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cryslara — Splash
Published: 2009-12-02 10:55:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 25452; Favourites: 1718; Downloads: 517
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Description
A 'meeting of worlds' commission for Rashan and Nikita. Sky, mountains and water all together.It's in cool colours, guys! See, I do use purple occasionally.
I find cooler palettes a little harder to work with so just because of that I'm going to do a bunch more blue things to figure out what my problem is. I love her little feet. I have so much trouble with hind feet all the time but hers turned out exactly as I wanted them to this time. It's probably a by-product of having been following my cats around with my sketchbook lately.
Time: 21 hours
Tools: Photoshop CS4, Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet
Music: I really enjoyed painting this to the sound of Bright Eyes.
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Comments: 134
Beautiful dragon.^^.I love their wings.
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More awesome art.
I think those hind feet turned out excellently, as well.
Anyway, I really like the poses and colors you used. The wing membranes on the sky one look luminous, and the poses are very lively.
The water is extremely well done, too. The splash looks very realistic, and contributes to the sense of movement.
Overall, the soft colors and contrast work very well, and everything comes together nicely.
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The splash was what I probably spent the most individual amount of time on. I think it ended up a little more stylised than I would have liked but it was enjoyable enough that I'd like to play with more water effects in the future.
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It's been said plenty already, but you did a wonderful job with the water effects! You might have done just a bit too much with the tiny droplets, but that could also just be me not being used to seeing them in drawings or pictures and things like that...
The background looks beautiful, of course. 
I've always wondered how artists do transparent wings that look this good. Is there a trick to it? Do you set the layer for the membrane to be slightly transparent, or do you only work on one layer?
I'm envious of how great all the paws look. That's one thing I'm struggling with right now. The paws you draw always look so flawless.
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For transparent membranes I simply paint with lower opacity, occasionally on a new layer so that I can erase things if I go overboard. For some things I'll paint the membrane first and then hint at the shapes behind it with darker shades, which I did for the blue dragon at the bottom.
Paws have always been a big trouble for me and it's only recently that I've been getting my head around them more. Drawing a lot of my cats' feet has really helped with this. 
And the inspiration came from a lot of middle mountain national park photography. There's all these beautiful photos of glassy mountain lakes that are incredibly inspirational.
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Oh, really as simple as that? Using just opacity or taking advantage of a higher layer certainly seems like the easiest way to go, but I would almost expect it to yield somewhat "cheaper"-looking results because of this... Obviously you couldn't have made the blue dragon look how it does if you had only put a filtered layer for the membrane. Of course, you're committing yourself to a lot more work when you do the transparency the way you did here, but I think it looks a lot better. It certainly grants you better control over fading the transparent effect, which is definitely what you did here.
Did you just use a lower-opacity layer for the white dragon, then? And, if so, how did you prevent the clouds from showing through?
Heh, well I'm glad paws are something even great artists have to work at.
Ah, I see. Pristine mountain lakes. Sound like excellent inspirations for drawing a background.
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I find that directly painting the membrane rather than messing with layers and transparency gives me the most control in my painting - I paint digitally how I would traditionally usually.
If I remember correctly with the white dragon, my under-painting for her wings was always white so the clouds were never really there to show through. With her wings I think I did the things behind first and then painted the wings over the top to get the transparent look, though it's a lot of back and forth to get things to look right.
Haha, my cats are the same way too, always moving. I try to get the general shapes down as fast as possible. When drawing just one part like paws it's a little easier because sometimes they keep them still for more than two seconds. 
And nah, no particular photo for reference on this one, just a lot for inspiration.
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I think it will always give you more control to take a more traditional approach rather than depending heavily on layers and opacity. More difficult, for sure, but I suppose that's the trade-off. XD
I'm not sure I completely understand what you mean. Are you saying that you have a layer of white beneath the wings as the viewer sees them? I guess this would be the same as filling in an outline on a lower layer. Sounds like an easy work-around to still allow the body to show through slightly. It makes sense that there would be a lot of back-and-forth between the actual wing layer and the body, though. That's part of the more traditional approach, I think. You aren't letting the tricks of digital art do all the work for you.
Do you prefer to draw from live references, then? Or would you ever, say, take a camera to your cats and then use the pictures in your practices? It'd solve the motion problem, but I guess it wouldn't be the same, would it...
Hmm, okay, just curious. I could definitely see this landscape as a real area somewhere though, so I guess that's why I asked. XD
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Haha, I find it easier to paint directly really. There's a lot of skill in using digital effects without them being jarring.
Hmm, my explanation was a little convoluted. Basically I do an underpainting when I start to paint which indicates my main colours and values. Most of what I do could be done on a single layer; I just gradually build up layers of digital ' paint ' through brushwork. I tend to work on separate layers when I want a safety net for something experimental or when I'm doing commissions and might need to move parts of the composition around for the client.
