As an illustrator, no matter how skilled or experienced you are, there's always a lot to learn from going back to basics and following someone else's process. Lately I've been trying to work a lot on my own art style and so classes like Jazza's really help me to take a slightly different approach to what I would normally do, in an attempt to learn new tricks and tips.

Here is my journey/process through following the Mastering Illustration class, while also adding a hint of my own style and flare. Plus, this will be a digitally drawn piece as opposed to a traditional one, so certain tools and processes will be slightly different, more so when it comes to colouring, but it can also be a bit more forgiving when it comes to making mistakes since layers and the lovely ctrl-z (undo) button are there to save the day!

To start with, I already had a vague idea of a piece in my head that I wanted to try out and initially I was planning just to jump straight into it, but then I figured that it would be a good piece to work on for this course.

As of late, I've been enjoying drawing fun and expressive poses and one thing I find myself referencing a lot when I'm sketching are ballroom dancers and ballet dancers, so I wanted to create a finished illustration with this sort of theme in mind. I also had the idea to include a nice flowing dress with some sort of colourful streak coming from it, maybe a rainbow pattern of sorts.

That was my basic idea, but to follow Jazza's suggestion of adding an element of randomness to the piece in order to make it seem more unique, I added a lot of yes/no and multiple choices for fate to decide for me.

Here is a list of everything below:

Male or Female?
Male

Masculine or Feminine?
Masc

Mood:
1. Happy
2. Sad
3. Excited
4. Lustful x
5. Angry
6. Passionate

Now, being a furry artist, I always like drawing anthropomorphic characters, so the next few elements are all to do with the character's species.

Canine
Feline
Bovine/Cervine
Reptile/Scalie x
Aquatic
Rodent

Dragon x
Lizard
Komodo Dragon
Salamander
Dinosaur
Alligator/Crocodile

Winged/Wingless?
Winged

Okay so, fate has decided that I am to draw a masculine, male, lustful dragon with wings and my goodness I was still planning on drawing him in that dress and I wanted to make him beautiful.

Next part was putting together a moodboard to help inspire me for my piece.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 1 - student project

My board consists of various dance poses, ideas for dresses, art of anthro dragons and art of dancers. Since I was going with a lustful mood for this piece, I also looked up some colour palettes that give off a warm, lustful feeling and added them to my moodboard. Already my rainbow theme went from a standard rainbow to a more selective spectrum of colours; I had more of an idea of where my piece was going before I had even started sketching anything.

Sketching was next and my god I had a lot to work with, so I was excited to get stuck in. Firstly, I drew a few head designs for my dragon character, experimenting with different proportions and shapes, slightly referencing the other art pieces on my moodboard, but also adding my own style to the designs.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 2 - student project

Once I found one that I was happy with, I then went onto working on some more head designs, with my chosen style in mind. I kept the chosen design from the previous sketches in the top corner, just so I could keep a visual on that initial concept. Out of this lot, I chose a front and profile view that I really liked. Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 3 - student project

I then went onto designing concepts for his body, playing around with various shapes and proportions. I was really growing attached to the idea of this muscular dragon character with a long torso and really tiny arms, legs, wings and even a tiny waist.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 4 - student project

Once I was happy with the body design, I continued developing him even further with sketching out a front, profile and back design.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 5 - student project

I also took this as an opportunity to design his dress. Lovely!

Admittedly, I probably did more work for myself than necessary, however, I was having a lot of fun designing this character, so I was just going with the flow.

Next, it was onto thumbnails and much like my character concepts, I did this in stages.

Firstly, I did thumbnails referencing various poses from my moodboard until I found one that I liked.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 6 - student project

Again, I probably put a bit too much detail into the sketches, but I was having a lot of fun drawing all of these different poses. I thought his proportions would make drawing these poses really challenging, but it just made it even more enjoyable and fun looking; he sort of reminds me of a character out of Disney's Fantasia.

I wasn't finished there with thumbnails though. Now that I had a pose in mind, I wanted to work with different angles etc.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 7 - student project

For these thumbnails, I took the chosen pose from the previous thumbnails and stuck it in the corner. Then I tried a super zoomed in variant. Next I tried drawing the pose facing the other direction and also zoomed it out slightly (similar to one of the art pieces on my moodboard). Lastly, I drew the same pose at the same angle, but offsetting it from the centre.

I really liked how that looked, there was something about the asymmetry of this idea that seemed interesting and unique to me. Also the idea of a colourful rainbow streak coming off of him as he dances changed into streaks of fire, to go along with the lustful moods and also the fact that he's a dragon. Who doesn't love a fire breathing dragon? Except maybe that village that he burnt down earlier... I also liked the idea of the flames coming off him spiralling around him and I felt this would help bring the viewer back to the character on the asymmetric design, so needless to say, this idea won.

