Illustrating A Dragon In Procreate - Full Process - Episode 14
video - Episode 14
Today is another complete process timelapse episode, and I am creating a red dragon in Procreate on the iPad.
Planning out your drawings in advance makes creating your illustrations way easier. For this red dragon, I began my dragon sketch using my layered sketching process, but for this one, I had to decide on how to make the dragon scales that would wrap around his body.
To create the dragon scales that curve around and move with his body, I designed a mesh guide before sketching the scales to help me plan out his scales in advance. The mesh is only lines that determine the curvatures across the body and guide the direction of the scales.
How To Illustrate A Red Dragon In Procreate
I used darker color linework to define the edges of the dragon's body and bright, bold colors to create the body colors and scales.
To learn more about how to use a layered sketching process like I do in this video, you can grab my sketching guide below!
Learn How To Sketch In Layers In Procreate
Get the sketching guide and learn a powerful sketching process that will transform your drawing skills.
How To Illustrate A Red Dragon In Procreate Transcript:
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I am Denise Palmer and I am an illustrator artist and surface pattern designer
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working out of my studio close to the Gulf of Mexico where water
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adventures and botanical plants surround my everyday life.
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Welcome to these video chats where I talk about some of the techniques I've used
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to create my artwork and chat about all things illustration, art, and design.
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I'm starting out this video with the evolution of my sketches because I did one
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thing different that made a big impact in how I created this dragon.
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I turned off the rough sketch and this is the refined sketch,
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but I'm gonna turn the opacity on the layer up so you can see it better. I put the
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shadows on a separate layer, and before I sketched the dragon scales,
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I created a mesh guide to help me think about where the scales needed to go to
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wrap around the dragon's body.
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This mesh was extremely helpful in creating the scales and positioning them.
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To create the scales,
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I really had to think about how the inside of the dragon's body moves and how
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his skin would wrap around the inside structure of his skeleton.
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It was also the first time I had to create scales on a dragon and it was way
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more challenging than I thought it was going to be.
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I learned so much from having to create the dragons for this project,
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especially because of the complexity of the scales.
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Now I'm turning on the sketch of the scales, which I did on its own layer.
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You can see that the scales follow the shape and size of the mesh areas,
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but do not exactly stay in the diamond shapes the mesh creates.
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The mesh is just a guide.
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But this helped me see where the scales needed to turn and become smaller in the
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overall skin layer of his body.
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This is one of three dragons I created for this project,
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and I'd never drawn this type of dragon before and never had I done dragon
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scales either.
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So don't be afraid to draw something new because you have never done it.
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It's important to think about your approach though,
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and this is how I approached drawing my dragons by using the mesh
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that I wanted to share with you.
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Now as I am blocking in the color and procreate underneath the sketch layer,
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I'm using my monoline brush to create the shape I'm going to fill with the same
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color. I'm not thinking about shadows.
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I'm just filling in the main body color for this red dragon and following along
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the sketch lines I've already created for his tail that is wrapped around the
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mountain, I'm color blocking this color in still on the same layer.
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This is one of my favorite details of this dragon is how his tail and body just
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wraps around this mountain. When I imagined him,
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I was thinking about him coming out of the water,
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this huge dragon and climbing on top of this mountain to look over the land,
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but this dragon circled around the mountain with his huge long body to get a
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nice vantage point. Going to be looking over at something below,
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and I will show you the whole scene at the end of this video so you can see it
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all put together. Once I had the shadows in place,
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I wanted to get the scales done.
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The shadows helped me visualize the curves of the body as I was working on
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scales, so it was good to get those in place.
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Since I spent a lot of the time on my sketch for the scales,
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I followed pretty closely to the sketch for working on them.
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I kept the scale line work simple and used my monoline brush to create them as I
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worked around his entire body where the scales needed to be.
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Then I went back and turned off my sketch layer so I could really see what I was
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doing,
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and starting at his head I added textured lines to the scales and
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some darker red areas to create a sense of shadowing underneath some of
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his scales. This brush I was using here,
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I believe was the script brush,
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but I cannot be sure now since this was a past custom project,
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but any brush that has a like taper to it and is somewhat smooth
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would work.
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Next I added in the spike that curved along the back of his body and then added
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a line that connected the spikes together like a centered ridge along his
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backbone.
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Though this dragon would have to have a very flexible backbone in order to curve
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around the way he has around the mountaintop.
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I wanted to give him some softer edges to his body since his coloring is bright
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and bold,
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so I used a darker red to add some edge line work to his body.
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This helped to define the creases where his legs touched together and break up
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the body part boundaries. Once I had the main details done,
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I started finishing, finishing up the face details,
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including his fangs eyes and horns.
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I also added his claws in a golden color that worked nicely with his red body.
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It is so nice to have a detailed sketch to work from because you never need to
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guess where and what to do next. It is all there for you.
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Your map and details to your illustration all planned out in
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advance.
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I'm almost done with this guy and adding the last details that really bring him
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together the way I envisioned. He has colorful details around his face,
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nose, and tail that I added at this point.
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I'm adding some darker lime work around his eye to really add some separation
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there. I'm also adding some color details around his tail,
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and I liked having multiple colors on his tail
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because the mountain is a big part of his positioning as he's wrapping around
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it.
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I also finished up the details of the mountain as part of this illustration
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piece.
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Dragon and the mountain are part of several illustrations that were put together
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to make the finished artwork.
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Here is the finished illustration of the Red dragon all put together
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in his surroundings, and I titled this Design Dragonland Mountains.
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It is the story of these protective creatures rising up from the
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ocean waters to look over their people and bring them
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protection and prosperity to all of them.
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I will be sharing more process videos just like this one,
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so be sure to subscribe. Thank you for watching!
