I love dragons, they're my life, my reason for being. They've been around for as long as I can remember, and I've seen them in countless media... 🐉
But I can't draw them well. :'D
Hi!!! Same here dude I love dragons so much… my darlings..
and yeah, drawing them is tough. But! I can share what I did to make this so. So much easier. For the most part I draw quadrupedal dragons with wings, but these work for wyverns and drakes as well.
First, you gotta know what you’re looking at. The best way to visualize these for me is studies, specifically skeletons! I did cat, horse, chameleon, and frilled lizard. The lizards were not as helpful as the cat and horse but they did help. then you gotta annotate. Here are mine:
An important note!! While I only drew one angle for each of these guys, you HAVE to be using more than one angle in your references. You will miss important details and curb your understanding of the shapes if you don’t. You’ll notice that I made a list of features that seemed like they’d make a good dragon, and that’s because the last step here is mixing and matching.
A while ago I also did claw studies with skeletons- I used cat and dog paws for the most part, as well as bears(? I think). That improved my dragon foot game drastically. Claws are stupid hard though, so I also looked at how other artists were interpreting theirs.
I did research on bat wings when figuring out how to make the wings work, but at the end of the day I also needed to look at bird wings just because of the difference in how the joints attach.
I don’t have a lot of good tips for heads, unfortunately. Cats, dogs, and lizards are gonna be your best bet but honestly practice (and Wings of Fire and D&D) is how I got mine to be any good.
Anyway, here are the results of these studies (as well as some time and practice!!)
One thing I will say is that arguably the most important bones that make or break a drawing for me usually are the pelvis and the scapula, or shoulder blade. Getting those is going to be pivotal, especially in angles that aren’t profile.
so yeah! Moral of the story is, watch how other artists interpret theirs, look at animals that have similar characteristics and structures to the dragons you want to draw, and practice!!
Before you go- I am an amateur by pretty much any definition. This is what has helped me, and it’s based on things I’ve learned about art, but also! Professionals or more seasoned artists are going to probably have better advice than me. Take this with a grain of salt 👍
Thank you so much, this is going to help me a lot. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻✨
