NDA Art Critique Message Boards

I've been drawing for the past year and a half (using NeonDragon's books of course!) and I can usually get the characters fine.

The problems start when I try to draw more details and backgrounds, namely clouds and fire effects. These are obviously critical to dragons, but I am at a complete loss for how to do these.

I only draw freehand with colored pencils, so photoshopping isnt an option for me. Anyone have a tip?

drawing from life actually, it will get you further then any 'how too' book ever made :3


and drawing with references, I can't stress this enough xD. thers tons of sites like these http://mayang.com/textures/Nature/html/ ... index.html
where you may use the pictures as ref from

Try working with basic shapes - keeping your pencil strokes light. Once you get the forms in a where you want them, go in with a different colour (for whatever you're working with) - apply a little more pressure - and work in some shadows and highlights. Make sure you keep your general shapes - your bases - nice and light, so you can work more easily on and around them. ;)

There are a few ways you could draw clouds, it just depend on what style you're going for. If you want a very realistic look, work on shading to give the clouds depth. If you want very simple cartoony clouds, you could draw curvy m shapes with a tail that fades away, as if the wind was pushing it a little.

I suppose the biggest thing to keep in mind while drawing more realistically, is that clouds are always changing shape, so don't draw any really harsh blacklines with them. An organic edge, with an outline of off white or grey, blended to fade into the white of the rest of the cloud would probably work quite nicely.
The eraser is also a good tool to use, to make clouds. sketch the general shape you want (you don't even have to do that, really), and after shading/coloring the background, just take the eraser, and have fun with it, in cloud-like shapes.

These are just a few ideas, and as i don't use pencil crayon that often, they aren't what i always do (most of my work is oekaki, these days), so it would probably be best for you to try out a bunch of ideas, experiment, and see what works for you!
Good luck.

Ok, thx for the cloud tips, now i need fire. what good is a dragon that doesn't breathe fire?
I'm not exagerating at all when i say that i've met 6-yr-olds who draw better fire than i do. Mine looks like a jellyfish crashed into the ground, and i cant get the embers right.

Okay, well, since i don't draw fire very often, i've decided to pull out my prismacolors and sketchbook and try it out, see what i can tell you.

First things first, chose red orange and yellow colors for fire. Obviously, i guess. x3

So, when i draw fire, i make upward sweeping curves, usually wider at the base and tapering off to a point. Since fire is always in motion, i try to replicate that with my lines, making everything look pretty sketchy. That isn't to say to go over and over the same line until it looks like a mess, but rather i make quick strokes in the direction i'm drawing, soometimes doubling back and starting where i've already drawn. When i get the shape i want, i refine the edges a little (the edges of flame tend to be very obvious.) with the darkest/richest color of the flame (an orange or red) and then fade the colors down until the base is a pale orange or yellow.
i like to draw little flares coming off the tops of the flames (just smaller flames, about the size of a candle flame, or so, but detached from the rest of the blaze).
As for embers/sparks, i've never really thought about them personally, but i would suggest drawing a sort of astrix type star, but without the middle. so it would be five or six little lines in a circle, pointing outwards from the center, but not touching each other.
\|/
/|\

kinda like that, but with a couple horizontal lines as well. :3
that obviously isn't the way they look in real life, but it would give the illusion of a bright spark of light. though, come to think of it, i'm not sure how you would do that with pencil crayons. unless you've got a good eraser to erase little spots of the background color and replace it with the sparks.
Hope that helps a little, or at least gives you some ideas of your own.

best tip i can give for clouds and fire? dont over think it. clouds and fire are both pretty random looking. just with clouds be more circular, and fire, more angular and you'll be fine. let your pencil flow where it will.

when i do fire i curvy trianular lines at first and i bulid up with more messy lines it works for me.
for example heres one of my really early one
http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbumBig.jsp?P ... 8624754692

and a better and more later one
http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbumBig.jsp?P ... 1223257308

there not the best examples but i hope it will help.

Mmmm, this is going to sound very strange... but... for me it works to see the fire as a living thing with a personality. What do you want it to express? For anger, long and more straight lines are better. For cozyness, try more curly and wavy forms...