This is the final and finished version of the dragon. I put it into a background in the clouds and used a few blending methods to make everything lay in smoothly. I also added a slight ink outline filter to the background to give it a cool look. I decided on the color of orange for the sky because I wanted a late day to sunset feel.
The next step is to add color to my dragon. I made a color pallet to the left of the dragon and then made an overlay layer to apply the color to. I used a base color of blue and then added darker versions of blue to match the shading just right. Then I added some purple color to give the skin its own unique look. Red and blue make up the eyes. I also put a yellow/gold color to the underbelly and the tail to offset the rest of the blue and purple color. I also added a slight blue highlight to the the armor scales that's just barely visible.
I continued my dragon by working with it in Photoshop to add the shading. I decided on a light source coming from the top left of the image. I also worked on the armor plates that the dragon has to make them shine a little more with the light source. I started with a 50% gray to the background and then cut out the dragon till I had only the outline of it and no white paper left. I then copied the outline with a small brush and put an overlay layer on top of it. A combination of overlay and multiply layers make up the rest of the shading until I had it the way I liked it.
This is my drawing of a dragon. It's supposed to be very large and very aggressive looking. This drawing was done quickly on a piece of regular printing paper and then scanned into the computer.
