Elephant vs. Dragon by Keaze

In medieval times it was thought that elephants and dragons were mortal enemies.
The elephant here is based on some medieval drawings of elephants. Since artists usually only had descriptions of these animals, many would end up looking pretty different from the real ones, e.g. bestiary.ca/beastimage/img139.…
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Slon protiv zmaja
U srednjem vijeku smatralo se da su slonovi i zmajevi smrtni neprijatelji.
Ovaj slon se temelji na nekim srednjovjekovnim crtežima. Kako su umjetnici uglavnom imali samo opise ovih životinja, često bi znale ispasti poprilično drugačije od pravih slonova, npr. bestiary.ca/beastimage/img139.…

wolfian Featured By Owner Dec 15, 2017

Awesome! Bestiary Battle Royal!

Temiree Featured By Owner Sep 27, 2015 Professional Digital Artist

The colors on this are freaking awesome, and the composition. So imaginative. <3 I could totally see this hanging up on my wall as a poster. Great work Keaze!

Keaze Featured By Owner Oct 6, 2015

Thank you! I was worried that I'd mess up the composition but I ended up with a nice 8 shape. Elongated flailing bits make it easier to lead the eye in a certain direction around the picture.
For colours, especially the sky, I was inspired by some old Dutch paintings.

comixqueen Featured By Owner Sep 27, 2015 Professional Digital Artist

Awesome painting!

xyzUnusedXYZ Featured By Owner Sep 27, 2015 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Ajme. Koja borba. Sa takvim tonom i teksturom, izgleda vrlo epski.

Keaze Featured By Owner Oct 4, 2015

Hvala! Epsko je najbolje.

xyzUnusedXYZ Featured By Owner Oct 4, 2015 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Da! X3

ashimbabbar Featured By Owner Sep 27, 2015

Pliny says the dragon had to drink the elephant's ice-cold blood ( don't ask ) in order to calm the fire raging within him

Anayo-s Featured By Owner Sep 27, 2015

At first I thought this elephant was the result of you taking artistic license with an elephant. Then I saw your comment about artists in the Middle Ages drawing these creatures based solely on descriptions. That's a really mind blowing detail. I wonder if that 500 year old illustration of an elephant compared to a real elephant is what our illustrations of dinosaurs must look like compared to real flesh and blood dinos before they went extinct.

Keaze Featured By Owner Sep 27, 2015

Elephants are such bizarre animals. They must've been so hard to imagine, you can see the artists tried to compare them to something familiar like boars (because tusks) or give them horse manes (because riding?). Some artists couldn't wrap their heads around how the trunk is supposed to work so they'd give them weird elongated muzzles, making them kinda like ambelodon corsair.morganlibrary.org/icai…
And some others were...whaaa? visualiseur.bnf.fr/ConsulterEl… visualiseur.bnf.fr/ConsulterEl… s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/7…

Our dinosaurs already totally changed. Look at one of the first interpretations of a megalosaurus: dino.lindahall.org/img/goo3h.j… it looks nothing like a dinosaur.