I should give you some explanation for the pics on my pages, for I've gotten many a comment on them. I created nearly all (well, all except four: the Docotor Who ribbon, the Furcadia picture, and the eXTReMe icon) of the images on this website. In the course of five years this site has gone from a glorified text file with a grey background to the wonderful design you see today, reflecting an increase in understanding of HTML, Photoshop, and account space. I draw for fun, I draw because it amuses me, I draw to work out questions of details. I've taken watercolor classes as a kid, sculpting classes as a young adult, and an oil painting class as a college student. The rest is a result of practice. I happen to agree with Ryuuko that far more people can draw than are given credit. Much like calculus, drawing is not a skill that will be picked up in a few weeks. It takes some devoted time to learn the in's and out's. Oh, yes. I used to swear by colored pencils and wrote a lengthy (not as lengthy as this) rant about them. I keep it around for sentimental reasons (I really liked colored pencils).

Why am I writing this? Because I remember myself six years ago gazing at a famous dragon poster, despairing of ever being able to achieve that level of skill. Six years later, fully capable of coloring dragons and even drawing humans, I am closer to my goal. I take a fierce pride in how much I've learned in this time. My next great goal will be tackling landscapes and scenery, which I've all but ignored up to this point. I thought I'd give you a glimpse into the inner workings of Gothos. Below are series of images I created to record the creation process for Sideria's picture, including commentary.

The first stage in any large drawing is to test a layout in a series of thumbnail sketches. I'm aware that many of my dragon pictures look the same, since I use the same rough layout for them (i.e. facing left, wings up, legs askew, tail curling). I focus on avoiding that problem as I do the thumbnails. I also pay attention to the space I'll need for the final image. My scanner bed is only so large! True, it's always possible to scan in pieces and reassemble; I've done that. I prefer, though, for the image to fit in one scan. It's also not like I'll discard the thumbnails I don't use; I flip through my sketchbook at times to see if I left a neat thumbnail undeveloped. You can tell from later drawings that I've picked the spunky, crouching dragon (not Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ... just crouching dragon) on the bottom, there.

After I finally decide on a design, I'll lightly sketch it out at full size. A pose of the leg that looked cute in miniature might not be realistic at full-scale. This is still a very rough image --- what you see on the right has been cleaned up some. The first large drawing I do is a rough "arm-sketch," meaning that I guide the pencil with my arm rather than my fingers and wrist. According to some, this is more professional that "constipated wrist drawing." I consider it a quick way to get rough shapes of wings, legs, and sweeps of crests and clothing on the page. I also test out poses and proportions, as you can kind of see with Sidi's left wing. Anyway, the point is to get it from my head and onto the paper; I can always winnow out the lines with an eraser.

After I mess around enough (and just before the paper is covered with dark, inerasable streaks), I settle on positioning and start to work out the details. This is the second most enjoyable and lengthy part of the drawing. I lightly erase and pencil in finer and finer details, such as creases, scale patterns, and locks of hair. You'll notice that I changed the curve of the neck and the extension of the wing. I keep the picture in this stage a while, propping it up and looking at it unexpectedly. I try to catch myself from seeing what I think is there and force myself to see what I actually drew. After a while, I might notice that the weight is just not distributed correctly at all and that the rear leg might need to be moved. A pattern of scales or crest might look organized to me but might look jumbled together to someone looking at it for the first time. I go from the major crest and hair groupings to the minor curls and furls, making them flow according to the character of the hair without repetition. The whole image takes on the look of a shaded grayscale than a black and white contour.

Eventually, I settle on my lines and get impatient to finish the drawing. Upon reaching this stage, I grab for my trusty 0.25mm and 0.45mm archival inkers. This is when I make the most mistakes in my drawings. I might have picked my lines, but they are fuzzy around the edges and I do not always ink them exactly as they are drawn. Hey, I make mistakes and my wrist might twitch; it happens. I'm learning the joy of a precise application of white out. Previously, I would never use whiteout, since I colored exclusively with pencils. The wax just wouldn't lay correctly on whiteout, and it would chip and flake if I pressed too hard. Now that I color on the computer, problem not! Also, if I can't work something out in the sketchbook, such as the folds of cloth or the studs on leather armor, I will transfer the picture to a portable form. I scan and print a copy minus the questionable areas. I can happily mess around with the little pictures to my heart's content in my car at lunch. I can scruff it up with whiteout and ink without damaging the original. I'm really keen on doing this for the character sketches I do for role playing. It's not every day one can glance over in a parking lot and see someone hard at work on a duom-wielding, half-orc barbarian.

So, at some point I fall in love with the ink lines and won't touch the drawing again. It is then time to make my layers in Photoshop. I clean out all the corners and intersections of my lines so that I can get clean selections. It's a pain, but the result is worth the effort. Mind you, sometimes I'm so impatient to finish a picture that I'll settle for scruffy layers, but that only means I'll have to clean it up as I shade. I can play around with colors all day! The layer colors I pick are only averages of the final colors, neither highlights nor shadows. Granted, I end up with a large file; but it makes shading much easier. Sometimes, when I want to play around with colors right now, I pull out my pencils and color in a few tests. A picture might stay in this stage for a few months. I'm catching my breath and conserving my energy for the final stage.

I am a better colorist than I am a drawer. I've recently gone into a frenzy of reflection and multi-hued shadows (and finally paid attention to the darkest dark and the lightest light). The secret is that I drooled after some of the images in the new Dungeons & Dragons: Third Edition Player's Handbook. Beautiful! I am envious! I aspire to learn how to do that. You won't see it as much with Sideria, but you can see a good deal of it with Khaliban at the bottom of the Role Playing page. I mean, he's gray, and that would make a boring picture; so I had a little fun with it. His plate armor (not the chain mail) and the infamous bandolier were quite fun. I learn a little more about colors with each image I finish. If I had half a brain I'd take a few more art courses and study more real-life examples. Eh. I am a little lazy, you know.