NDA Art Critique Message Boards

Hey I'm working on a dragon design and I NEED help! If someone could do redlines please do. It's going to be a main flying dragon, long legs, and those weird little antenna thingies on it's back and behind it's nose. I need help with the back legs and feet. And the front look a bit off to me...


Maybe I'll color it when it's finished...

Sorry about the stretching. I didn't know it would stretch the boards... I though it would be smaller...

would you like me to redline? sorry i dont have a (working) tablet at the moment though XD

Well I don't have a tablet at all so be happy you at least have one. Yes, if your tablet works again I would appreicate the redlines.

Woo...! That's a very large image! If you have access to an image editing program of some sort, it would be good to shrink it down so it doesn't exceed 800 pixels in width (the board max to prevent page stretching).

But anyway! I did some redlines for you which I hope will help.


Something I noticed is that the head seems a bit small compared to the body and also that the hind leg seemed a bit too wide or thick or whatever you want to describe that as...! I drew a sort of rough sketchy thing of the underlying skeletal structure which I referenced from a dog skeleton. It always helps to learn about what's going on under the skin, so I definitely suggest looking at the skeletons and muscle structures of various animals so you can apply that knowledge to your dragons.

Generally, the uh... 'elbow', knee of the hind legs, and deepest part of the chest seem to line up horizontally in animals. Forelimbs also begin *before* the ribcage; they are at the front of the body with the neck uh... 'coming out of' them so it goes neck, forelegs, chest rather than neck, chest, forelegs. Yes?! o_O

Uh...! I also did some some vague lines as a suggestion for the positioning of the wings:


I'm not sure I can really say much about this that already isn't explained just by the lines themselves... I didn't go into detail at all obviously and just drew the basic shape of the area the wings would consume... That bit with all the lines in it in the back is supposed to be the other wing, just in case that isn't clear. It is a rather vague image, after all. o_O

Thanks for the redlines. I'll post an update on the dragon soon. And I'll admit that I am very bad with the wings (or at lest folded ones =( ). And thanks also with the head although I failed to mention that it's supose to have a smaller head. Maybe I'll add some large ears.

But with the shrinking... I'm not excatly sure what editing programs to use or how to shrink it... Would you mind telling me? (I'm bad when it comes to computer image editors )

Folded wings can be pretty tricky to draw...! I know I struggled to get them (and any other wing poses that weren't just directly from the front and fully open) to look right, but at least it gets easier with practise!

I'm not sure what kinds of image editing programs you have, but uh... I use Photoshop and to resize images in that, you have to go Image>Image Size... and then type in a value for either the width or height (the one you don't type a value for should adjust automatically) and after that, it's just as simple as saving. If you have a different program, try looking for something in the menus at the top that mentions resizing or the images size or something...! If you're desperate, you can always try using Paint and going to Image>Resize/Skew... and then typing a percentage in both the height and width boxes to change its size... Annoying that it doesn't just let you type in a number of pixels or something instead though. o_O

I hope that helps and isn't too difficult to follow! I also look forward to seeing progress on your drawing! :D

Thank you! Thank you, thank you. I so totally agree with you about the wings. They are really hard. Also update! I hope it fits...

Hurray! Hurray! I can do it!
I'll add the antenas later when the sketching it done.

Oooh! I definitely see improvement! *Excitement*! I like those feet and your lines look all nice and smooth. Good job so far!