I recently completed a series of assignments for Axe Initiative Games which is releasing some most excellent books for its Raider’s Guild product line through Goodman Games in the months ahead. 

What follows are a few quick shots of the  painting’s development followed by the finished artwork.

I took several iterative shots of this painting throughout the process. I apologize for their quality, but I was somewhat pressed for time and took photos of the painting at various stages (and often in a dark studio in the small hours of the night). I hope you will find this article interesting.

1) What follows is the digital rough that I submitted to the art director. It really only indicates the basics of the scene: the composition and pose. The assignment description I received called for a green dragon preparing to attack a flying ship.

I struggled a bit with a series of thumbnails as I worked out a composition that would both show the airship and give a sense of the impressiveness of the dragon ( even though the dragon would, in reality, be much smaller than the ship).

The ship was designed for the book’s cover by illustrator, Dave Allsop. For proper quality reference of a Dungeons and Dragons’ green dragon, I referred to the 4th Edition Monster Manual which features fantastic paintings by Lars Grant West.

The Dragon Attacks rough sketch

2) The Art Director and I have worked together before and the rough I provided was enough for him to give me the go-ahead on the final. I did a grid transfer of the rough to my hot-press illustration board and refined the drawing referring to the Monster Manual continually.

I sat at my local Barnes and Noble and worked on this piece until closing with a coffee in front of me and the odd child that was curious about what I was doing occasionally coming over to review my progress.

Dragon Attacks pencil stage

3) Once the drawing was completed, I took a snapshot of it and popped it onto my computer for a quick and dirty digital color rough in Corel Painter X. It just indicates basic lighting and general color choices. It will serve as a very rough guide as I proceed to the painting stage.

Dragon Attacks Digital Color Rough

4) I taped the illustration board down to a portable drawing board ( rather than my desk) which makes it easy for me to turn the piece as I work and transport it between painting sessions. I tape up to the painting’s edge and this will leave me with a nice clean edge when I remove the finished painting from the board.

My first stage called for a series of  watercolor washes of cerulean blue and ultramarine blue. I model the clouds by scrubbing the board back to clean paper with a stiff-bristled brush and water. I enjoy working back and forth–pushing and pulling on the painting going between pigment and pure water until I get what I want.

The blue also serves to cool down the shadows in future stages.

blue wash

5) My next passes serve to add some warmth to the color of the light and to establish an underpainting for the main subject–our dragon. I used faint washes of cadmium yellow light and cadmium orange on the clouds. 

I created a value underpainting for my green dragon by adding washes of quinacridone violet ( which is actually a fairly dark red) to my already laid down washes of ultramarine blue which will produce a strong violet as seen below. In some areas the quinacridone violet will appear as a cool red and in other sections, where it blends with the ultramarine blue, will create a nice purple color. 

I also use chinese white to model the forms and pick out highlights.

I build up my values over time until I feel ready to spray-fix the watercolors with Krylon Acrylic coating.

Violet wash

6) My next step was to create a glaze of  vibrant green which was mixed from cerulean blue and lemon yellow ( aka hansa yellow). This was painted over much of the dragon with areas that would allow the red/purple underpainting to come through and help make the green seem more vibrant due to contrast.

In shadow areas, the red/purple would blend optically with the green to create darker, more neutral tones.

Green glazing

7) I finally went in with more opaque acrylics and tightened things up further—establishing form and highlights, deepening shadows, adding final details.

Below is the properly scanned final painting.

I hope you like him!

The Dragon Attacks!

That concludes this work-in-progress/behind the scenes/step-by-step/tutorial.

Thanks for reading!