Project 4 - Underwater Scene

This was actually from a speed painting I did a while back for the seadragon choice. I decided to improve more upon it and I really like how it came out. :) Though I didn't incorporate as much square brush as I'm starting to now, it came out ok I think! I love his glowing lights.

RAWR ~ Project 2 - Auror

Character Story

Hatched on the outskirts of a volcano, Aurorthavan was one of six in his clutch. Most of his siblings were female save for one. At hatching, it is natural for all males within a clutch to fight each other for dominance. He easily overcame his brother using his remaining egg-horn. Till this day, he still retains his egg-horn for he allowed it to harden over time. As he grew up, Aurorthavan hunted across the lava-fields on unsuspecting prey with his sisters. They were alone, as most flame dragon clutches are, since the parents do not look after their young. When Aurorthavan grew into a young adult and his wings exploded open from their casings, he left his sisters to find a home of his own. Attracted by the climates of the south, he flew over many mountains until his long journey brought him to the Neri. His cavern held many minerals within the walls. It was perfect, plenty of gems to keep his hide shining and hard, while plenty of game lived far below. However, he unknowingly nested high above a small dwarven mining outpost that fed its findings to the city of Lemat.

One night, while resting deep within the caverns of his den, he heard an odd muffled tapping. Slipping farther into the darkness, he followed the sound till he came to a wall that vibrated with the tapping. Curious, he banged on his side of the wall which caused the tapping to stop. Voices with strong accents threw up exclamations and began to worry to each other. However, Aurorthavan could not understand a word they said; it was one of the many languages he did not speak. With curiosity getting the best of him, he took in a deep breath and released a stream of flames that slowly heated up the rock. Once red, he head butted the vulnerable rock, the force of his weight bringing him into the room. Scattered everywhere, many getting up from being thrown back on their asses, were dwarves. Several shook their fists, others took up their weapons. Despite being outnumbered, the flame dragon stood his ground, fanning out his wings to make himself appear larger. Suddenly, one of the dwarves fell over and face planted into the ground with an arrow sticking out of his back. All the dwarves drew up startled gasps and looked into the darkness behind them. At least twenty goblins stood their ground with crude arrows pointed in the dwarves' direction. Without thinking, Aurorthavan jumped in front of the group of dwarves, taking a shower of arrows. However, the crude arrows clattered harmlessly against his tough hide and Aurorthavan drew in another deep breath, releasing it upon the unsuspecting goblins. The rest, who did not meet a melting death, soon found Aurorthavan's fangs piercing them. Uncertain of what to do, the dwarves stood back, weapons lowered at their sides. Lead by the burliest looking dwarf, they tried to communicate with Aurorthavan, having little to no luck. However, one dwarf stepped up, a little unsure of him self. In broken Sylvan he spoke, "Thank thee. Thou saved us. We grateful. Please do not hurt." Aurorthavan understood that language! He bobbed his head, replying, "What are you?" The dwarf who spoke Sylvan looked taken aback and the other dwarves questioned him. He meekly replied in his own language, getting small laughs out of a few of the men there. "We dwarves," replied the dwarf.

From that point on, the two species mingled with each other, though the dwarves often left the dragon alone in his den. However, curious of the tinking far in the caverns, the dragon would travel deeper through the dwarven tunnels, often digging them out so he could fit through them. There he would watch the dwarves from a safe distance, picking up on their language slowly. The Sylvan speaking dwarf now often accompanied the digging parties near the dragon's den, answering the dragon's questions of who and what dwarves were or of whatever the dragon threw at him. Aurorthavan came to know the dwarf as Yaln Thundercall who used to tame creatures called 'horses' back in his old den before he was enlisted into the digging party. Aurorthavan slowly grew to enjoy the dwarf's company, following him wherever he went.

One day, Yaln approached Aurorthavan in his own den. Startled by this new motion, the dragon growled softly at the hominoid. Despite the threat, Yaln did not back down, instead he got down on his knees and bowed before the flame dragon, asking for his help. Goblins were attacking the outpost where Yaln came from and they could barely hold off the invasion. Soon the goblins would over take them and charge forward to the next outpost before reaching Lemat. Aurorthavan quietly replied no. It was not his habit to meddle in the affairs of other creatures. Shaking to hold off his despair, Yaln begged further, offering anything the dragon would have liked. With the promise of a steady supply of gems, Aurorthavan helped the outpost rid itself of the goblin menace.

