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E-Pendragon — Medic

Published: 2010-09-30 01:21:37 +0000 UTC; Views: 4139; Favourites: 130; Downloads: 50
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Description Major Edit: The healing flame has been toned down and removed from his eyes so you can see the compassion.

What and Why
It has been a long road to finish this piece. I've actually been working on it for almost half a year. School kept interfering so there'd be long periods between each little snippet. This painting is actually a commission that was ordered by a friend of mine for her friend who was over-seas. She told me he loved dragons and was a medic over there. So with those two pieces of information, I created this scene. Originally, bullets were going to be bouncing off the dragon's wings, but I couldn't figure out how to transfer the image in my mind onto the canvas.

If the story isn't obvious, the dragon is a medic in the army (a secret "weapon"!) who goes around healing injured soldiers. You're probably asking, "Why is a dragon healing instead of pew pewing with fire?" well most dragons in this universe promote that war is pointless and they would rather solve differences over a good brew of whiskey than blow other species up. In this scene, the dragon is healing the soldier's severely broken leg in the midst of a battle.

Getting the perspective correct on this piece as a pain in the ass... and I'm pretty sure there are a few places that don't seem right. Especially with the human. Bah! I hate drawing humans. I can never truly get them down. Also, I kept forgetting where the brush I used to color the scales was. I'm still not 100% sure if I used the same brush for all scales and such. I got a little lazy with the human. Again, I hate humans. One thing I've made note of is that I need to practice on machinery. My gun is lacking.

Techniques
There's so much to go over for techniques. The #1 method I use is having a base color then painting the shadows then highlights then uber highlights. You could also do greyscale painting where you paint all the shadows and highlights first then color the painting with a layer on Overlay. I switch back and forth between these two methods, they can each come out different. However, when I want something vibrant, I usually don't go gray-scale.

One thing you need to keep in mind when painting is that you need to constantly give depth to your picture or it seems very flat. A way I accomplished this in this painting is blurring the wing closest to the viewer like a camera with depth of field. One other note on blurring.. once you've blurred an area, I suggest very lightly sharpening the area that is your focus. Not too much though or you ruin the image with disgusting vibrant dots.

With sand you need to have the entire picture with a gradient of yellows and oranges. With this image, I put a Photo Filter adjustment layer and set it to Warm so that the entire image gives this "in the sun" feeling.

EDIT: I changed the image a bit; re-cropped it, and un-blurred the wing.
Related content
Comments: 28

Wingdings66 [2019-08-04 10:38:03 +0000 UTC]

I love dragons and I want to become a doctor, this pic is perfect ^^

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DunkleMaterie [2017-06-10 16:45:56 +0000 UTC]

Cool idea.

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10000playboy [2012-10-30 20:15:57 +0000 UTC]

i think using more than one brush to make a dragons scales only makes it look better if its all made the same way there is less chance of noticing how well it actually is

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ancestorsrelic [2011-12-16 22:55:34 +0000 UTC]

Normally i prefer the traditional dragons... you know, the dragons who eat maidens, crushing knights between her jaws, spreading fear and terror over the villages etc... the usual, traditional, old fashioned dragon
But this is really a cool idea and the soldier looks a little bit surprised too!

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ToothlessNEO In reply to ancestorsrelic [2018-01-08 05:50:11 +0000 UTC]

I like the idea of modern dragons with technology

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E-Pendragon In reply to ancestorsrelic [2011-12-18 03:26:49 +0000 UTC]

Yeah they weren't exactly told that dragons existed... or that they were healing the wounded. What the story doesn't tell is that the dragons in this world are neutral and can be seen healing the other side of any war.

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IPlayTF2blabla [2011-12-04 18:32:49 +0000 UTC]

Gee, i and thought its related tf2

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E-Pendragon In reply to IPlayTF2blabla [2011-12-06 15:53:42 +0000 UTC]

How the hell would it be related to TF2?

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IPlayTF2blabla In reply to E-Pendragon [2011-12-08 17:53:26 +0000 UTC]

i have no idea!

