Dragon stages 2 and 3by `hibbary

Scraps

Two more WIP progress shots for the dragon. The first one is here:

As you can see, I went back in and darkened those things up that I had mentioned in the first WIP shot. I've got, more or less, three light sources here. One is the pale, cool backlight, a kind of grey ambient light from the sky, and the warmer spot light coming down from the front and left. When I first envisioned the painting, I saw the dragon going from a high chroma red back to a total neutral grey.

This lighting scheme is not necessarily natural or logical but it is a painting, and as such I can bend the rules of reality for my own purposes. Which is fine by me. I'd be bored as a boiled cabbage if I had to paint total realism all the time.

After I decided on the right lighting (and I'm going to continue changing it with various layers of glazes throughout the process) I began to pick out some details and hard edges. I don't want to fully detail the whole painting or it would become over-saturated with hard edges and look too cookie-cutter, so I need to decide what I want to bring into focus and what I don't. I may even go in and intentionally blur out edges later on if I feel like it's getting to crisp.

Other than that, I've just been putting down colors and pushing and pulling the form around with lights and darks.
There's still a lot to be done, but I'm closing up shop for tonight and will pick it back up on the morrow.

~Tsuki222 Sep 28, 2012

Gorgeous!

*uniqueLegend Apr 7, 2012 General Artist

Hi there Hibbary. I'm getting into acrylics and can I just ask: Do you use small amounts of water to blend the acrylics together? I heard that it's not really advised... But I do find that the paint dries too fast out on me before I can even correct it.

`hibbary Apr 8, 2012 Professional General Artist

There are some nice additives you can use. Retarder will open up the drying time. You just have to be sure not to add too much or it gets tacky and won't dry.

I also suggest a wet palette to keep the paint nice and moist.