flame-broiled unicorn and dragon drenched in awesome sauce
I just added Unigon as a channel on YouTube. You will find videos of my work from start to finish using Procreate.app on iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil. If you have ever wondered what my process looks like, this is a good way to find out more.
Note, my own process is heavily influenced by Nikolai Lockertsen who is a professional concept artist. Further note, I’m not a professional artist. So when in doubt, I’d listen to Nikolai.
This originated as a few quick lines that more got down the impression I was seeking, albeit it missed some of the anatomical accuracy I had hoped for. Nevertheless, I’m pleased with the final image as I feel it conveys convincingly a rider and its dragon looking to see where to go next. Ironically enough, the rider took the greater part of my time to get right to my satisfaction, especially in terms of getting the saturation levels right. If you watch the video below, note that I added the rider only after the dragon which was already near its final, colored state.
A few weeks back I did a picture of what supposed to be a crow holding a ring. Regardless to say, it ended up more like a sugar fueled nightmare of Toucan Sam gone over to Edgar Allen Poe. It was bad. Very, very bad. Consequently, I thought it best to go back to reality and do a few quick studies of crows to reset my understanding of crows. To wit, I said: never more. Never more.
This was inspired by a joke with a colleague. We were talking about making estimates, and I quipped that we engineers assume everything is just a sphere of 1 meter in diameter as an estimate for just about anything. Which is not too far from the truth. So when we got talking to about drawing a horse – trust me, there was a natural progression from engineering estimates to drawing horses – I threw down a circle as my horse and cried “Done!” When they remained incredulous that a circle was indeed a horse, I quickly took that circle and added a few more likes into a form that I actually through worth fleshing out a bit more.
Admittedly, I am not super happy with the end results. But when is an artist ever happy with what they produce? Don’t bother replying, the answer is “never.” But as I appreciate that others have liked it, I thought it worth sharing both the process and end-results.
