Painting A Dragon – Part 3

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  • Software: Photoshop or GIMP
  • Level: Advanced
  • Subject: Dragon

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

In the previous part, you looked at the technique to paint the scales.

Painting A Dragon - Scales Painted

In this part, you will see in detail how to paint the talons and horns of the dragon.

Horns And Talons

Painting A Dragon - Horns And Talons - Step 1

Painting the talons and horns is quite a similar approach. (See post on drawing horns and talons).

Painting A Dragon - Horns And Talons - Step 2

Start of by painting a solid dark color to mark out the silhouette – a filled shape. After that, using a pressure sensitive brush, keep painting over it to render the volume.

Painting A Dragon - Horns And Talons - Step 3

You can make it smooth, or as done here, make it a bit more interesting by making the surface uneven.

Painting A Dragon - Horns And Talons - Step 4

Finish off by painting a single or a couple of lines of highlights.

Details

Painting all the talons, horns and teeth may take a bit of time. It does make the subject more visually rich.

Painting A Dragon - Horns And Talons Painted

It is not just the horns and talons of the dragon that you need to focus, but other features as well. Take time to render the head of the dragon, its eyes, and to give the wings a bit more feature, few veins can be rendered by painting forked lines on them.

Painting A Dragon - Completed - Dragon In Flight

Make the shadows more darker to give definition to the dragon’s shape. Use a brighter hue of the scale color to give highlights – but do so sparingly.

See the deviantART entry – Dragon In Flight – to see the completed artwork.

If you liked this series of posts, check out more on dragons at Dragon Workshop. To be updated on new tutorials on digital painting, subscribe to KalaaLog.com feeds or use the email subscription form above.

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  1. Robert Monro’s avatar

    The finished product is awesome! Good work!

    Reply

  2. Vyoma’s avatar

    Thank you Robert!

    Reply

  3. Ben’s avatar

    Hey….. Could you send me one or two desings on a dragons head with neck going off the page plz?
    Allso you’re work is very nice…
    Keep it up.

    Reply

    1. Vyoma’s avatar

      You can find details of commissioning artwork at my website. Check out the rates there and let me know what you think.

      Reply