Now that I had this idea planned out, it was time to work this thumbnail into a refined sketch.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 8 - student project

Here's what I had to begin with, however, after resting on it for a day, I decided that I wanted to change a few things. So it then turned into this sketch.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 9 - student project

In this sketch, I adjusted the wings, tilted the head back more to add some drama to the piece, moved him further into the corner and I also tried to make the expression a bit clearer. I also changed the hand position slightly from the initial thumbnails, just to try and create some motion with the flames. Lastly, I liked the idea of the flames coming off of him being part of his dress, much like one of the art pieces on my moodboard.

Once I had that idea set out, it was time to add some line art.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 10 - student project

Tried to add some motion to his ribbon thingies and also his hands/arms, as well as adding some lines to help direct the flames, which will become more detailed when I colour.

Speaking of colour! I was a bit lazy with testing out colours and just did some scribbles to test out which colours I wanted for the dragon and the dress. The fire was pretty straight forward, as was choosing the colour scheme, since I already chose that when making my moodboard.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 11 - student project

Ultimately I preferred the bottom left one, as the dragon had really good contrast from the flames, also the colour of the dress made it look as though it was the blue part of the flame.

Now here's where I went on my own path with regards to colours. When it comes to digital art, I quite enjoy working with digital paints and not only that but since I was doing this digitally, I have the ability to make things easier on myself when it comes to adding in the flat colours by creating a grey-scale base and then using layer clipping to add in the colours afterwards. Each different tone of grey has it's own layer.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 12 - student project

I also filled in the background with a plain colour, just so I can make sure that I've coloured every part of the character.

Before I add in the flat colours, I take samples of each colour from the palette that I picked out earlier and make swatches of them on a separate layer, also adding in light and dark tones of each colour.

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 13 - student project

Now it was a case of adding in the flat colours and then going over each colour with the various light and dark tones using water colour brushes on my illustration software. The key is to use the flat colour as a base and then blend in the other tones with that base colour.

It wasn't too hard for me to work out the light source since it would all be coming from the fire that he would be summoning.
Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 14 - student project

I also added in a yellowish highlight to the edges that are nearest to the light source and then went over it once again with a thin white inking pen, to add an extra sheen.

Now it was time to get Bob Ross on this boi and paint in the background (except rather than using oil paints on an already wet surface, I'm just using a digital water colour brush)

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 15 - student project

Initially, this was going to be me done with this piece, however, I once again slept on it for a day and when I came back to it, I decided that something was bugging me about it, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I ended up consulting another artist friend of mine for some feedback and he said the following:

"I'm a bit visually confused if, they're in a long dress that spirals into the background; or of they're in a cave, and I cannot find their legs"

I agreed with him, that's what had been bothering me.

So my artist friend suggested cropping it down a bit, which worked out better. I also ended up dragging out the colour of the dress, bringing it further round and then layering some flames over the top of it. I also wanted to add some texture to the dress, so I ended up adding in some glittery effects, letting it taper off with the flow of the dress. Lastly, I also did some layer clipping over the line art to add some extra glows and lighting effects, as well as changing the colour of the fire effects from the inking stage.

Here is the result, a finished piece that I'm completely happy with. Doesn't he look glamorous and beautiful? I certainly think so!

Dragon Dancer Illustration by Flux - image 16 - student project

There's a lot to be said about taking your time with a piece like this and not rushing it to the end. I really think resting on a piece and coming back to it is sometimes key. Also going to other people directly for some outside input which doesn't always have to be from other artists. I believe that humans are subconsciously aware of what is eye catching and what isn't, plus people always have different opinions and interpretations when it comes to art, so it can always help to get thoughts from other people.

Okay so, final thoughts from me. As someone who doesn't usually put this much prep into an art piece, I usually get an idea and just jump straight into sketching, inking, colouring (I never usually bother with thumbnails either) this really was a big help in having a more solid and concrete piece, with a well thought out character and concept. As I said at the start, it really helps to go back to basics and follow someone else's process when it comes to creating art. I certainly learnt a lot and will be adapting elements of this course into future art pieces.

I hope everyone else enjoyed the finish piece and the process behind making it.

Feel free to leave some feedback as well, I'm always open to input from other people.

Lastly, thank you Jazza for running this course, I had a lot of fun and learnt some new things in the process :)

Flux Whisklaw

Aiming to do art for a living

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