- Sketching / Drawing
- Level: Intermediate
- Subject: Dragon Body
Dragon Workshop: Head | Body | Scales | Wings | Limbs And Talons | Horns And Other Addons | More…
Continuing from the previous post on designing a dragon head, this will be a study on how to draw a dragon body.
Construction Lines
Let us look at the body of a medieval dragon and draw construction lines.
It might look a bit complex, but let me break it down a bit.
The spine that runs from the head to the tip of the tail is drawn first to get a general posture. It will be a curvy line; sort of one ‘S’ drawn at the end of another. Or the mirror of ‘S’ depending on which side you are looking at. At the tip of it, draw the construction lines of the head (as explained earlier). Draw two ovals touching each other, the hind one a little bit smaller than the front one. At this point you should be having the rough shape of the dragon. I will explain the construction of limbs, wings and other things in detail, in future posts. For now, just try to replicate them. Draw the construction lines for the front limbs, the hind limbs and the wings.
Line Art
The above is ofcourse not the final image, but just the construction lines. Now, start drawing darker lines that actually define the body fo the dragon.
Use the previously drawn construction lines as guides and draw the different parts, taking care of avoiding those lines that fall below other parts (like the folds on the hind legs).
Style
You can use the same approach to draw the body of a chinese dragon too.
The key would be to make the curves of the two ‘S’ less tight and more open as the chinese dragon traditionally have long slender snake like body. Also, the ovals where you would attach the limbs are far apart. The chinese dragons usually do not have wings.
You do not need to limit yourself to these two styles. Draw the base spine construction lines and the ovals to signify the different bulk of the body. If the dragon from your imagination has six legs instead of four, use another oval shape in between.
Clean up and more
If you have been using traditional medium, erase of those faint construction lines. If you are using digital medium, you can switch off the layer where you have drawn the construction lines.
The body may still look bare and boring. But we are going to fix that by doing a bit more study on things that are part of dragon designs.
- Limbs, talons
- Wings
- Scales
- Horns, Fins, etc
I will be exploring these in future posts. Get updates by subscribing to KalaaLog Feeds or using email susbscription (pop in your email address at the top and hit ‘Subscribe’).
Keep practicing the different body styles until you are comfortable.
If you have any questions, or would like to share some of your works, feel free to post a comment here.
Tags: Intermediate, Tutorial
-
those things are ugly and suck!
-
poppy, IF YOU DON’T LIKE, WHY ARE YOU VIEWING THIS?!?!?!?!?
-
-
That was a bit uncalled for… Tutorials often use simple unfinished images to make it easier to follow the steps. Showing the finished product, all polished and fancy, wouldn’t help me in the least at all.
I’ll take the “ugly” steps showing me how to fundamentally draw something over the “beautiful” finished product in a tutorial anyday.
Concise and nicely done, thanks for the tips.
-
Glad that you found it helpful, Kaihaku.
As you said, showing polished works makes it difficult to learn.
Also – I too am just learning the subject. I have not gone through formal art education, so it could come out a bit sloppy until I practice.
-
Pingback from How To Draw Dragon Limbs And Talons on January 24, 2008 at 12:03 pm
-
Pingback from How To Draw Dragon Horns And Other Addons on January 27, 2008 at 12:01 pm
-
Yah, these tips were very helpful. I don’t know what poppy’s talking about. I thought they were great!
-
Thanks, csn. Do check out some of the posts in the series published after this.
-
Pingback from Painting A Medieval Dragon - Part 1 | KalaaLog on April 16, 2008 at 4:15 am
-
I think this has been very helpful! You have to have the “bones” to add the “meat”. Good job!! Thanks!!
-
You are welcome, arzkttn!
-
I personally thought they were really helpful. They are the best insructions ive gotten yet. Great Job!
-
Thank you, Brandon! Do not hesitate to post links to your works on dragon body here.
-
Hi your tutorials are great. I want to draw a dragon for my new novel I am writing. I can picture the dragon in my head but your tutorials mean I can make her a reality. Thank you.
-
Hey Cassie, you are welcome.
Working on illustrations for your own novels can be interesting project. Do go through the Dragon Workshop page and you might get some more useful pointers.
-
thanks!!!!!!!This is the best dragon tutorial i’ve ever seen.It’s really helpfull because i’m making a video with my friend on youtube.
-
Hey!
I like your style. It’s very big and imposing, almost cartoon-like. I go for the skinnier, realistic type. If you want to see them, you can see my Photobucket Account. I have it as my site. =) -
Thank you, Samara! Yup – I do see your Photobucket account.
Nice gallery you have got there. -
oh my god this is just what i needed!!!!! i am creating a art journal as background for my writings and i have been looking for a good dragon body tutorial everywhere. thanks so much!!!
-
You are welcome, Addaline!
-
Hi i found this was very helpful . I was wondering if you can take it in peices like start with this circle first thanks.
-
Thanks for another great tute! The spine and balls approach seems to give the dragons a good energy too, and reflects that serpent like flexibility. I read through the wings and limbs tutes first though, so I understood what I was trying to do with the construction and outlining. First attempt (wings strayed a bit from the construction lines
) : http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dragon2xd3.jpg -
You seem to be really getting the hang of it!
This is a great drive for me to keep writing more tutorials – with more focus on “Workshops”.
-
I have had many years of formal art instruction, and I found this tutorial to be so helpful that I bookmarked it so I can come back to it over and over as I improve. When I’ve learned to draw dragons, I’m going to go through the peacock tutorial. Thanks!
-
I am glad you liked it, rugnymph. I would suggest though to go ahead and start on the Peacock tutorials – it helps to give a fresh eye when you switch between two studies.
Work on Dragons and sometimes switch to work on Peacock. That way, you will start noticing things that you sort of get used when working on just one project.
-
I’ve never drawn anything in my life before. But with a Google search and this tutorial, I was able to draw a dragon in a birthday card for my daughters to colour in, that both they and myself are very happy with. The winged beasty perfectly matched the plastic toy that had inspired them.
So thank you for taking the time to post the tutorial. It was perfect for us.
-
This is very helpful. I just followed the steps and I drew a very finished drawing!!! Thank you so much whoever posted this!!! I can FINALLY draw a dragon! My friends would love this drawing!!!!
-
I have just drawn my first beautiful dragon and i used all the tutorials on here, thank you!
-
im still practicing this thing its just that i haved to look at the thing carfully
and then i can draw it indevullyy:) -
your tutorials rock! now i can draw a dragon properly! thank you so much!
-
this is a really good website and when you try it it turns out really good!!!
By Amy gear
age 9 -
Thanks Vyoma for the tutorials they really helped me to really see what should be within the outside of a dragon. It kind of helped me to give it a more shape and in porportion , which balanced it out for me. I still have some practicing to do on it but, I can see a difference in my detail of a dragon. I’ll try and get a decent one finished then show it to you. Thanks I hope to keep learning and improving my drawing skills.
-
I am glad it helped you, Debbie!
-
Feed
38 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://kalaalog.com/2007/12/16/how-to-draw-a-dragon-body/trackback/