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E-Pendragon In reply to IPlayTF2blabla [2011-12-08 22:20:15 +0000 UTC]

LOL. Definitely would be cool if the Medic was a huge black dragon

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IPlayTF2blabla In reply to E-Pendragon [2011-12-09 18:41:38 +0000 UTC]

indeed.....

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half-dragon [2011-09-10 22:16:05 +0000 UTC]

Very unique.

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capt-boogs [2011-06-19 05:33:04 +0000 UTC]

haha, nice job. i always wondered what dragons can do for a military situation. guess i know one answer.

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Sashiryuu [2011-06-10 10:58:21 +0000 UTC]

wheee what a beautiful idea. I love it

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Krovash [2011-06-10 05:41:07 +0000 UTC]

That's a great work you did here. Soldier looks kinda surprised

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E-Pendragon In reply to Krovash [2011-06-10 05:45:42 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, he's mostly like... OMG WHAT IS IT DOING!?

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Nuke-annihilation2 [2011-06-10 04:59:29 +0000 UTC]

My first thought when i saw this was, Cool! then i continued looking at it and that changed from cool to AWESOME
Good original concept too, not something i see every day^^
design is very original too very effective with positioning the soldier and the "medic"
love the shading technique too, helps this picture really pop!

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E-Pendragon In reply to Nuke-annihilation2 [2011-06-10 05:46:03 +0000 UTC]

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Nuke-annihilation2 In reply to E-Pendragon [2011-06-10 05:47:26 +0000 UTC]

^^

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SuperTako [2010-10-01 22:16:50 +0000 UTC]

this turned out great! texture of the scales looks good.

one critisism though: I think that out of focus wing confuses the picture. Right now it takes up a full 1/3 of the image, and so my eyes were fighting over what to look at. I think you should cut out the wing altogether, or trim some of it off.

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E-Pendragon In reply to SuperTako [2010-10-03 23:39:57 +0000 UTC]

How's this instead?

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SuperTako In reply to E-Pendragon [2010-10-04 19:30:16 +0000 UTC]

I think it's an improvement! I getting rid of the blurryness helps draw the eye back to the head.

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E-Pendragon In reply to SuperTako [2010-10-05 01:07:21 +0000 UTC]

Yay

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meganbednarz [2010-09-30 03:08:32 +0000 UTC]

Nice! I couldn't tell where the dragon's head was at first though. The green lines lead in so many directions it's hard to follow. I'd also make the dragon's head the focal point by increasing the contrast between the light and dark there. The current focal point is the top edge of the dragon's wing in the foreground, and maybe the dragon's claws in the bottom center of the page. I think some of the confusion is caused by the dragon's head silhouette being obscured by his right wing. Well, the more I look at it, the more it resolves, but at first I was a bit confused. Great concept, and I love the texture and expressions The soldier is like WHUT

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E-Pendragon In reply to meganbednarz [2010-09-30 21:57:35 +0000 UTC]

I can see what you're sayin a bit. Probably a little difficult because I've stared at it for so ling that I don't notice as well. When I get home I'll test what you say out.

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meganbednarz In reply to E-Pendragon [2010-09-30 21:58:56 +0000 UTC]

Sometimes it can help to make the image smaller or squint your eyes at it and see if you can still tell what's going on... but yeah I know how you feel. I'm feeling that way about my thesis right now. Anyway, I hope I was able to help, but of course you have no obligation to act on any of my comments, they were only suggestions Peace!

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E-Pendragon In reply to meganbednarz [2010-10-01 02:06:32 +0000 UTC]

No I love that you comment on my stuff! It's better than the constant "Omg that's great, you're so amazing Lissi!" that I get at school. While compliments are great, they should be given with moderation, ya know? Else the person might let it all go to their head (ex: a friend of mine at school who thinks his stuff is the shit but now he's realizing that maybe he needs a bit more practice... and to stop getting offensive lol)

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meganbednarz In reply to E-Pendragon [2010-10-01 04:38:21 +0000 UTC]

LOL I know... Criticism is the best reward. It helps you make things even better. I always think if people really care about your art, they will criticize it, so I try to do that for people that I think will take it well and/or I care about their art

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