Drawing Dragon Bodies 2

Front View Sitting

Another dragon drawing tutorial by Dee Dreslough (http://www.dreslough.com). Please feel free to use the graphics on this page however you like.

Of course, you start as all dragons start...with an egg. This represents the ribcage.

Next, you can add the roundness of the shoulders, which are in front of the ribcage. I've also placed the head above. The smaller circle represents where the muzzle will be.

Next, you can add the neck lines, being sure to make the connection to the shoulders wider than the connection to the head itself. To hold up the head, the dragon would have more muscle toward the shoulders. I've also placed the forelegs. The smaller upper oval of each leg is the bicep, and the lower elongated oval is the foreleg. I also added a dividing line in the chest. I envison dragons having fairly significant pecs, especially if they have wings.

I've placed a curved line between the forelegs close to the ground. That represents the back of the dragon and hips. From it, I've added the hindlegs. The larger oval is the thigh muscle, and the smaller one in front of it represents the equivalent of a human calf muscle.

Next, I add a few more details. A second curving line (from elbow to elbow above the line for the hips), shows where the bones of the ribcage end and the softer stomach muscle begin. I use this as a shading and detail guide later. I've also added the forepaws, feet and tail.

A few more details, and we're almost ready to ink it in. I've added horns, ears, more details to the nose, and defined the belly scales, which will be painted in in a different color from teh scales along the shoulder. Now we're ready to finalize the black and white drawing.

Here, I've traced around key forms, ignoring some of the lines to imply that the legs are connected to the main body. I've also added claws, and a few detail lines, like the knee caps and chest muscles.

Here I've removed my guide lines, and am ready to color. I've added a few more striations to the forelegs (bicep, along the wrist, along the shins, etc.)

Here he is with simple cartoon color.

And, here he is with shadows. Often, just putting a dark color along the black lines you add for detail, or the lines of the outline, can be enough to give a really striking effect, but as you can see here, you really get a feeling of depth when large portions of the dragon are shadowed (like under the ribs and the left hindleg).

From here, you can add details using the Highlighting and Shading a Dragon Drawing tutorial.