C.O.W. #212 ,the Faberge Dragon!. Wips Thread.

[wizo5454]

hey, it has been a while, heres a wip on a tasty subject , fun time with dragons!

[lkjhgfdsa]

fabre jet

[Rob Powell]

Some nice desgns so far.
Didn't have a lot of time to work on this but I did a little research on wing anatomy and found out my dragon's wings were waaay off, both were pointed too high and the feathers were way to chaotic. Did a rough sketch over quickly and a little tweaking and it looks a little better. Wing anatomy still looks off though, I will push it a little further later on to make it a little more accurate.

[KleeWyck]

Hopefully this design looks different enough from any specific creature, though I always have a hard time with creature design since it's a weakness for me.

[Lacelette]

The base for my dragon Everyone seems to be going for super regal-looking eggs, I quite liked how organic and leafy this one was http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr....VaC8CNsul7o%3D

[Bahamuth]

adding some details on the head and chest.

[DefiledVisions]

exploring some eggs.. I fell in love with the simple eggs. There are a few more I want to explore





wizo, thats a cool looking sketch! I like the dynamic lighting!

lkjhgfdsa - Looking good! gonna be cool seeing where you bring it.

rob powell - yeah the wings look better! Your dragon needs some highlights to give it volume. But before you start painting brighter values, decide upon a lightsource and work from there.
Check the highlight on the egg, the difference in value between the point where the light hits it and the shadows is bigger than you'd expect

KleeWyk - it's good to see a more dragonish design! keep working, if creature design is your weakness you'll definitely learn tons by doing COW.

Lacelette, nice sketch! you should add some of the gold to your dragon.

bahamuth, cool! I like the detailing you should make the wings bigger though as the dragon seems quit heavy.

[Si_Swe]

IVIatt - Good to see you around again. My favorites are the ones across the diagonal from the bottom left to the top right.
DefiledVisions - Looking good. I prefer the bottom one, looking forward to what you come out with. Love your dragons.
Bahamuth - I'm with DefiledVisions on this. The wings should be larger, so should the musculature surrounding the wings. The arm joints look a little stiff, too, maybe bend them slightly.
Lacelette - I think people are choosing more regal designs because it's what's unique to the subject matter, rather than more organic designs. That's not to say you shouldn't go for something more organic, but I'd like to see more of the elements of the egg in your design.
KleeWyck - Good start. I like the incorporation of the patterning onto the wings. Try to define the musculature around the torso area a little more. Especially around the wings.
Rob Powell - It's a little early to say, but try and incorporate the yellow and the blue together more, not to say blend them, but the two elements are very separate at the moment.
lkjhgfdsa - Looking great, though I'd like to see some of the black patterning on the egg incorporated into the design.

Here's the digital linework after a few days of thumbnailing...

[Homerid]

Giant lizards and shiny detailed things? You can count me in.

Great stuff guys, this thread is going to deliver lots of awesome designs.

Here's my wip so far, did the initial sketch in pencils, scanned it, and layed down some colors.

[extra/card]

First COW for me!

This is what I've got so far - calling it quits for tonight. I'm planning on finishing the main form and then adding plates with the egg design as well as filling in the wing membranes with a similar pattern.

[Rob Powell]

@Kleekwyck: looks better than before, try to make the head more dragon like though, you can keep the frill but the head still looks too much like a generic lizard.

@DefiledVisions: highlighting is on the to-do list, and now the wings look even better, as I continue to tweak them. And your second design looks better imo, it looks more appealing and resembles the its respective egg much better.

@Si_Swe: yeah I know what you mean, the dragon looks a little boring at the moment, I wanted to build up more form before incorporating the elements from the egg to it, so the designs don't get in the way of rendering. I'm probably going to add some more blue to the wing as well so it looks more like it belongs to the dragon and not pasted on.

[Ville_S]

very interesting topic. here's my WIP. Just working out the anatomy and ornaments at the moment.

[warburton]

I predict lots of cool designs by next wednesday.

Wizo5454 Cool design, i like how the reds and greens and the dramtic atmosphere.

lkjhgfdsa Very nice rendering and design! Perhaps darkening the background or bringing abit of contrast from the dragon and the background to make your design pop forward abit.

