Do you think you could give some pointers as to how to draw dragons? I'm stuck whenever I try and the anatomy and proportions never seems to line up.
That’s the fun part about dragons though - you can throw anatomy out the window for the most part because there’s no specific one way to draw them.
[I made this at 3am and forgot about it in my drafts, so please let me know if you want clarification on a specific thing]
I like to push for variety and variation with dragons. The most common dragon we usually see is a Western Dragon; long neck, spikes, webbed wings, horns on their head. [you can probably picture one from pop culture based on that reference alone]
But that doesn’t have to be the only way to draw dragons. There are also Wyverns, Eastern Orientals, Hyrdas, Serpents, and more. Play around with the body and faces of dragons to make them a bit more unique and give them more personality and don’t be afraid to make them look “ugly”, they could end up pretty badass.
Dragons can have a wide variety of body types. These can vary from proper quadruped legs to bipedal with a weight offset. Front legs can be shorter than back legs, or they can even resemble real-life animals with “dragony” features.
If you’re worried about proportioning, try breaking up your dragon’s body. I’ll use the Body Type + Appearance Dragons as examples;
Large: 33% Head // 33% Body // 33% Tail // [1% Extra/Pudge hehe]
Skinny: 10% Head // 20% Neck // 25% Body // 45% Tail
Lean: 10% Head // 20% Neck // 35% Body // 35% Tail
Bipedal: 10% Head // 40% Body // 50% Tail
With wings, you’re going to want them to be larger than your dragon’s body [unless they’re earthbound, in which case they can be tiny] Ideal wings are usually as long as your dragons body without the tail.
If you’re struggling with wings, I often break them up into two or three parts. Consider it to be like your arm, going from bicep to forearm to hand and fingers. Note that the Butterfly wings seen above don’t use this same method and are one solid piece.
If you’re designing a dragon, consider where they live or what they’ll be doing. Oceanic dragon? Try webbed hands or fins. Earthbound dragon? Give them big, powerful claw-paws so they can dig through the toughest of dirt. Again, there’s no right way to draw a dragon, so have fun with it!
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