2024 / 10 / 27

Three tiger dragons from an old sketchbook back in 2019. Said sketchbook was never finished (unsurprisingly), partly in due to the paper quality not being ideal for me, but is now being used as a place to practice human and animal anatomy.

I have drawn better dragons since then, with some art yet to be posted, which have been trapped in limbo simply because I keep putting off finishing up the piece and/or flattening the layered files if digital. I find it interesting how much I lean into tiger motifs far more than I realize, and that I ought to use them more intentionally in my art.

2024 / 10 / 11

Some progress shots of a dragon I’ve been working at on-and-off since last year. The shading is all done, but it feels really flat to me. Maybe the linework needs more depth, especially around the mane…

I hesitate to call him finished just yet, but I really like love how all of his fur turned out. Sometimes you got just gotta take close-up shots of your work to better appreciate them more.

2024 / 10 / 3

A 40-minute guardian lion doodle and a feline anatomy sketch study, with some notes pulled from a creature design book and some science papers online.

I’m trying to be more selective of the kinds of anatomy studies I do and immediately apply them in relevant drawings. I’ll have to make a bulkier musculature sketch reference for my guardian lions, since I’m always guessing where the forelimb muscles lie while drawing them.

2024 / 9 / 23

Detail shots of a finished dragon. I don’t typically draw four arms on my dragons, but I had Tears of the Kingdom’s dragons on my mind at the time I was working on this. I ought to draw fan art of them someday.

I’m itching to color him, but I’m waiting until I can get a new flatbed scanner. I’m planning on putting together a coloring book of dragons since I’ve been so focused on inking and line work versus full-colored pieces and trying out different creature designs. Digital pages will be made available too once I have everything put together.

I kept switching between two ballpoint pens due to one or the other going dry at various points in the inking process. I love drawing with ballpoint pens. They’re the most pencil-like pens to me.

My hand cramped badly by the end of this, but I really loved how all of those spikes turned out.

2024 / 9 / 22

Sketch of a dragon from one of my sketchbooks. I tried to play fast and loose with this one since I usually take a million years just to finish one grayscale pen-and-marker illustration. I ended up really liking the process and the result.

I’ve been content to be on my own for a long while. It’s giving me some peace to recover from my mental breakdown, and I’m better understanding the fact that regular periods of solitude is a non-negotiable need of mine. I’m generally just enjoying my best homebody life, with a side of attending local art events here and there.

But self-isolating can end up causing me to inadvertently ghost people who have done nothing to push me away. I’m still trying to break out of my hermit inertia and maintain better communication with other people.

For now, at least, I feel content with myself.

2024 / 4 / 19

A few snapshots of dragon sketches in ballpoint and fineliner pens. I often drag my feet on designing my actual dragon characters and opt for doing headshots of random dragons instead. But this keeps me actively drawing, at the very least.

I do love the nose horns on the big fella though, so I’m gonna be exploring that design element further in a character of mine.

2024 / 4 / 19

Pencil sketch portrait of my dragonsona. An old piece from 2020.

I’ve been looking through my sketchbooks, both old and current, to find some art to share. Between freelance work and recovering from excessive stress, I’m able to find the time to do some personal drawing. I’ll be doing my best to post more art.

A scanned version of this sketch in grayscale can be seen here.

2023 / 4 / 15

Progress shots of yet another old dragon. My morning routine for the last three days is spent inking his mane and scales for an hour or two, and resisting the urge to shade him before I scan the inks is complete torture…

My husband thinks he’s pretty.

2023 / 1 / 13

Pen sketches of dragons from 2021.

Around that time, I started experimenting with giving my old dragons mustaches. The results were quite cute.

2023 / 1 / 11

Dragon sketch in an ol’ BIC ballpoint pen.

Ben told me how much he enjoyed watching me draw this. Like I’m just erasing white ink to uncover the drawing that’s already there…

2023 / 1 / 10

I recently (and finally) got myself a new phone and, within it, a new camera to take better quality photos of my art! Needless to say, but it’s been well-worth the money and I feel a lot less embarrassed to share my traditional art now. Be prepared to see more WIPs this year.

Here’s progress on the blue eastern dragon I featured in a previous sketchblog post. I work on him every other day to keep up with the art-making habit. I’m hoping to get him done by the end of the month so I can move on to yet another dragon piece. Maybe even by the end of the week if I’m feeling particularly ambitious.

I’ve got a few art-related new year resolutions in mind, but one of them is to use up most, if not all, of my old colored pencils before splurging on newer and nicer materials.

Tools for those who are curious:
Faber-Castell Classic Colour pencils - 344, 351
Color Peps - Marina Blue
Dong-A Fine-Tech 0.2 - Blue
Dong-A My Metal 0.7 - Gold
Strathmore Bristol smooth paper

Wooly the Dragon

Warm, friendly, and probably the most perfect companion.

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After 10+ hours of layering color pencils on his luscious mane, this fella is finally done! I think he’s an eastern dragon/guardian lion hybrid, but I mainly just wanted to draw fat eastern dragon for a change.

Originally, he was meant to have some spots along his back (@stebens suggested this, along with his name) but I had forgotten about them. Should there be a next time I draw Wooly, he will have his spots!

(Faber-Castell Classic Colour pencils, Prismacolor Scholar pencils, and black and pink gel pens)

Been a while since the last sketchblog.

I haven’t spending as much time on personal art as I would’ve liked. I had several depressive episodes. I visited my sister for nearly a week. I focused on freelance work. Trying to get some sense of a routine put together because, you know, ADHD is so fun to have.

Here’s a piece I’m working on. The first sketch was a blue color pencil doodle in which I tested how gold ink would look on this dragon. It’s not a fancy gold ink pen by any means (Dong-A My Metal 0.7 if you’re curious), but I liked the effect enough to try making a nicer, bigger illustration.

I have no idea how long this thing will take me. I still have Woolly to finish coloring, and I like to jump between several pieces to sate my brain’s need for novelty. Still learning to be patient with myself. Drawing individual scales by hand will force you to be patient.

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A messier illustration compared to the previous dragons I’ve drawn. He’s one of those drawings that I left in limbo for much of the year until I figured I could get some inking and color pencil shading practice in.

He’s a lil’ shy…