A birthday gift to @evion and all her ideas at @tfseeds. Tanis from Evion's and @star-across-the-universe's universe known as Dragoncursed.
Since it's the Year of the Dragon (2024), and Tanis has been an inspirational character for me during the heyday of DeviantArt (My Monster Hunter Stories 2 character, Rei, has taken some influence from Tanis with the fangs and golden eyes), it made sense that I would make a fan art of Tanis in both her human (well, human with dragon features) and dragon form.
Tanis' pose is based on the Roar pose from @adorkastock
I have to admit, I don't know how big Dragon Tanis is compared to her human form. I did ask Evion about the scale, but even she wasn't so sure, so I made a rough estimation based on the size of the eyes since they are the only point of reference that would be roughly the same size in both forms (with Dragon Tanis' eyes being slightly bigger if my research into eye development is correct). Even still, I decided to be safe and made Dragon Tanis 50% transparent since her dragon form is a possible future fate for her. Here's the artwork with full opacity.
Dragon Tanis here is an updated version of the one I did back in 2022 (which itself is based on the various art profiles of Dragon Tanis from Evion herself). There have been several minor modifications to the design as I learned more about realistic anatomy of bats, ferrets, wolves, etc. The feet of the hind-legs were shortened to be more ferret/wolf-like. The tail was straightened out to give a sense of length, and given a more pronounced furry tail (as many ferret-based dragons have this feature) taken from my mid-transformation stage of Tanis back in 2022. Additionally, I added the little elbow horns back on the forelimbs since they gave a little personality back to her. The wings were modified slightly to be more accurate to bat wing anatomy. And I added a lot more yellow freckle spots and streamlined most of them into a pattern running long her mane back.
For human Tanis, I used this character sheet as a reference, then went to @adorkastock's many pose references before settling in for the roar pose here. I feel like Tanis would do this when she's alone and not worried exposing her dragon claws and feet to a hostile crowd of humans. It was fun to draw her, and I like how it turned out in the end. Of course, I needed to give her something to stand on, so I went with a ruined castle wall to represent how she's going from civilized human to a wild dragon.
Children of Dragon Hunters halfway into their Draconification curse.
Characters owned by @evion (also found in @tfseeds) and @star-across-the-universe.
Now this was an interesting challenge. Tanis has many artworks, sketches, and descriptions already to determine the various stages of her slow transformation into a dragon. She had curved horns like antlers, forest green and gold-yellow colors, a red mane, smooth freckle-like scales, four digits on each wing, and green/yellow eyes. Her transformation started at the claws and feet, with her teeth sharpening into fangs. Her final dragon form was drawn from head to neck, while the rest of her body was described to be like that of an East Asian dragon (plus two European wings) with a ferret-like appearance.
But Taron, Tanis' older brother, was a different story. There are only a few artworks of him that showcase his transformation and they are very subtle. Whereas Tanis' dragon features were obvious, Taron's features were more subtledue to them occurring on his back, which he covered with a scarf. All that's clear is that he's growing horns and wings, and there's only one sketch where he's midway into his transformation. In that sketch, he apparently has four horns rather than two and more reptilian-scale "freckles".
Meanwhile, the character model sheet of Taron showcased him being significantly taller than Tanis and that his eventual dragon form would have blue scales, blue eyes, and blond hair.
This told me that Taron's dragon form was not going to be like his sister's dragon form, so any educated guesses based on Tanis was going to be limited to the shape of the wing and color scheme patterns (in that the scutes and the freckle scales were likely the same color based on Tanis).
And this proved to be quite an obstacle because Taron's underbelly scutes could any color depending on the direction and theme. It could be tan, it could be white, or it could even be yellow (which would make him look like Spyro). For a time, I just used the base colors of green and blue wash for the characters (even posted it on Bluesky for TF Tuesday), but it felt incomplete. I could have gone much further.
Luckily, @star-across-the-universe filled me in on the details regarding Taron's dragon form. He has a silver underbelly with dark horns that will grow into spirals like an antelope. He had a storm motif in contrast to her sister's forest motif, which reminded me of Azymondias from Dragon Prince. That actually helped me figure out the colors of minor details like the underside of the wings.
As I was drawing Taron, I actually began to revise my old fan art of Tanis all those years ago to accommodate better what I now see in these various sketches. For example, the sketch of Taron's draconic features implied the wings were much smaller than I realized, so Tanis' wings were reduced in size. I also redesigned her scutes to have a more solid form instead of the blob shape that I could not unsee in my old drawing. Also, I didn't want Tanis to look too short compared to Taron, so I just had Tanis be a head shorter than Taron, with the implication she had a growth spurt as she progressed into the draconification.
Also, for those who see the Bluesky Sketch, do note that I did some revisions to Taron's outline after noticing a few mistakes with body anatomy (such as the thumb being shown outward rather than inward in his right hand).
This has been fun drawing sessions, and it helps me a lot with understanding anatomy, particularly with dragons and dragon humanoids.
With World of Warcraft: Dragonflight coming out (and flooding ad vacancy on Twitter), here's a fan art of Tanis, an original character created by @evion.
Tanis belongs to the world of Dragoncursed, a fantasy world where humans hunt dragons for fame and greed. Thanks to a curse brought upon by an elder dragon towards dragon hunters and their families, she and her brother Taron are slowly transforming into dragons, and they're seeking a cure before the transformation is complete.
