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RoleplayDragon2000 — A Show of Spring Colors
Published: 2019-05-14 17:32:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 341; Favourites: 37; Downloads: 3
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Description
On Mother's Day my family decided to visit my Grandma, whose dragon collection was several months out of date. As a gift, I decided to make her a new one! My Grandma's favorite colors are navy blue, dark purple, and everything in between, thus the iridecent scale colors. I thought his palette worked well with the incoming Spring!Questions:
(1) How is the color palette, Truly? Any suggestions?
(2) Typically, my dragons have a single scale color for their entire body. Does the gradient add or detract?
(3) How is the gradient? Too abrupt? Too diffused? Just about right?
(4) How does one add shadows to such a bright piece? I tried black, blue, and purple, but only truly got a good result if the scales we're blurred.
(5) Any other comments, critiques, questions?
Thanks!
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Comments: 8
Hey there! I'm here from ProjectComment and I think your piece is really good. The scales look good at any distance (Some people do their scales too small and colour them incorrectly and ruin the effect but you have not done that, which I think is very good.) What I will say is don't be afraid to use darker tones when trying to convey iridescence, because iridescence is usually on a completely black tone (Oil, Beetle shells etc) or on a completely clear base (Like on soap bubbles). Adding some dark blues, purples or even blacks could make the scales seem a lot more detailed, but I will admit that that is a LOT of detail especially for a non digital medium, and the dragon still looks really good without. Also, if you look more in depth at iridescence, you will see that the tones are comprised of lots of colours, that aren't necessarily complimentary to the overall colour, but add to the effect (hard to explain but if you look at close up iridescent objects then you'll see what I mean.) Regardless, your colour choice is really nice and has clear intentions. The dragon looks young and these colours really help exaggerate this. Good job!
When adding shadows to bright colours, its important to understand how these certain colours interact with light. The best way to do it is to take an object with similar colours as the one's you're using, hold it to the light so that different shadows are being cast onto it, and then take a PHOTO of it. This is because, a lot of the time, bright colours already have shadows on them, but your brain kinda automatically filters them out because you know the ACTUAL colour of the object. Try looking around your house at everything thats white, and if you really analyse the colour for what it is, you'll notice that most of the white objects in your house will be some distinguishable shade of grey, as opposed to white. You will always see these objects as white, because your brain knows they are, and when light is on them, they are definitely white, so you just automatically filter out the grey and just see it as white. The same logic applies here. Look at the phot of your object an look at what colours it is ACTUALLY made up of. Where shadows are cast onto your object, try and recreate that colour with the medium you're using, and that's the colour you need to use for your shadow. In addition to this, add white or very light shades of your chosen colour where your light source is, and this is how you get your effect. Its weird to do at first but you'll get the hang of it.
The form of the dragon is awesome, the only criticism I have is the wing. It shares the same light level as the arm and is also on the same plane as the arm, with no clear definition of shape, which makes the wing stand out less, and it looks more like a third arm before you realise its a dragons wing. The placement is fine, just maybe add a darker tone to where the wing connects to the dragons body to set it apart from the arm.
I really like the expression of the piece. You have conveyed a clear emotion of curiosity and eagerness with the butterfly and the piece is something thats really nice to look at. Its cute and fun, but that doesn't take away from the physical skill behind the piece, and I think that's really quite admirable!
Cant wait to see what you do next!
Keep up the fantastic work, you're a great artist
p.s.
What medium do you use. To me it looks like you've used oil pastels but I really can't tell
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Thank you for your thoughtful comment! This should help a lot! Out of curiosity, do you know anything that is iridecent in the way my dragon is? I wanted a photo, but had no idea what to use!
I use Prismacolor pencil, which is a wax-based artist quality colored pencil.
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Ok so a lot of beetles have different forms of iridescence
So if you just google 'Iridescent beetle' then you should get a lot of different examples
Try to think of each beetle shell as a scale on your dragon and then apply that to give a really goo diridescent effect. Allow certain colours to be dominant in some areas, and make other colours dominant in others, and youll get a nice iridescent effect. It is a really hard thing to draw though, because iridescence is usually comprised of lot of colours that dont really go together, but I'm sure you'll be able to make them look really good!
Keep it up!
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The ventral scales brown color is a bit jarring compared to the cool purples blues and greens you have going elsewhere. It makes them look more stuck on, than part of the dragon's body. The color gradient is really nice otherwise. I really like how the bright green next to the purple body scales gives the dorsal membranes a translucent look.
Shadow colors would depend largely on the background colors reflecting onto the shaded parts, but I'm far from good at shading myself, so I'll defer to someone else's opinion there.
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Sparkle dragon! 
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This is really nice ! The colour palette and the gradient look good to me
Maybe making the butterfly more visible would be a good idea though, because I didn't really see it the first time I looked at the picture.
Other than that, the texture of the scales is amazing ! Did it take a long time to do them ?
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The scales didn't take all that much time, I finished this piece in about five or six hours. Typically, my pieces take anywhere from 10 to 15. The drawing is only 6.5" X 8.5", the scales are actually quite small!
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