“Two Great Dan’gons and Their Owner” is a bit of humorous portraiture of our two Great Danes, Kumo and Sora, along with a guest appearance by me, albeit posthumously. Hopefully it’s not too hard to find me tucked away there in the picture.
The whole idea for this picture originated, ironically, from a picture I took of Kumo and Sora lounging around – rather adorably I might add – inside our house. But never satisfied with them as mere great danes, I wanted to transform them into dragons. Why? Why not!
More so, I thought we rarely see dogs transformed into my favorite mythical creatures, and more so I wanted to topple the great Todd Lockwood and his great feline bigotry toward dragons. But let’s be honest, while it pains me to admit it, cats, not dogs, are a better foundation for creating a dragon’s physique. Have you ever seen a dog’s head on a dragon’s body with wing and tail? I’m not knocking Never Ending Story … but Falkor‘s head looks like it’s going to fall off at any moment. It just looks a little silly. So I concede that Mister Lockwood might actually know a thing or two about drawing dragons. But I felt I had to try!
Reference photo 
v1 – initial values 
v2 
v3 – background and trying to add dragon elements like a tail and wings 
v4 – different version of tail 
v5 – simplified elements and removed tail and wings 
v6 – finalized values 
v7 – initial coloring 
v8 
Two Great Dan’gons and Their Owner
My normal workflow often starts on an iPad Pro (12.9″ first gen) using Procreate. I like this application for sketching and generally to get values and composition nailed. But I’ve found I do not like it once I move away from roughs, especially as I focus on details. Its too easy to have misaligned brushstrokes, even on the ginormous 12.9″ screen with a lot of zooming in and out. In the past year, I’ve introduced Corel Painter 2020 on a Wacom 22″ touch as my preferred platform to follow-through with detailed work around coloring and final rendering where the larger screen is invaluable for keeping track of everything at a glance.
I started this back in September of this year, but then put it down as I felt it was not going the way I liked. In particular, I was worried the values were too severe for me to properly pull off rendering without it feeling washed out. And as happens as an amateur, I still get overwhelmed at various points in production that basically force me to put a piece down and just walk away for weeks, months, and even years. Fortunately for this piece, after a few months of hiatus, I picked it up earlier this week in late November largely just to finish it from a “I start what I finish” perspective.
As things would happen, having an uninterrupted day to work on the piece was a bit of a watershed opportunity for me to constructively work through some of the anxieties I’ve had for the piece. It’s still not my favorite piece, but I feel I’ve gotten as far as I’m going to take it. In particular, the rendering of Kumo’s fur took me a few attempts to get something that I feel works good enough. Even so, I’m not completely satisfied with portions of the piece such as Kumo’s extended foreleg where I still feel like something is just not quite right. In my experience, I sorta need to mentally walk away from a piece for me to later come back and solve lingering issues.
Regardless, I think the piece has some elements I’m proud of. I think Sora is rendered perfectly, framing Kumo beautifully in the foreground with a sense of depth provided by Sora fading into the background. There is a sense of depth given by the atmospheric lighting that I quite like. I’m equally happy with the the tree and forest which has enough details to be interesting without being overwhelming. And I continue to chuckle whenever I think of the backstory of having been eaten by my girls, with Kumo now laying with my skull nestled in her foreleg while she looks off into the distance with her characteristic disinterested gaze.
