The sun was sinking low on the horizon when the great reptilian beast landed upon a tall peak jutting higher than all others surrounding it. Standing proud, his eyes glanced about the barren landscape, its colors now warm from the suns light as it slowly dipped behind the mountains. It was a fleeting event, brought about as if nature herself desired to rekindle some spark of life and beauty to this desolate and cold location. In but a few moments, this would all be returned to its former self and the great dragon knew that another day was gone. Another day of plotting his rise to power and domination.
Tomorrow, however, always held the promise of possibilities.
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This whole thing started as a piddly project and just sort of exploded. I had done an old acrylic painting of a dragon that I wanted to update and pimpify. But as I was redoing that piece, I decided that it was really boring and had no real drama to it. So, I started to paint it in a sunset with more dramatic lighting, but even that was failing.
Two revisions later, I decided to go sifting through my big resource files of various sky lines I've photographed. Picking out a rather nice sunset I snapped, I decided to use that as my background. And this is the result.
Not quite what I intended from the beginning, but I still love the results.
Special thanks to the dudes and dudettes at Concept Art and Pixelbrush for all the critiques and paintovers!
EDIT
I fixed some technical things with the old image. It was really, really dark. At least the print that I got from it was really dark, and my now calibrated monitor also displayed that too. Anyway, added in more details to the rocks. This image is considered a done deal.
Because of dA's print system where my larger version gets uploaded into the gallery, I'm going to use the watermark. :/ Wish I didn't have to, as I liked uploading a separate image for prints instead, but this what I've got to work with.
Tomorrow, however, always held the promise of possibilities.
----------
This whole thing started as a piddly project and just sort of exploded. I had done an old acrylic painting of a dragon that I wanted to update and pimpify. But as I was redoing that piece, I decided that it was really boring and had no real drama to it. So, I started to paint it in a sunset with more dramatic lighting, but even that was failing.
Two revisions later, I decided to go sifting through my big resource files of various sky lines I've photographed. Picking out a rather nice sunset I snapped, I decided to use that as my background. And this is the result.
Not quite what I intended from the beginning, but I still love the results.
Special thanks to the dudes and dudettes at Concept Art and Pixelbrush for all the critiques and paintovers!EDIT
I fixed some technical things with the old image. It was really, really dark. At least the print that I got from it was really dark, and my now calibrated monitor also displayed that too. Anyway, added in more details to the rocks. This image is considered a done deal.
Because of dA's print system where my larger version gets uploaded into the gallery, I'm going to use the watermark. :/ Wish I didn't have to, as I liked uploading a separate image for prints instead, but this what I've got to work with.
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Just the kind of picture you can look at forever. The light and colour scheme is really stunning, and the mountains and clouds are amazingly done. And the wings of that dragon - just wow.
I see you've really developed your technique since I was active, great stuff.
I discovered a site called conceptart.org which I thought you might be interested in, if you didn't already know of it's existence (description, same place?), I've been lurking there for around a year or more, also cgtalk but that's more for the professional side I guess.
Words to offer for the painting, technically, it looks like the mountain / jagged edge in the centre of the page has a slope due to the small rubble on the (left) side of it.
It's also not consistent with the way the clouds have been done and because the paw / hand / hoof / claw of the dragon is in the way, conveniently provides a way for the viewer to presume it is actually a part of the mountain, the left mountain reassures that this is not so but that doesn't change the suggestion, so it looks a bit out of place, perhaps I need eye surgery though.
Things i really like about it; the blue in the clouds, the "lens flare" (?) orange on the mountain, great use of color to emulate light, the overall tones and the title, which fits.
Overall it does seem a little like it might be a crop of a "grander" picture and I know, from your other pictures you understand more than is needed to show what is shown in this picture about placement on page, maybe you wanted the clouds to be slightly lopsided and the dragon to look a little stifled... just trying to suggest things that might be of use. I've been reading the loomis books on drawing, illustration and painting and I think he really nails a lot of things, for instance when he says no amount of explanation, defense or et c can stir up the profound emotions in people which a painting can (which is to say explanation about a painting, not explanation - writing)
This picture has something of that.
Anyway, rock/roll on!
Anyhow, you have done a great job! I'll be watching you for more
The colours are so amazing.
Beautiful, awesome,
super cool, I can't remember how this looked before though
But it currently looks amazing!
Amazing enough for me to forget my headache