Malbraxes 2

Layers

   

Malbraxes 

Thumbnails





Layers

  

From the point when the backstory was established, it became a great deal easier drawing thumbnails. While I did go through separate separate expressions such as complacent, angry, menacing etc. mostly I was more interested in the design of the tree itself. More notably its shape and posture. Ultimately I settled on a design that looked as though the dragonlike element was growing out of the tree to emphasize the idea of these being to separate beings.

Swamp/Forest Dragon 2

Sketches

  

  

After experimenting with twigs and leaves instead of horns, I changed the idea to that of a dragon who doesn’t just live amongst trees but has a sort of symbiotic connection with them, basically a dragon that looks half-tree/half-drake.

With the tree dragon hybrid idea I went from dragon that has tree like elements, to dragon that is semi-consumed by a tree, which was fine and worked well enough and that was going to be the end of development. However then I had the idea that instead of this being a dragon with tree like elements, it would be more interesting if it was the other way round, i.e. a tree that took on the appearance of a dragon.

This aspect helped flesh out the his backstory and from that point I definitively knew who this character was and what the tree theme had to do with him. Specifically he was a dragon who gave his life protecting a great tree; sadly the tree was uprooted and died anyway. After the dragons sacrifice however the husk of the tree was reanimated, and started to take on the appearance of a drake.

Swamp/Forest Dragon 1

Sketches

 

The first theme I’ve chosen to go with in designing a dragon revolves around jungle/swamps. A drake that would make its home in or around wood and trees. I had a few ideas surround the narrative aspects for the character, such as how he hates dragon-fire, thus his choice to live amongst forests.

I looked at animals like crocodiles, warthogs etc. to start with and began drawing from there. Aspects like the wide grey eyes and scaly hands I quite licked, so for a while they became the focus going forward.

Skeletal Anatomy

These drawings were for my understand of dragon anatomy. I started postures then moved on to skeletal structure later on. Really these images were just a matter of practice in which I familiarised myself with how to start drawing dragons and provide myself with a baseline to start with.

  

Research

 

Skeletons

  

  

Project: Shadow of the Colossusish Game. (Except if you rode a dragon instead of a horse)

The goal is to design the creatures of a Hypothetical game centered around Dragons, As such I will spend this project primarily drawing dragons based on themes like Dessert, Windy, Mountain, Sea etc. The first thing I did was draw a map and chose what sort of dragons I should draw based on where they were geographically.

Images

 

Play-through (Bad Quality)