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Description
Well, I hate to start two descriptions in a row with a tale of the struggle to finish it, but I'm afraid that's going to happen. This art trade with ~NerielMi has taken a bit more work than I thought it would. For some reason Neriel just didn't like me, or at least I'm assuming that since she seemed rather reluctant to cooperate. I sketched her out at least ten times and I failed at the painting stage twice before I managed this. I originally intended to draw her as part of the heathland, made of sedges with bleached dead heather for horns, but I just couldn't reconcile that vision with her character, the character of the land I was trying to make her embody was a desolate, scarred monster, bitter an unforgiving, a far cry from Neriel's playfulness. So with the landscape option out I tried fusing her with a tree, but when I started painting that I realised there was no way I'd be able to make the colours work. After many sketches of her just as a dragon I eventually came up with the idea of making her out of paint, which is what I ended up doing.

I referenced loads of splash pictures from google images, these were the main ones though: www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&… www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&…

The fact that she has no backstory means that Neriel is born of art to a much greater degree than my characters, who were characters in a world of their own long before I gave them faces.

I have to say I am in two minds about Neriel's design, I love the gradients on her ref sheet and the horns on her neck are just brilliant, but I don't think I like the fact that she's darker underneath, it is an unusual pattern and I respect that though. Also I think she suffered being cartoonised here, she'd be better off painted more realistically with more detail but I'm in a simplifying and stylising mood at the moment so realism wasn't going to happen.

Anyway, I hope you like it.

Description
Well, I hate to start two descriptions in a row with a tale of the struggle to finish it, but I'm afraid that's going to happen. This art trade with ~NerielMi has taken a bit more work than I thought it would. For some reason Neriel just didn't like me, or at least I'm assuming that since she seemed rather reluctant to cooperate. I sketched her out at least ten times and I failed at the painting stage twice before I managed this. I originally intended to draw her as part of the heathland, made of sedges with bleached dead heather for horns, but I just couldn't reconcile that vision with her character, the character of the land I was trying to make her embody was a desolate, scarred monster, bitter an unforgiving, a far cry from Neriel's playfulness. So with the landscape option out I tried fusing her with a tree, but when I started painting that I realised there was no way I'd be able to make the colours work. After many sketches of her just as a dragon I eventually came up with the idea of making her out of paint, which is what I ended up doing.

I referenced loads of splash pictures from google images, these were the main ones though: www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&… www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&…

The fact that she has no backstory means that Neriel is born of art to a much greater degree than my characters, who were characters in a world of their own long before I gave them faces.

I have to say I am in two minds about Neriel's design, I love the gradients on her ref sheet and the horns on her neck are just brilliant, but I don't think I like the fact that she's darker underneath, it is an unusual pattern and I respect that though. Also I think she suffered being cartoonised here, she'd be better off painted more realistically with more detail but I'm in a simplifying and stylising mood at the moment so realism wasn't going to happen.

Anyway, I hope you like it.