Rob Powell Look forward to seeing this finished, a nice start! Be sure to establish a lighting and work those values when it comes to rendering =)

KleeWyck Seeing as this is your weakness it looks very nice for a start. I like the idea with the scale of the creature and the design your going to incorporate into him.

Lancelette I like the wings and the colours of your dragon. I think its legs could do with being abit bigger though.

Bahamuth Badass dragon, look svery nice so far. I look forward to seeing it finished! Which egg did you pick?

DefiledVisions Awesome as always. I like the top one more, it feels more unique. Cant wait to see your finished renders!

Si Swe Cool sketch, look forward to seeing it with colour and texture! Which egg you choose?

Homerid VERY nice dude, I love that texture in his skin with the contrasting colours, it works really well. Will look forward to seeing it progress.

Extra/card Cool start, keep it up!

Ville s This looks promising. The head looks very nice! Keep up the good work.

My sketch with abit of muliply and overlay colours

[Coool Brain]

wip01



inspired from...



Trying to show a dragon baby which is only days old.
I am struggling to get the baby dragon proportions. Help!
Any kind of suggestions are welcome.

NOTE: The egg was rendered from a 3d software by Le Marquis. All the credit for the egg goes to him.

[Rob Powell]

@coool brain: Make those eyes a little bigger and the mouth/nose a little smaller if your going for a hatchling as creatures grow older their nose and mouth grow bigger whilether eyes stay relatively the same size throughout their life, and proprtionlly the head is a little bigger compared to the body for hatchlings. Look at the differences between adult crocs and baby crocs for example. If your adding any feathers make them look more fluffy like down feathers on baby birds! Hope this helps!

Found a much better quality pic of my egg, and it made me realize how detailed it was, anyways started painting in another layer some of the designs and patterns, rendering still needs lots work especially for the wings, and still no background I'm glad I got another week to finish this!

[Ville_S]

wip01
Trying to show a dragon baby which is only days old.
I am struggling to get the baby dragon proportions. Help!

Look up pics of baby dinosaurs. Here's a baby prosauropod (Massospondylus) and baby theropod (Scipionyx).





As rob said. Big eyes short snout...that should do the trick.

[Si_Swe]

Homerid - Looking good. Glad to see you participating. The perspective on the scales at the base of the tail seems a bit off at the moment, but consider how little rendering has gone on there, I assume it will be fixed soon. It might be cool to also have that golden patterning at the base of the wing membranes, if only subtly.
extra/card - it's a nice start, but I'd recommend sketching out a basic design and getting an overall feel before getting all that tonal work in. I find that going in and rendering value without actually having the full form creates redundancies in rendering. Shading areas that will be covered up anyway.
Ville_S - I like how much of the egg design we can see in it already. As far as the design of the dragon goes, the wings should be a lot large for the size of the dragon. Think about how far back the wings go, when unfurled the membranes should support a significant amount of the dragon's torso, or it would have way too much of it's body hanging down as it flies.
Logistic Puppet - Thanks! I'm using the egg from the OP that (lark posted. I figure at least one person should, and I liked the design of that egg well enough. I'm liking the start you have here, cool plating. At the moment, the only advice I can give is to beef up the musculature around the wing limbs, and extend the wing membranes down to the torso, otherwise there's no way that dragon would fly.
coool_brain - Ville_S has solid advice. Baby dragons are best with: small underdeveloped wings (yours are a bit too big right now), a small snout, large eye cavities and proportionally large eyeballs. Take a look at the Daily Sketch Group's round 1600 (Cutest Dragon Ever), you should get an idea of what I mean a little more.
Rob_Powell - The design is looking more unified already. My current recommendations are as follows: Give us the tail, otherwise the drawing will look very incomplete. Make those wings bigger, they feel undersized. Put a gold crest along the spine, it will unify the head designs with the gold on the body. Patterning or texturing on the blue. Right now the blue is really bland because it has no texture, your solution is either to give it patterning (stomach pattern, speckles, stripes or something) or give the blue skin some kind of texture (it can just be hinted at, no reason to hit us over the head with texture).

I'm throwing down some really basic colour and values. I'll be putting some intricate patterning on the skin once I have a little more of the creature established.

[brambor]

I somehow don't like it anymore

[Flame_Unquenchable]

Did some thumbs of heads in pencil today, was thinking about sitting out for a round or two, but this one is too good.

In a battle against sucking, I'm going to be trying new stuff. These were drawn with the thought in mind that I will have to rearrange certain features to match the faberge parts of the egg which I have several candidates for.

I'm currently fond of A and C, D is growing on me, but I think I need to lose that horn.

[extra/card]

Si_Swe - Thanks for the advice! I did have a rough sketch on another layer (I didn't want to include a picture of it because the upload manager makes me want to punch babies), but I'm already running into the issue of working over areas I've already rendered Definitely going to keep that in mind next time.


The body and the back legs are driving me insane so I'm stopping for today, hopefully I'll figure out what to do with them after not staring at it for a while.

[lkjhgfdsa]

some sort of update... bound to be changed.

[o0Dave0o]

Well here's my humble beginnings. I've got designs for an adult dragon and baby dragon and have sketches for a painting including them both so I hope I can get all that finished by next Wed! It's going to take some time but I think I can manage!

[Flame_Unquenchable]

Well, I went with A, so here is my first WIP, since I'm done for tonight. Did an outline and started painting gray onto the drawing. After closer examination I can see the back leg is out of alignment. Crits are most welcome.

[Pat Thompson]

Here's what I got so far for the Faberge (hard to spell little word, ain't it?).

Since the Faberge eggs were fabulous gifts for Russian queens/czarinas and princesses once upon a time, I figured that in a kind of steampunk reality that the treasure inside one of the eggs would be a living treasure instead of a porcelain statue.

My egg functions more like a cage. Inside the begemmed container lies Sparky the Desktop Dragon, a very handy, if mischievous, creature favored by royalty. The creature feeds on wood, paper, insects, garbage, etc. It can't digest ink, graphite, etc, so most of its waste (poop, for the layman) comes out in the form of a glittery ink (full of the priceless matter that makes the jewels of its hide!) that comes highly prized.

So not only does it have valuable excrement that can save you a trip to the royal stationary depot, but it can also sharpen your pencils with its beak (it eats the wood, not the graphite), clean out the dustbin/garbage can (first roasts the trash with its flaming vomit, then licks up the ashes (gross, I know)), and can play the part of a purty desk ornament. The downside is that if you leave its egg-cage open, it might eat your homework, royal decrees - or if you piss it off, it might burn you with some projectile fiery vomit.

For the composition I'll have him chilling on a desk, a blonde Russian princess looking on as he eats a royal decree from her father that she doesn't like.

So in the final attachment, with the red dragon meets feathered dino, I think I have my final choice that I'll be running with, along with his eggo to the right!

Any crits and advice more than welcome! Cheers and great job so far everyone! I'll be posting some crits for y'all real soon.

[Edward B]

Hello! Everyone's doing real well, I'm impressed with how well everyone is incorporating the eggy elements on the dragons.

I chose this egg
some wips, and where I'm at:

[Pat Thompson]

further update, with composition and bg laid in. Going to have the russian princess at the mirror in the vanity dresser, watching delightedly as he burns her father's decree. Dragon is still in sketched mode, will be working on that next. And that big ol' red thing is the egg so far - will be detailing that up, and adding the opened cage elements. That's the dragon's inkwell of treasured inky excrement to the right, and his trash-bin food bowl to the left.

Not sure if that face is going to be drawing too much attention away from the critter though... maybe a milky mirror?

Any advice/critiques more than welcome!

[Gorgonbunny]

Beautiful dragons everyone! I can't wait to see them all finished.

I'm trying metallic acrylics on panel.

[themonet]

Here is some of my initial work. I don't know that I'll have the time to finish it this time around, but its a fun topic. I was inspired by the fact that some of them open, with a split line down the middle, so I thought it could be fun to show the dragon hatching and have the egg open like the Faberge egg.

Crit very welcome. My first COW.

[ninety9]

nasty shit edward!!!

[(lark]

holy shit this place quickly filled up with awesome! keep it up guys!