How To Draw A Dragon Head

• Sketching/Drawing
• Level: Intermediate
• Subject: Dragon Head

Dragon Workshop: Head | Body | Scales | Wings | Limbs And Talons | Horns And Other Addons | More…

I have been doing some study sketches on dragons for a couple of weeks. In this write up, we will be basically looking at the designing of a dragon head, and also see how we can use few of those steps to construct different styles of dragon heads. This is not with respect to any software in particular, or even digital art. These designing/sketching techniques can be used for traditional medium too.

Dragons are mythical creatures of both the oriental as well as the occidental (medieval western) mythologies. These are reptilian creatures that are usually capable of flight. They represent both the good and the evil in different stories, and is a integral part of most fantasy worlds.

Since these are not real creatures, there is no right way to draw it. You can use your creativity to create almost any type of dragon. To draw a dragon head, it is advisable to study the anatomy of snake, crocodile or similar creatures, and base your creation on them.

Construction Lines

Lay out the basic construction lines before you get to the line art of a dragon head.

Above are the construction lines for both profile and front views of the dragon head. It basically is a rectangular box with the nose tip squeezed a bit. Draw few roughly circular lumps to show the volume of the chin and the eye ridge/forehead of the dragon.

Line Art

Using the construction lines as the reference, draw over it with definite lines to create the form of the dragon head.

Notice that I have drawn the construction lines faintly. You would need to draw this for some time until you get practice and can imagine these construction lines to use as guide when drawing line art.

Cleanup and more

Cleanup those construction lines, and you should have a neat looking line art of the dragon head.

Yes - it looks boring, but it is the basic form of a medieval dragon. There is more to drawing a ferocious dragon, which involves drawing horns, scales, and other embellishments. But if the form is not proper, no matter how good these ‘extras’ are, the artwork would not make an affect on the viewer.

So is that all? Well, not actually.

Style

You can explore different styles by changing the construction lines.

The change in the construction lines result in different forms.

Here, I have explored the basic form of a chinese dragon head.

Keep practicing drawing the dragon head at different angles. Use the line art to practice painting techniques to get the feel of the form of the dragon head.

As I said, it still looks a bit featureless because it is devoid of the scales, horns, fins and what not. I will be exploring these, but that would be after we explore couple of styles of the body form of a dragon. So, subscribe to KalaaLog feeds (or use the email subscription above) if you are not already subscribed.

If you find that you have a good sketch of a dragon, you can experiment by converting it to a vector art.