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Top Pixel Art - July 2011 (#6)
You did this too? My god. You're one of my new favorite artists *_*
I remember seeing this in it's wip stages, you've came far, great job on it!
I know already that it's a little bit off, I just let it as it is because changing this would have affected the whole composition and as I reminded it it was simple to late. Don't wanted to overdraw it again because at this point there was to much I had learned - if you take a look at the creeper piece you can see some major changes. Some of them are good, some of them are bad.
Anatomy is in general a very interesting thing isn't it? I have to say I am a really big fan of anatomy but it's also hard for me to do big monsters. There is always a lot of concepting before I start with sketching the creature itself. I am happy that you reminded it, so I can give you a short sight behind the scenery.
At first It's not that kind of dragon which isn't able to flap with it's wing. Traditional dragon art has this senseless shoulder joint which couldn't work over all, I really hate this simplified solution. Wings are to weak to flap (although a dragon couldn't flay over all because of his weight). I made a completely different concept with the arms. At first I have to say I don't really like dragons as they are, because they don't have a centered growing. There is no symmetry of their form. For example a human (or vertebras general) have got 4 limbs. If there are other limbs they are in a way symmetric from center (2 arms, 2 legs) A dragon is uncentered with 6 limbs (I guess dragon have 6 limbs, 4 arms (two of them are wings and two legs) SO they are uncentered. There is to much weight for small front legs and the back legs are in general overpowered. It's maybe silly to think in a way like that, especially if you want to draw a badass looking dragon, but it's important for me that It works and that costs the most time. I really like my agicreperus design but it was to complex for most of the people (they don't know anything like that so they can't imagine), because they don't look at art, they are recognizing it immediately. It's also this cuteness delusion which is taking over the art world. I think it's not really important what you are creating these days, it just have to show a POP effect (I want to create new things but there is a higher risk to fail).
If you compare Al-Jatar with a generic dragon you'll also see that he has got a huge head; very muscular arms and also very muscular wings. the wings are nearly too muscular for the whole image if you don't know the background. The problem seems to be that the wings are too high for the general creature. You read the thing above the upper arms as shoulders, of course, it's that how I fixed it, because the pose was very bad to show my ideas. But the arms are at the sides of the chest, so that he can flap with his wings. The ars support the dragon if he crawls around on earth, it's more a flying raptor type species.
Just take a look at this concept and you'll get easier the idea how I imagined it.
http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-3298/al_jatar_concept4_2_cyangmou.jpg
It's maybe the best concept I have (nearly all is OK with this, if there is something big which bothers anybody I think he should take some lessons in reptile anatomy), but if you'd compare this with the image the image is much weaker, except the head. In fact i am not really satisfied with the result, but it's always the process which is interesting I released the artwork about two weeks ago at Deviantart and I really had to think about of releasing it here. I only did this because it'd look rather silly if the second artwork is missing and I am posting the third one. But I'll definitely do another dragon piece, which won't have problems like this one. If I think back this is the first dragon I painted for about 14 years (except the baby where I tested out some things for this), and I only painted this one because I've found a nice solution for painting dragons with which I can live a>*** Message truncated (4000 chars max) ***
Although the composition of Al-Jatar isn't perfect (something with the anatomy of the wing piece seems off), you amaze me yet again with the overall look, the attention to detail and the overall lighting. I simply cannot believe the level of craftmanship you display in such a short time.
You rock my friend!
masterpiece! you really improved you level! congratulations for this great work!
Oh yeah, amazing dragon, amazing piece, and you get something i rarely give out:
Wonderful colors!