This is the halfway point of transformation, based on Evion's head sketch of Tanis and various artworks and sketches depicting the gradual transformation, plus a few ideas of hers including a more ferret-based dragon. It took me about 26 hours and 34 minutes on Procreate to make this, not counting the breaks in-between.
I hope I did her justice since @evionart is one of my inspirations for fantasy art.
P.S. I realized that my computer autocorrected my question and ruined the names, so I'm sending this again. Can you reply to this one instead?
Raris and Evi remind me of Taron and Tanis from Dragoncursed, particularly their age, familial relationship, and transformation curse situation. Are they AU versions of those characters? And if so, who is Gaius' Dragoncursed counterpart?
XD No worries about the autocorrect issues, sorry that happened to ya!
And that's a good question. I agree with seeing the similarities, especially on a surface level. Simplified down, Raris and Taron share the protective older brother nature, the worrying, plus the lean/tall figure. And Evi and Tanis, both characters that I made, come from the same 'spark' I like for many of my female characters - energetic, cheerful, curious, optimistic, fluffy hair and freckles and inclined to get into mischief, to their siblings' exasperation. Where the sets differ is Taron was actually an OC created by a good friend of mine, where Dragoncursed was a joint worldbuilding/RP project.
If I had to pick an equivalent character for Gaius in the Dragoncursed story, it would probably be the concept I had for an experienced dragon hunter that was farther along in the curse's changes and being held prisoner in the dungeon of an alchemist as one of his research subjects. I don't remember a lot specifically, but at least one of his arms was fully gone draconic. That was part of a 'hope of a knowledgeable person willing to help them find a cure, turns out to actually be really sinister' type plot.
A little gift to @evion based on the world she created. The world of Dragoncursed, featuring her OC protagonist Tanis, fully transformed as a dragon based on various artworks and a few descriptions I found.
Here some of my thoughts and reflection of this fanart...
Since around 2008 or so (I can't remember exactly, I just I became a big Warcraft III fan at the time), I came across Evion's fantasy artworks of Night Elves and later a series of transformation artworks on DeviantArt. Ranging from mermaid to penguin, I was intrigued by these drawings because they showcase the transformation process to be natural, beautiful, and thought-provoking, such as the mermaid's tail coming from the tail bone rather than the traditional legs being fused together.
It made me realize how unnatural the typical mermaid transformation artworks are, and made me realize the importance of shapes, proportions, and how they all connect as one body.
One particular art subject stood out to me was Tanis. I've seen several Tanis artworks, but none of them had shown what she would look like as full dragon once the curse is complete. All except an artwork depicting only her head, neck, and parts of her wings.
The artwork had remained a tease for me since it was clear there was more to the dragon, but my young mind ran rampant with speculations. What does the rest of the dragon look like? Does it look like a horse or a wyvern? Is it large or small? I did wait to see if there would be a full version of Tanis as a dragon, but it never came.
For years, I had wanted to know what the rest of the dragon looks like (as often with many ideas I find intriguing but never seen fruition). Such curiosity fueled my philosophy about art:
If an idea in your head is unrealized, you need to make it into reality. In fact, it's a great way to exercise as an artist.
Once I had Procreate and enough years of practice, I proceeded to try my take on Tanis' dragon form.
It was easy figure out that it was a classical European dragon design, four legs and two wings. But the European dragon comes in many forms, so I read the descriptions and notes regarding Dragon Tanis. Based on what I've gathered, the design was going for a more Asian-influenced style, with specific details describing it to be ferret-like. The words helped me find the right body template for Tanis (after failing to find a ferret dragon that didn't have tiny feet).
Using it as the jumping point, I looked back and forth at the various Tanis artworks to get an idea of the mane, belly scales, freckles, tail, and wings. For the wings, I opted to go for big ones since I felt it was appropriate that the wings should realistically carry Tanis at great distance. It's also made with four digits on each wing rather than five because I only counted four in the canonical artwork.
For the tail, inspired by the ferret dragons, I decided that the tail would likely be completely covered by the red mane. It certainly allowed me to side-step the underbelly scales, which were a pain to draw. It's not as big as the ferret's furry tail, but it looks nice on the final product.
I'm not sure how big the dragon would be compared to Tanis' human form, so I use the size of the eye as a reference as you can see in the ref sheet I used.
The coloring based on the artworks, but not highly shaded because I wanted it to be a concept art. Only the belly scales, wings, eyes, horns and mane had any kind of shading. The eyes were tricky since Tanis' human eye colors don't pop out from the design unless I add some yellow undertone from a glowing light pen.
Overall, I enjoyed making this fan art and the creative process to make this into a reality.
quick doodle based on a weird dream i had - tanis from @evion's Dragoncursed was a pro skateboarder she's a tomboy, so it... makes sense. well, it would if it were the 90s and if she had proper footwear for dragons-to-be.
Been working on fleshing out an old story idea, and part of that has been looking into inspirations for culture and costuming. I’d like to ground the setting in a bit of realism and try to avoid too much of a generic medieval England feel that so many fantasy stories have. So for Tanis’s homeland, I was investigating Slavic and Russian history and fashion styles. She’s not necessarily going to keep the dress look, being the little tomboy that she is, but it was good practice at least!
