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.
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.