Drawing from life is a great habit to get into and I can't recommend it enough. It really does improve multiple aspects of your art and observation and widens your range. But photo references are important for learning too. If you want to focus on learning a very particular aspect of anatomy, like paws for example, it's probably handy to look at a lot of photos because they can be hard to study directly. In choosing between drawing from photos of my cats or straight from life though, I'd rather draw with them directly in front of me.
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Do you have a history of doing lots of traditional drawing and painting before you began to seriously focus on digital art? The way I see it, artists who know how to do digital art as if they were painting traditionally have a huge upper hand over those like me who have never had any serious artistic background before tackling art on the computer. I think the difference really shows in matters like this, where you could take the easy way out and just draw on a layer set to "multiply" or actually directly draw what something would look like - or even taking advantage of digital bells and whistles in such a way that your art actually gains something from it. XD Obviously the former is easier and appeals to those people who haven't developed any good technique yet.
Oh, okay, that makes a little more sense. So not only is your art amazing, but it's mostly on one (or, if not, just a few) layer(s). That does make it easier to see what you did for the white dragon, then. I guess the approach wasn't a whole lot different from the blue dragon, even though you didn't have to put quite as much care and detail into making her body fade as you did for his. XD
I'm really starting to think about how much my art might benefit if only I would be willing to try to draw from sight rather than stubbornly insisting that dragons, being the creatures of fiction that they are, do not necessitate that I spend time doing so. 
For the photo references you use, do you get most of them yourself or do you find them online?
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I'm sorry for taking so long to reply to this, I've been caught up in a lot of things recently.
But I believe a backing in traditional art is absolutely essential to becoming a digital artist, or any sort of painter. Digital is just another medium and understanding the fundamentals of drawing is what's most important. I was never much of a painter before I started digital work but I had spent a number of years with a pencil in my hand - my gallery is full of my old pen and pencil drawings.
I think your art would benefit heaps from working from life more, or doing studies from photographs. Mine always has.
For photo references I take a lot of my own but I also browse around the net a lot for unrestricted stock - sometimes here on dA or on places like morgueFile or Wetcanvas.
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Aw, don't worry about that. I'm glad to get replies no matter how delayed.
I've been trying to get into traditional art a little bit more, recently... I really want to improve on some aspects of my art that just aren't going to get done by drawing digitally with a mouse. XD I won't really be able to do anything but draw with a pencil, though, so I'll miss out on a lot of color practice, but hopefully I'll learn some other important things (namely shading, anatomy, and perspective, all of which I am sorely lacking right now XD).
When you began doing pencil art, did you take art classes or did you pretty much teach yourself everything?
Hmm, well I'll start trying to do that more. I don't know how much my cat will cooperate for me to draw him, but I could always take a few photos. XD That'll be a change: the first time I've drawn something other than dragons.
I'm trying to get over that. XD I guess you just have to tell yourself that it doesn't matter if they're watching, the same way you don't see anything wrong with watching other artists. It's really my family I can't draw around. They don't even know I draw, right now, and for some reason I've never wanted them to know.
Ooh, I'll take note of those sites. I never know where to go for good stock photos. XD Thanks.
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Getting away from the computer and focusing on simply drawing can be incredibly rewarding. Nothing wrong with only drawing with a pencil; it's my favourite way to work out ideas.
I've never taken any art classes.
My cats never co-operate either but sometimes I catch them in a helpfully still mood. Good luck with your drawing!
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The poses are so lovely. The water coming off the dragons wings really brings the painting to life. Gorgeous <3
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This picture is one that I call best art, thank you for that from all of us)
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amazing!! I love that you can see through the dragon's wings! This is a very excellent piece!!
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Beautiful work, so much to love about this! I like the cool color scheme, I think it was a really good choice for this piece, and it keeps the background cohesive with the foreground. The semi-transparency of the wings looks just fabulous... And yes, her hind feet came out nicely, and they are very cat-like! And all the little details like the texture of the tailfin and clouds really make this a great image.
Heh, on an unrelated side-note, I love how long their tails are! ^_^
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I've got this thing for long tails and necks lately, my dragons have become rather elastic.
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Well it looks lovely. And you're very welcome.
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Wow, this one is truely amazing! 
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Yeah, that's always how I've seen them as well.
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I so agree with you^^ dragons are awesome!
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The colours are awesome!
And the splashing effect Is beautifull!!!
I love it
And the dragons are perfect too!!!
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The sky dragon is so amazing! It's feet are really kinda cute and background/water is detailed and great!
The only thing that disturbed me a but is the white border around the water draggies head, which makes it look a little bit 'artificial' compared to the sky dragon and background, which are painted in a rather realistic style.
But overall, this is an adorable artwork!
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Yeah, I think the backlighting is a little over done around his fin looking at it now. It should be more subtle than it is. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I'm glad you like her feet, they're my favourite part.
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