisfied with the contrast of blues/purples and yellows to really make the subjects pop. The only thing I'd probably change if I could do it again would be to make the crests of the waves lest bright, especially where they were crashing onto the rocks because they're too bright (see greyscale below). Unfortunately when I render water it's more or less all on one layer so fixing that was not possible.
Unkind reminder that if you support HP or jkr in any form you’re not welcome around me. Any support of that franchise or that woman actively hurts trans people, and their lives are more important than any amount of nostalgia or joy the franchise brings you.
Jkr has said point blank that any money she makes is funding her transphobia. Period. You can’t “death of the author” it away. It isn’t a “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” thing either. If you fully understand what harm that woman is doing with the money she makes from that franchise and willingly support it anyway, I can and will assume you’re okay with trans people being hurt.
Realized it's actually really easy to record my process without downloading any external apps so I recorded just over 1 hour of me rendering the water in the bottom right corner of the last piece, in case anyone wants to see the process.
I do everything on one layer so none of this working and re-working shows in the process gif I posted, you just get bam: the water looks like this now. In reality there's a lot of trial and error going on with figuring out how to define the planes of water.
Video is just under 4 minutes long, I hope it isn't too slow for a speedpaint. I wanted to find a balance between being able to tell what I was doing and not being too long and boring.
And it's done. The piece that broke the art block. I'm so incredibly proud of this and I've been itching to finish it all week.
Process gif and some rambling beneath the cut
I stated this piece really fighting my brain to just draw something, anything. I had exactly 0 composition ideas and I was really winging it from start to finish. The first 5 steps of the gif were drawn on an airplane where I had no references so I just had to draw from memory. Not having references also meant that I had to manually choose my colors and that was fun. I think if I hadn't nailed the color palette at this point this would never have been finished.
After I landed and was able to grab references I began rendering the waves (Ivan Aivazovsky paintings my beloved) and was originally trying and failing to add a boat into the composition (which was still square at this point). The gif shows one boat but there were many in various places. Note to self, don't draw water before you try to put a boat in that water!
Landed on the lighthouse (did the perspective wrong, later fixed that, not understanding my perspective was probably the cause of the boat problems), changed the design of the dragon to be whale inspired, and eventually added the baby looking at the lighthouse keeper so the story of the piece strengthened.
The lighthouse introduced a problem that I may or may not have successfully solved: the bright yellow of the artificial lighting really stands out and draws your eye away from the dragons. I gave the lighthouse keeper a yellow coat to try and counter act this, as well as giving the dragons bright yellow eyes.
Overall I'm very satisfied with the contrast of blues/purples and yellows to really make the subjects pop. The only thing I'd probably change if I could do it again would be to make the crests of the waves lest bright, especially where they were crashing onto the rocks because they're too bright (see greyscale below). Unfortunately when I render water it's more or less all on one layer so fixing that was not possible.
And it's done. The piece that broke the art block. I'm so incredibly proud of this and I've been itching to finish it all week.
Process gif and some rambling beneath the cut
I stated this piece really fighting my brain to just draw something, anything. I had exactly 0 composition ideas and I was really winging it from start to finish. The first 5 steps of the gif were drawn on an airplane where I had no references so I just had to draw from memory. Not having references also meant that I had to manually choose my colors and that was fun. I think if I hadn't nailed the color palette at this point this would never have been finished.
After I landed and was able to grab references I began rendering the waves (Ivan Aivazovsky paintings my beloved) and was originally trying and failing to add a boat into the composition (which was still square at this point). The gif shows one boat but there were many in various places. Note to self, don't draw water before you try to put a boat in that water!
Landed on the lighthouse (did the perspective wrong, later fixed that, not understanding my perspective was probably the cause of the boat problems), changed the design of the dragon to be whale inspired, and eventually added the baby looking at the lighthouse keeper so the story of the piece strengthened.
The lighthouse introduced a problem that I may or may not have successfully solved: the bright yellow of the artificial lighting really stands out and draws your eye away from the dragons. I gave the lighthouse keeper a yellow coat to try and counter act this, as well as giving the dragons bright yellow eyes.
Overall I'm very satisfied with the contrast of blues/purples and yellows to really make the subjects pop. The only thing I'd probably change if I could do it again would be to make the crests of the waves lest bright, especially where they were crashing onto the rocks because they're too bright (see greyscale below). Unfortunately when I render water it's more or less all on one layer so fixing that was not possible.
Finally home from the work trip and I got so much time to draw this trip while waiting for other people to do their jobs that I think the art block has been successfully conquered.
Also, not having WiFi on the plane to grab references was really helpful because it forced me to stop taking it so seriously and just play around. And probably most importantly stop being hard on myself for something not looking right.
It’s not FR artwork so probably won’t post it but it is still dragon art so maybe.
apparently I've forgotten how long it takes to finish out a proper illustration since I haven't done one since march...2025...still probably like 5-10 more hours of work in here after working all day...
Here's a tiny teaser image below the cut because I think showing the part that's not done yet is fun. Featuring scribbles that may become birds later and lighting effects on stone that I haven't fully worked out yet.
Also fun fact that the rocks are all shades of blue, no green or purple was used but I did use a trick that makes your brain interpret those chunks as colors despite being solidly a grey blue.
I think I shared it before like 3 years ago, but this video truly had a massive impact on my art and it's so cool to boot. Check it out if you don't believe me when I say those rocks are all blue!
Finally home from the work trip and I got so much time to draw this trip while waiting for other people to do their jobs that I think the art block has been successfully conquered.
Also, not having WiFi on the plane to grab references was really helpful because it forced me to stop taking it so seriously and just play around. And probably most importantly stop being hard on myself for something not looking right.
It’s not FR artwork so probably won’t post it but it is still dragon art so maybe.
prguitarman
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
ellievsbear
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