#winged magic

[shadedfantasy]

Nayeli’s flat color is done! Might tweak the color of her eyes a bit more. If you missed the WIP, which I think Tumblr might have eaten, this is a redraw of an old beloved character of mine I made in high school. I wanted to draw her in my current style. Now I’m going to use her portrait for scale shading practice.

Also, could I get some opinions? I know the color difference is subtle but I’m trying to decide between two different colors for her underbelly scales. I feel like the more yellow tone on the left provides more interesting color contrast, but the one on the right is more in line with her high-school era color scheme, as I was originally going for a monochromatic dragon. Which one do y’all prefer?

[shadedfantasy]

Another wip of Nayeli! Her scale outlines are done, which also means that her scale shadows are halfway done. I also tweaked her eye color and I’m much happier with it now! As usual, the hardest part of doing scales is keeping to the grid pattern while also not making them too perfect and unnatural. I erased and restarted the neck scales many times because of that. I like the little scales around the face the best, I feel like they look very realistic and natural. I might remove those plates on the nose.

I also realized last night that I’ve never done this method of scaling before, and it’s only my second time scaling digitally. Normally I do scales as line art and then individually shade each scale, but this is going to be a lineless style. So I’m very happy with how this is going considering that! I’m hoping eventually I’ll be good enough at scales so that I can get rid of most of the lineart and give my dragons some real texture!

[shadedfantasy]

Nayeli is having a lovely afternoon, and she hopes that you are too!

This portrait is finally complete! I’m so, so proud of it. I really retaught myself how to shade scales, and I LOVE this lineless method compared to the way I did it before. I really want to try and experiment with minimal/no lineart so that the scales can truly be little bumps

I loved doing this portrait. Doing the grid and hard shadows for the scales was a little tedious, but adding all the soft shadows and highlights was a delight. I enjoyed it so so much, especially the little face scales. I also learned a lot doing her belly plates. Pro tip - make sure you test out your highlights before you get 70% of the way through the shading. Her belly looks much more reflective than it should because I used too bright of a highlight, and then couldn’t stand to go back and redo it once I noticed. I like the way they look, it’s just not what I intended.

I’m extremely interested in making portraits like this for the rest of Nayeli’s family. I want to develop my scale work more, and I want to experiment with different perspectives and lights -  this was done in soft daylight, and I think for the next one I want more harsh light. And then some different colors, multiple light sources, etc! I’m kinda already planning them out, but I’m going to take a break from scales and do some fire practice next

[shadedfantasy]

Hmm, feel like drawing, shall I finish one of my dozen WIPs or start a new one? Obviously start a new one, duh

Very pleased with how this is turning out. This gal is Nayeli, a character from an original comic that I started in high school and never published or finished. Despite arguably being the main character, Nayeli never appeared in the comic -  I simply didn’t get that far. Despite that, she’s very near and dear to my heart, and I could recite all her plot points by heart. I decided to draw her to see how I’ve progressed and also update her design with my new anatomical knowledge. More solid anatomy and the supreme wisdom of reference pictures has really done wonders for her design. This is the first time I’ve ever drawn a dragon with an ear canal. I still need to do some tweaks to her anatomy and lineart, but if/when I finish this, I’ll post it alongside a high school-era drawing of her so we can see what 6-7 years of improvement looks like :D

[shadedfantasy]

Hey friendos, I’m looking for feedback and critique!

This is a wing design for an old dragon character of mine! I had an old comic about dragons (nine years ago jesus) and I’ve been redsigning the characters and giving them patterns on their wings, to attract mates during mating season

What I’m looking for:

Thoughts on the pink coloring? A different shade of pink maybe? Or a different color entirely?

Color scheme in general

Thoughts on the pattern in general

Suggestions

This boy is sort of cherry red colored, and monochrome aside from his wings. That blue stripe also occurs as a stripe across his eyes, a feature unique to him. He’s a real gruff, angry teenager, but he’s slowly learning to be a protective older brother and a leader instead of a bully. Well-meaning but a bit too hormonal, you know? I’m hoping this pattern goes well with that personality.

This version 2, and the old design is here. If you have no thoughts on it, at least reblog so someone else might see it?

Please I really need y’all thoughts on this!

[shadedfantasy]

Omg I've been looking for this drawing for about a month. This is the drawing where Nayeli's appearance was like, cemented, with her eyebrow crests curling around like a rams's horns. She's developed a lot more since this drawing, but these curly crests have stayed. They actually became a major plot point for her, but I don't remember if I changed her crests to fit her plot, or her plot to fit her crests. A Very Important Drawing

[shadedfantasy]

So I’ve been redesigning some old dragon characters, and in doing so I decided that their wings get bright colors during mating season, so I set to designing some patterns. I was trying to figure out why this looked so familiar, and then realized it looks exactly like some of my childhood textbooks. A very 90′s dragon

Just imagine being a lady dragon during mating season and having the burliest most aggressive dude there flash these suckers at you