The Dragon Queen
This started out as a 1 hour sketch for Sketchfest which I occasionally participate in. The topic was Queen of Dragons or Dragon Queen. To be honest, I’m not a Game of Thrones fan, so I wanted to do my own queen - someone that is beautiful and strong, yet still feminine. I decided to turn it into my dragon painting goal for 2019. This had been planned as a watercolour painting, but I ended up turning it into a digital piece.
I’ve included the WIP shots I took along the way. With commissions everything is planned, while personal pieces kind of ramble. This is not a great way to paint if you have a deadline, and I ended up repainting things several times as a result, but I’m happy with the final piece :)
The final piece is available as prints and products on Redbubble. Unfortunately Society 6 has a problem with slow internet connections and I can’t upload the file there.
The initial sketch, done as a pencil A3 piece during sketchfest in 2015
I’d played with the sketch a bit and had originally added a ruined gothic window. You can seek my various sketching layers below the painting as I tried to figure out the dragon
Sometimes you have to scrap an idea and get back to basics. I was really keen on a particular colour scheme shown in the sky, so I basically hid the sketch layer and just used a big brush to put colours down on the page
I had always wanted the throne to be crystal. I must have found about 50 pictures of quartz and various crystals. Most photos are taken against black backgrounds so it’s not 100% accurate with the lighting.
In the original reference the skirt was extremely long. I looked at a lot of references and played with fabric folds. I also worked on her hands and some of her armour
I redesigned the dragon’s head
Almost there. I repainted the skirt and worked on the dragon. I also resized her armour as it felt a bit small for her body
The final painting. I worked on the dragon’s form, added stones to below the throne, and tidied up the painting. I still wanted a painterly feel to the piece
A detail from the final painting