This was a commission piece for a friend's birthday. I met a bunch of lovely people online playing Everquest 2 (think World Of Warcraft... but for smart people) and some of these people live in Melbourne. Two of these are the organisers in an online community, Nicola and her husband, Lee.
Nicola called me mentioning that it was Lee's birthday and that she was looking for a unique present for him. She thought that a portrait of Lee in front of a huge dragon would be perfect. We worked closely together through roughs, colour designs and sketches. It was quite refreshing working with someone who both knew what they want and had some creative skills themselves. Eventually this came into being. The original artwork is 300dpi A3, but the final print was A2. Seeing my artwork that huge was really quite inspiring for me. It went from being a nice piece to being an absolutely majestic piece.
It's digitally painted using a 40% opacity flat brush in Photoshop. The background is a photo that's been totally touched up. My only regret is that you have very little sense of scale of the dragon. Only its massive tail snaking towards the foreground gives you an indication of how huge it is.
It's also one of my favourite dragons, and I stole its body for a dragon I had to design for the Innocents.
It's also a pretty good likeness of Lee.
Happy birthday, mate!
3 comments:
Rates up there with one of the best presents I've ever received, and totally unexpected.
As soon as I get it properly framed it will find a permanent position on our walls (I may have to move the comemerative Superman framed picutes in the hallways).
Thanks again Jas.
Aw, shucks guys.
I can't tell you how much fun it was too. It's easily the best dragon I've ever drawn. It's inspired by Darathar - so thanks for organising the Prismatics wouldn't have had the screenshots otherwise. So there's a nice little symmetry there.
And at the end of the day, you really should be thanking Nicola. =)
that's an awesome dragon...
nice comp. to.
and colors.
hey, I could go on and on...
M.
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