Art by Shaun Williams

A while back I was doing a project that was driving me crazy, so I started this guy to blow off some steam. Even he was driving me crazy by the end. The other image still isn't done either. This is entirely Photoshop, from sketch to finish. The idea was a dragon with a flaming beard and mane, which raised issues of how to show structure of the bottom jaw, and also just how to work with the lighting it would cause. In the end I tried to make him look like he had internal heat as well with the designed veins of yellow. I couldn't decide if I wanted him in a dark forest or a dank cave, so I didn't really do too much detail there and just left it to the imagination...but it is dark for the contrast. as to where the blue secondary light is coming from...I don't know, perhaps it should be a night sky with the moon. I have done too many moon scenes lately though. It was a real challenge and took my altogether far longer than I expected for a vent piece. I enjoyed that last few hours pulling it together to the end though. Normally I do a pencil sketch of my dragons first, and paint from that structure...this was a different way for me, and the original drawing is a far cry from this finished painting. Enjoy. I hope the contrast and color are a nice reprieve from the graphite renderings. Thanks as always.