dang! what a magnificent beast!

Thanks! It certainly has a very interesting design, I had never seen a dragon based on a musical instrument before this trade =)

I stumbled upon it from the main page ^^ Very nice, you keep getting better fast :D

Woo, that's a very good thing! Getting better is the goal =D Thank you ^^

That... is def one of the more interestingly unique characters that I've heard of. Its not totally outlandish either... then again I have been playing a lot of Diablo 3 lately so my idea of "normal" is a bit scued. xD

Great job on this piece though. Its not difficult to make out what any of the subjects are or where they're at, which is usually The problem that one runs into with a color palette like this. ^.=.^

Haha, yeah, I was definitely excited when I got this character assigned to me. =) Apparently this dragon has no tongue or teeth and communicates through song by sounding its organ pipes. The smoke coming from its pipes emits its mood.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I'm still not entirely sure about the left-most serpent, it still looks a bit strange to me, but I'm not sure what exactly bothers me about it. So I left it like this. But I'm pretty content with the rest!

The only difference that I see is that it looks more snakish than the others do. The other two's heads look more like plan skulls, like, the skin is stretched tight over the skull so it makes the eyes and such sunken in, most notable in the shading done around the eye sockets of the other two. In the left-most one there's not quite as much shading in the eye socket so it looks much shallower and more snakey.

That's what I see anyway. x3

Ah, I hadn't noticed that before. You're right about that. I don't think that's the thing that's bothering me though. It has more to do with how the creature is situated in space. It seems to have a bit of an unfortunate pose, because the contours of its body almost touch the lines of the rock behind it, creating tangents. I'll have to figure out how to avoid tangents in the next big sketch before starting on the colors, preferably X)

You know, now that you mention it just the way that that particular rock is done (the pointed one if we're on the same page) is kind of bugging me. It doesn't really seem to belong to me. The rest of the rock shores are all smooth and rounded while that one is pointed, so it just seems out of place.

And I have no idea what you're referring to with these ''tangents''. Only "tangent" I know of is SIN, COS, and TAN from Trig back in high school. xD

Thanks for the input! I personally don't mind the smaller rock, but I can see how it could bug people. I can try to improve on that next time =)

Tangents in art are where multiple objects seem to touch each other in a weird way. They should mainly be avoided and are usually seen as novice mistakes. Here's a short but sweet article on them, if you're interested; http://emptyeasel.com/2008/11/18/av.....watch-out-for/

Oh no problem! I really appreciate artists that will interact with their commenters and are willing to note when they may have made a mistake. Shows a lot about the person as well. ^.=.^

The whole tangent deal though seems like something that not the average non-artist would notice.
For instance, this image here: http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/.....75048_Full.jpg
is a screenshot that I took back when Halo Reach first came out. I got heavy into screenshoting and spent more time don't that than actually playing. xD
According to that article this shot would have tangents since it gives the image that "crowded" feeling, however it was one of my more popular screenshots when Bungie used to keep up on updating its site.

Seems like to me that only other artists would notice tangents at all. =\

Hm, perhaps it's easier to identify for a trained eye then. Still, I usually try to avoid overlapping lines as much as possible, to make the pictures more comfortable to look at. just to sooth my own conscience =)

Here's another one: http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/.....74218_Full.jpg
Which I believe has both the crowded tangent and the "Stolen Edge" tangent there on the lift side. I never noticed however until you mentioned that article, but it doesn't seem like a problem to me. IDK. Preference of the viewer I suppose. xD

Oeh, the edge really is noticeable here though. It could be something to keep in mind next time, even though this screenshot is pretty cool =)

Yea, I'm going to agree with the trained eye thing. Like I said, until you pointed it out I never knew that such a "rule set" existed. No wonder I was never any good at art. xD

Two Bonus Images! :D
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/.....43164_Full.jpg
http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/.....34341_Full.jpg

Anyway, no intention of stealing the spotlight. I should actually submit these. sofurry.com wouldn't take them because they're not considered furry, even the sangheilli ones. D:

Ahh wow this looks amazing <3 I love the lighting and the way you painted all the molten gold, also that smoke at the top looks so soft and lovely and I really like how you shaded the organ pipes C:
Interesting character design, the head reminds me of some creepy-looking gecko for some reason haha.

Thank you! I absolutely loved this character! It's so original, I had never seen anything like it. The organ pipes as a crest are really well thought of, but they were a pain to shade correctly, haha!

Yeah don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it either haha, it's certainly a very lovely design <3 I can imagine the organ pipes being awkward ahhh
You're welcome! C: