TSAOSHIN

Wrapped up another How To Train Your Dragon drawing over the weekend.  I hadn’t planned on a second work on this topic but it was hard to resist.  Since this was so much fun, I am considering doing a “companion” illustration similar to this to my current Naruto work and then again to the proposed Legend of Zelda fan piece I’ll be starting in May.

Despite the simple composition, I went through several poses/ideas that I didn’t bother to scan because they were all crap.  I landed on the final pose at William’s recommendation since many of my earlier sketches were too similar to the larger piece I posted last week.

Here is my original sketch:

Final post:

(For larger size and commenting, check it out on deviantART.)

As you can see, not too many changes aside from fixing up the face on Toothless, dropping his knees down and tucking the right wing back.  I took a different approach with the colors starting on semi-desaturated shadows and graduating to my lights rather than recessing to my darkest points.  I think the process resulted in a “lighter” illustration than normal which worked great for the overall look.

I also used a dynamic soft edge brush for the line art which was a HUGE difference for me especially since I was running that sucker at 100% opacity.  I think I’m going to do this from now on because I waste too much time trying to “perfect” my lines at 2000% zoom which nobody ever sees.  Here’s a detail shot showing the lines with color half on and half off:

I used this same brush for the colors except in certain areas like the hair where I used a rake.  Since this method worked so well, I’m trying the colors at 100% opacity in my current drawing with some nice success.

Will update again with the finished Naruto piece.