How to draw Minty The Garden Dragon!

The theme for this month is Garden Dragons! 🌱

For this tutorial I will be featuring Minty The Mint Dragon as one of my favorite Garden Dragons to draw!

Follow the steps and create your own artwork! Post your drawing on DeviantArt with the tag #GardenDragonTutorial and get a Profile badge!

I mainly sketch my work in Painter SAI2. A lot of my color work is done in Corel Painter using the "Mona Lisa" brush.

What is a Garden Dragon?

A garden dragon is a plant-like dragon that lives in a garden pot. I originally called them "Bonsai Dragons." I have evolved them since the first creation of Bonsai Dragon and have made several different variations of them like Minty Dragon.

Why this art style?

I love to read and make comics of my own and have developed this cute art style to fit my very own comic that I run called Lucky Dragon and Friends. I post this comic regularly here on DeviantArt as well as on WebToon. Some of the recent episodes of my comic feature Minty Dragon and how this little one came to be!

Let's get started!

I. Draw the pot.

• Start by drawing a box shape with a larger top.

• Draw two circles inside the box shape.

• Add a ring around the top circle.

• Complete the pot.

II. Starting the Mint Dragon.

• Draw the pot shape first. Follow the full steps above to get the perfect shape.

• Add a bean shape for the body of the dragon. This generally has a larger bottom shape like a peanut and is in the top-center of the pot.

• Add a circle for the head right above the body. This circle is about at big as the bottom usually.

• Add in the limbs of the dragon. Two little arms and the wings. The little circles outline where the hands and wing joint will go.

• The feet are in the soil, so just add in little bumps for the legs.

III. Starting the Mint dragon features.

• Little features like the mouth and horns can be drawn in first.

• The facial details with the eye and inside of the mouth are next.

• I like to add in the claws at this stage. They generally have little fingers with pointy tips.

Tip: Garden Dragons don't generally have teeth since they are small plant-like creatures who get nutrients from the soil. But they do love to talk to each other a lot :)

IV. Mint Leaf Shapes.

• The basic mint leaf shape is a oval with pointed tip at each end.

• Add in a few branching outlines inside the leaf.

• A few jagged edges evenly distributed on each side makes this leaf look a bit wild.

• Then we connect the lines in a flowing shape!

• The bottom of the leaf is converted into a branching shape so it connects to the dragon.

V. Add the leaf shapes

• Add in the basic leaf shapes along the dragon.

• One large leaf on top of the head between the horns.

• 3 leaves on each side of the cheek.

• 3 Large leaves on the bottom half of the wing and one tiny on on the top tip.

• 1 Large leaf on the tip of the tail.

• Decorative scale-like leaves along the body.

VI. Adding leaf scales.

• Leaf scales are generally drawn in a flowing pattern.

• You can add them  on the belly and other parts of the dragon.

• It's easy to get creative and even make them larger or smaller.

VII. Coloring Mint Dragon

• We have the four basic colors of Mint Dragon here to start with! I like to start with relatively bright colors.

VIII. Shading

• Just some basic color shading steps here.  I keep the tones not too dark.

IX. Midtone

• This is a little brighter color in the basic color area where the lighting is.

X. Highlight

• The final lightest spot color where it may be the shiniest.

XI. Adding some color to the linework.

• I would go back to the linework layer and lock it so no other color will leak out of it. I use dark green and brown colors and gently go over bits of the lines to soften the black color.

Final

• Minty Dragon is done!

Brushes

This is my set of brushes from Painter SAI2. I mainly used the "Pencil" brush with some of the modified settings.

For the color section, I worked In Corel Painter and used the "Mona Lisa" brush which is a purchase brush from the "Manga" brush pack they have.

Alternatively: You can use the "Brush" in Painter SAI2 and get a similar result with blending.

Now go out and plant your own Garden Dragon!

Meet the Dragon Herb Garden! Get creative and design one of your very own! I look forward to seeing all the Garden Dragons (Grown) here at DeviantArt!

Q&A

Head  on over to the Community group journal here where I will answer any  questions or comments you might have on Tuesday, July 10th at 4PM PST!"

 This Garden Dragon tutorial was Sponsored by DeviantArt!

(Now all the Mint Dragons will grow everywhere like weeds!)