Dragon... first digital painting in progress

**EdDron** · November 24th, 2008, 05:23 AM

Hello
so here's my first digital painting that i'm going to finish(i hope :> )
a fan art of the game WoW
inspired by the trailer of the World of Warcraft expansion ''wrath of the lich king''... maybe some of you saw it.
i'm still new to digital painting so any advices and help/tips/tricks are welcome
so tell tell me what you think and what i could do better
thanks

**MiniGoth** · November 24th, 2008, 02:37 PM

Draw the underlying forms before worrying about color.

**Di$array** · November 24th, 2008, 02:46 PM

Lovely first attempt m8 much better than mine so your doing good. A few suggestion, you can take them or leave

.

1) I would darken the wing that's furthers away from the viewer. At the moment they are fighting for the lime light.

2) You've done well managing you foregrounds and backgrounds but i would say the back ground doesn't look very interesting, so add some stuff. other dragons in flight or a moon, etc.

3) I'm just guessing here but i believe your using Photoshop. So try adding another and with a soft brush go to town in create a stronger shadow. I know you've already included one but i believe you image would be greatly improved with a darker shadow.

**EdDron** · November 26th, 2008, 02:15 PM

thx for replies

i tried to change some things

please tell me what you think (work still in progress)

**Lhune** · November 26th, 2008, 02:29 PM

I think I get where you're trying to go with it, but you might want to work on making the dragon look more solid before throwing so many colours and highlights over it. It has a rather unfinished and sketchy feel to it and especially in the wing and head area's I can hardly make out what's what. Try painting the skeleton itself first, then have the magic-ey blues and highlights come out of the skeleton.

I like the background though, it has a very icey feel to it.

**EdDron** · November 26th, 2008, 02:44 PM

okey will try, thx

gonna make an update when it's ready

still learning to work with photoshop so not everything is that easy ;>

**Hexokinase** · November 26th, 2008, 05:34 PM

To re-emphasize what MiniGoth was saying, you need to devote more time to getting the forms to read. All the sparkles and details in the world won't fix the forms that they are on top of. Rather, they should compliment the forms.

If you really want this to be the best it can be, I suggest redrawing the lineart for this (ignoring extraneous details). Next, paint in the forms as select planes in grayscale, and work up from there. Here's an example of what I'm talking about (as made by gregpro; I recommend you check out all of his posts in the link provided - his paintovers are helpful).

Good luck

**EdDron** · December 11th, 2008, 02:54 PM

so i tried to change some things as you said... not quite sure if i really could do all of these but it looks a bit better(at least to me

)
so i changed the ground, deleted almost all the flames (didn't want to delete the flames on the face and chest*same layer :/ * ) and painted the skeleton a bit more clear... not sure about the light :/ (it's almost everywhere wrong i think :/ )
will add the flames later, but not as much as i had in the previous pictures
plz tell me what you think

**badkittyamy** · December 14th, 2008, 09:03 PM

It looks like you use a little to much when it comes to photoshop filters. It also looks like you use the burn and dodge tool a lot. Try to lay out flat colours first. don't worry about the shading until you have where colours are going to fall first. when it comes to shading do not use the burn and doge tool at all. It makes things look over saturated and overexposed.