Sometime within the last few days (time is such a blur that I can't even remember when I was working on this...!), I started working on this drawing and have been making layer after layer of sketches on top of sketches to try to correct mistakes and get it closer to how I want it to look.



I've been having so much trouble finding a good position for the legs though... I've drawn them in various different positions, but none of them really look right and I'm not sure what to do about it, so I'm not sure if I'll even get around to colouring this thing. It seems unlikely, but who knows. I might just start over and try a different pose, though I do want to keep the wing perspective I've currently got since it seems somewhat dynamic. I'd also like the rest of the pose to be more dynamic, so maybe it would be good idea to start over anyway.

I haven't been doing as much art as I would like recently though due to university courses having started a few days ago and worrying about or distracting myself from worry about that by playing games rather than being productive has been consuming my time and focus. I have been trying to draw wolves or other doggish things though, plus whatever other creatures end up coming to mind, but those sketches are in my sketchbook and not really worth scanning and showing since they're not especially interesting or detailed or anything.

I finished that "Perching Dragon" thing yesterday morning, but didn't end up writing about it at all...



But yes, I finished it! And I have mixed feelings about it, though I think I usually do after each piece of artwork I make. I'm pleased with myself for having the patience to put as much detail into the dragon as I did and am even surprised by the dragon's mane and how it turned out better than I expected. It's sort of inspired me to draw more "hairy" things.

The shading, however, bothers me, especially on that left wing since it looks so uh... well, "wrong", I suppose. I probably rush too much with shading sometimes and don't take the time to try to get things looking right and instead just try to get it done as quickly as possible. Not a good habit!

And uh... I've also been trying to draw more dynamic poses?!



Though I wasn't very pleased with it when I first drew it, I'm starting to wonder if I should return to it and refine it tomorrow or something since I'm liking it more after not having looked at it in a while... I'm usually intimidated by drawing dynamic poses, but I'm also excited about the idea of being CAPABLE of drawing dynamic poses and am glad that I'm trying to.

I'm also too tired to type very detailedly or clearly or anything.

Finally, after the last few days of not knowing what sort of background to give this thing, I started on one. I decided to look up photography on deviantART to see if I could find a colour scheme in a photo that I'd like to try in this image, and I found one.



And so I started painting the background. I seem to be improving at clouds, though I still want to work on that cloud background and add something more interesting to it like cloud serpents or something, diving in and out of the clouds...? Which probably isn't the most original thing in the world, but at least it's more interesting than serpentless clouds.

Hours after that, working on the dragon itself, I've got it to this point:



I need to finish that right wing and the tail feathers and then probably make a new layer with some fancy blending mode to add more shading to the dragon... And I actually drew HAIR for the first time in a long time, and I did a better job at it than I expected myself to. So uh... huzzah or something!

Unfortunately, I haven't made much progress at all on the image in my previous post. I'm stuck because I haven't yet decided on a background even though I've gone through about five or six different background sketches...

So far, it looks like this:



It is not much different from before, but now it is sitting on and surrounded by floating blocky things. I'd like to have a sort of magical/fantastical background thing, but I'm struggling to think of much that would fit that sort of theme while also having a composition that looks good... Maybe I should try to draw some weird castle thing in the background floating on a small island of rock with other floating blocks and things around it? I'm no good at drawing buildings though, so I don't know... It's annoying wanting to start colouring something, but being unable to due to being stuck on something like deciding what the background should be! Woe!

Other than my non-progress on that, I've sort of been trying to improve anatomy skills... I have no sketches to show for it as none of them were really good enough to save. Maybe I should get back to that now since I didn't do much... Hopefully I'll be able to focus better now than I could earlier, but we shall see...!

I didn't spend quite as much time practicing today as I would have liked. I did TRY, but couldn't really get into the right state of mind at all and just felt rushed. I DID, however, start something that I could potentially finish. This is what I have so far:



This originally started as some really scribbly thing that I didn't expect would go anywhere, but now it's that! I want to try to add to the design of the dragon to make it more interesting than it is. Maybe I should give it some swirly, glowy patterns on its body or something? I've been wanting to do something like that for a while... Though that sort of appearance doesn't suit the background I currently have; if I wanted something glowy, the rest of the scene would probably be better off in dim light so the glow would stand out rather than just contributing to more light. Though, this isn't a huge problem since I want to change the background ANYWAY. Possibly to something more fantastical, but I'm currently unsure of what. I should try to decide on a colour scheme too. Maybe I should draw something that would also include glowing floaty things in the air or something? Bizarre topographical features or ruins...? Oddly-shaped trees? It's hard to decide, but hopefully I'll think of something that would be exciting to colour...!

The only things about this bloggy thing that are currently working are the front page's blog entry displaying ability and this blog entry submission page, but that's enough to at least start writing things. Hopefully I can remember to use this to go over my artistic thoughts and maybe it will motivate me to draw more.

Though I've spent most of the day working on this blog thing, I've now finally taken some time to attempt drawing something. I found a photo of a dog on deviantART yesterday and its pose inspired me a lot to try to draw something in the same pose. This is the photo I was referencing.

After about an hour of sketching, starting over, and correcting mistakes, my result is this:



It took more tries than I would have liked, and even though I got "somewhat close" to the original pose, there are still things that bother me about this significantly. One being the angle of the wolf's head, which I was having difficulty with since I wanted to try drawing the head from my imagination after doing the rest of the body by observation; my mind felt like it was still in an observing mode and I struggled to put much effort into visualising the angle/shape of the head in my mind...

After the head, I added fur to the body, but I made the chest fur too long (it is longer than the fur in the stomach area/between the legs), so it appears as though the wolf's chest is deeper than it should be, which also makes the dogs waist seem too thin. The hind legs bother me as well as they seem sort of too... flimsy or something? I think they might be a bit too thin compared to the photograph I was referencing. They might not be bent quite the same way and just sort of seem like they're floating limp behind the dog rather than being in motion. It also might not help that I thickened the wolf's front legs, so that might also be contributing to my "flimsy" feeling about the hind legs...

Anyway, I've never been very good at drawing from observation, but I don't actually TRY very often... I want to make it more of a habit since I'll probably learn faster if I do.