Since that time, he spent more and more time with the dwarves who christened him with a dwarven name, weapon, and armor for his human form. Slowly he learned more of their language and of the crude garbling language of Common one of the dwarves had first spoken before. Helping the dwarves and receiving pay drew him more and more out of his caves until he ventured far from home often on urgent message runs.

After spending decades with the dwarves, his friend, Yaln, died of old age. Feeling sadness for the first time unsettled the dragon and sent him into a confused rage. He left his home, leaving his life behind and started anew as a mercenary and bard to travel across the world. Though… he would return in a heart beat if his dwarven brothers called for him.

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Auror is one of my favorite dragons that I role-play on a forums. Most of my characters have a love for life and the world so it's an interesting twist having a character that pretty much doesn't give a crap save for himself. For this project, I first searched my library for sketches so I could get some ideas. Then I stumbled upon this old sketch of him and then it went from there.

Using real landscapes and textures give a nice gritty feeling to pieces of art. Something that doesn't feel rightfully achieved when attempted to do this manually by drawing.

Ugh all that writing kinda made me brain fart.

RAWR ~ Project 1 - The Healer

 

 Please click here for the image in a better resolution.

       It has been a long road to finish this piece. I've actually been working on it for almost half a year. School kept interfering so there'd be long periods between each little snippet. This painting is actually a commission that was ordered by a friend of mine for her friend who was over-seas. She told me he loved dragons and was a medic over there. So with those two pieces of information, I created this scene. Originally, bullets were going to be bouncing off the dragon's wings, but I couldn't figure out how to transfer the image in my mind onto the canvas.
         If the story isn't obvious, the dragon is a medic in the army (a secret "weapon"!) who goes around healing injured soldiers. You're probably asking, "Why is a dragon healing instead of pew pewing with fire?" well most dragons in this universe promote that war is pointless and they would rather solve differences over a good brew of whiskey than blow other species up. In this scene, the dragon is healing the soldier's severely broken leg in the midst of a battle.

           Getting the perspective correct on this piece as a pain in the ass... and I'm pretty sure there are a few places that don't seem right. Especially with the human. Bah! I hate drawing humans. I can never truly get them down. Also, I kept forgetting where the brush I used to color the scales was. I'm still not 100% sure if I used the same brush for all scales and such. I got a little lazy with the human. Again, I hate humans. One thing I've made note of is that I need to practice on machinery. My gun is lacking.

            There's so much to go over for techniques. The #1 method I use is having a base color then painting the shadows then highlights then uber highlights. You could also do greyscale painting where you paint all the shadows and highlights first then color the painting with a layer on Overlay. I switch back and forth between these two methods, they can each come out different. However, when I want something vibrant, I usually don't go greyscale.
             One thing you need to keep in mind when painting is that you need to constantly give depth to your picture or it seems very flat. A way I accomplished this in this painting is blurring the wing closest to the viewer like a camera with depth of field. One other note on blurring.. once you've blurred an area, I suggest very lightly sharpening the area that is your focus. Not too much though or you ruin the image with disgusting vibrant dots.
              With sand you need to have the entire picture with a gradient of yellows and oranges. With this image, I put a Photo Filter adjustment layer and set it to Warm so that the entire image gives this "in the sun" feeling.

 Please do not steal or use this image in any way, shape, or form.

EDIT :: I've updated the image with a cropped version. Decided that the left wing was being shown too much.
           

RAWR

Lissi here! This is a screenshot of a commission I'm working on that I'd like to also submit for my project one.

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My friend commissioned me a piece for her friends, one of which is currently an army medic over in the Middle East. He likes dragons too and the commissioner gave me free reign with this piece. So I morphed our medic friend into a dragon (he likes black, red and silver). He'll be saving this infantry man from a broken leg while also protecting him from gunfire(bullets will be bouncing off the dragon's wings! :D). It's not completed, there are quite the many things to finish, but if you have a comment, please feel free to. The only thing I ask is to not to distribute the image in any form.

Here is a "time-line" of screenshots for the above commission. There are some jumps just cause I spent so much time during some sittings. ^_^;

While I'm here, I also have another piece that she has commissioned. This one is "complete" but if anyone has any comments, please say so.

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