Earth Dragons

I couldn't get the latest page of my web comic Zheph Skyre uploaded due to the Arisia convention this past weekend, so I finished this art piece of two Earth dragons and uploaded it instead. The next page and the previous page will be finished soon.

I've been working on this image for quite some time. My drawing tablet has not been working that well for some time, so I have to use my mouse for now. I will either get the replacement part I need for my tablet's pen or get a new tablet altogether.

Page 85 and 86 of Zheph Skyre & Today's Page

I have completed pages 85 and 86 of my web comic Zheph Skyre. I have been really busy with getting everything I have ready for Anime Boston which is why these pages took this long to color in.

Here we have page 85. Zheph's mom greets her two children with concern as they arrive covered in dirt. However, Zheph's father arrives covered in just as much filth.

Here we have page 86. Zheph's father greets his children now. They appear to have a difficult question for him. He tries to answer it the best he can, unfortunately the children appear to make it even worse. I was thinking of how difficult it can be for parents sometimes in real life.

I was trying to finish this picture I was making in time for Anime Boston. It seems as if I won't have enough time though.

Earth Dragons Image

I am glad I finally got this sketch done of these two Earth Dragons from my Zheph Skyre series. I do realize that this drawing is much like the water dragons image I have posted earlier, but hopefully when I make more successful drawings, they will be different. Perhaps two different type of elements for the dragons in the image and possibly more of the evil dragon in the image. Maybe I'll have three or four dragons in the image. Who knows.

Good Earth Dragon Sketch #2 & #3

Here are two more sketches of the good earth dragon from my Zheph Skyre series.

As you can see, I tried the hard tusks and the hard trunk, but it didn't look right to me. One comment I got was that the tusk looked like some sort of tentacle coming out of it's mouth. I knew I had to rework it.

Here the tusks have become two trunks. I was going to continue this sketch, but it occurred to me that this still didn't look right. I think this creature looks much better when the head is pointed down. Since this creature is based on an elephant and a bison, it should behave more like those animals. Even though the neck has been extended, I think the head should be pointed down. Earth Dragons would probably keep their heads pointed to the ground anyways...

I'm also wondering about the arms of this dragon. Should I make them appear think or keep them thin?

In the background of the sketches I quickly drew full body views of some of the dragons from my series. It is best not to waste paper.

Evil Earth Dragon Sketch #2

Here's a sketch page I had started of an evil earth dragon from my Zheph Skyre series. Most of the same features are in this sketch as from the previous one, though I have already made a sketch revising it even further. I tried the short stubby claws like a rhino or an elephant, but I think I should go with longer claws like an armadillo or a mole because I want this creature to be more capable of digging. I am going to give this dragon a slightly longer neck than this sketch since it just looks too weird short. I am keeping the hard, spiked end of the tail though.

The sketches at the top are of a good and evil dragon's full body. For the most part, I want to keep a traditional Western dragon body. Their tails will both have hard ends each one of a different shape. I decided against bat wings or even bird wings for these dragons. For these dragons that I picture living in dry areas, I think insect wings would do them justice. They will each have armored plates on their backs that open up like beetles' wings, but their actual wings will be more reminiscent of dragonfly wings.

Earth Dragons

Here are another two sketches of Earth Dragons from my Zheph Skyre series.

The top earth dragon is based on the combination of an elephant and an ox. At first I just wanted to make the trunk a hard horn. but than I realized if this creature were real, it would have problems with its hard tusks as well. I decided to switch things around. The trunk would become a hard horn while the tusks would actually become side trunks. I know it might be odd, but I think it would give the creature more options of what it can do.

The bottom earth dragon is based on the combination of a rhinoceros and a warthog. I decided recently that the tusks from the warthog would have to replace the usual whiskers I normally give dragons. I know the bottom one looks a little like Deathwing from Blizzard's World of Warcraft, but I have seen the close up details of that dragons and there are some major differences between the two. Deathwing's lower jaw has metal armor on it, Deathwing doesn't have the horns and tusks my dragon has, the colors will be different, and the rest of the body of my dragon won't look like Deathwing at all from some of my later sketches. I admit that I do like WoW, but I have not had the time to play it recently.