How to Draw Your Dragon - Tutorial by Nightsong - Royals Lesson!

Greetings!
 Nightsong here, and today I’m going to be guiding you guys through an activity based around one of my favorite film franchises of all time! How to Train Your Dragon! 

Now as you guys probably know the third and final installment in the series just came out last week, If you haven’t seen it yet you should! It’s amazing!
Today I’m going to be a showing a little step by step doodle of one of the franchises main characters, Toothless the Nightfury. Note that I’m going to be doing my best to mimic the style of the films, and thus will be very different from my usual style so it may look a little off, but I’ve included a quick extra bonus tutorial for how to draw a dragon in my own style!

So grab a pencil and some paper and lets begin!


Steps :

Lightly draw an oval for the head and a curing line stemming from it for the spine and body
movement. Add a face grid if you want for help with direction and proportions

Add rough eye shape outline and the ears. Remember Toothless has big wide eyes, they should take up most of the face, and keep the lines soft when drawing them and his ears.

Flesh out the shape of the face, being sure to keep it rounded and elliptical in shape, don't forget his little spikes either, though even they should be drawn with softer rounded lines.

Next place markers for the limbs and joints, my method for doing this is to do a rough circle where each joint is, and a line, or two sets of lines just marking out the general length and direction of the limbs.



Now start adding the other structure lines, so line the front and back legs, the tail and wing.




Start adding details to the limbs, so the claws, and little fins coming off the sides of his forearms, as well as the little ridge along his neck.


Finish sketching the details of the legs and then do the tail fins, also sketch out the pupils of the eyes.
Now, take a mechanical pencil, or if you like a felt tip ink pen, and start finalizing the lines with a smooth dark outline.



Keep outlining the main lines, making any small adjustments you see fit, not forgetting to line the small parts like the pupils and claws.


Now that you’re done lining, on to my favorite part! Shading! Using the same soft pencil you used for the sketch, start shading the major areas. Shading should go anywhere there’s not going to be direct light, so under the neck, along the chest and stomach, inside the wing, around the inner edge of the ears, even at the base of the claws. For now, leave it unblended.


Once you’ve finished shading the full thing, it’s time to blend it out. Some of you might have access to artists tortillions or blending sticks, but a little trick if you don’t have those is, use Q-tips and cotton balls!


Keep blending until it’s all smooth and even and you’re done! It should look something like this : 


 But don’t worry if it’s not exact! Feel free to add your own twists and details that I might not have included. Write your name and date on the back so you can look back at it later and see how you’ve progressed!

And you’ve done it! You’ve drawn Toothless! Feel free to leave your thoughts on the new movie in the comments! Just be sure to post spoiler warnings so it's not ruined for anyone.


Here is a quick step by step of my personal style for drawing dragons if you’d like to try your hand at it too!








 (I decided to add some more spines in a ridge along the head.)
And the final product! : 


 This is just a quick sketch that took me maybe 20 minutes tops, you can always add more detail and improve upon this, add scales or more detailed shading perhaps for a more dynamic image.

Anyways, I hoped you guys enjoyed! Tag us in your drawing pictures on Instagram using #OFTreaders and don’t forget to stay awesome!

~Nightsong

2 Comments

  1. Drawing is a wonderful art form in itself, but it is also an excellent exercise for other forms of art, like painting for instance.

    ReplyDelete

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