Painting with Kirai ("Shirtless Men and Dragons" edition)

A while ago I painted this:

While I was painting it, I took screenshots of my progress on it. You might think it's interesting to see how I work, so here we go!



First, I started with a sketch. I freehanded it with little to no reference originally as a doodle, but I liked it so much that I decided to paint it. So I scanned it in to Painter X at 300dpi. Drew it with a mechanical pencil.

After that I began painting the background, which is seen almost completed in this shot. I used a reference photo for the canyons in the background, but the stone wall and dirt I just made up. Because really, how hard could drawing a brick wall be? (Haha, get it, "hard"?) It's actually more difficult than you'd think if you have art ADD like me. I had to work on that wall in tiny little bursts or else I'd get immensely bored. Painting DIRT, on the other hand... oh man, don't get me started.

After the background, I started painting Jerreith! (The hardly-clothed elven man with the perma-grimace.) Also: CRAZY PLANTS. I figure they're some sort of succulent, like a cactus. They were probably the most fun thing to paint out of this whole painting. I don't get it either.

Oh hey look, I fixed his torso! Now it looks remotely accurate, thanks to that (thankfully censored) reference photo. (See the layer named "scary"? Yeah, that reference picture was that frightening.) Anyway, Jerreith looks much more anatomically correct at this point. (Not like that! Get your mind out of the proverbial gutter.)

Here we see Jerreith's hair and eyes and stuff. I also scrapped that stupid-looking dagger and replaced it with, um, a stupid-looking punching blade thing. Weapons aren't my forte, alright?

In this shot the color red makes a guest appearance. I just mapped out the shadows and markings in this stage. Also, Jerreith sports a totally adorable necklace. D'aww.

See you later, sketch layer! Still working on Alcora, the snake-dog-dragon-dinosaur. Ok, she's a slindragon, but you wouldn't know that, since I made them up. Anyway, still plugging away. Here I've added some more dusty effects to make the pair look kind of ragged and traveled. Oh yeah, and somewhere along the lines of this, Jerreith got a loin cloth. OH BOY!

Holy jeez that sun is bright! I think this is where I finished it. I rather like this painting, and I hope you enjoyed watching me paint it, in a way.

Thanks for reading, and have a super spiffy day. :D