HOME | DD
LittleFireDragon β How to Draw Your Dragon 6-1
by-nc-nd
Published: 2014-03-18 05:52:20 +0000 UTC; Views: 11412; Favourites: 334; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
Good lord. Big giant tutorial reference image. I think this has more words than some of the essays I've written. XDBut it kind of needs them. Wings are notoriously complicated and they're probably the thing that drives people to ask me "How do you draw that?!" the most.
So here's part 1: bat wings.
I'll probably also be doing bird, pterosaur, and possibly fin wings later, and they probably won't be as long as this one because this is also meant to cover generic wing stuff as well as bat wing specifics.
That said, this is easily the longest reference I've done yet. Hopefully the sheer amount of information is enough detail to help people! Even this might not be enough!
... Long reference is LOOOOONG.
Part 1: Basics
Part 2: Skull
Part 3: Eyes
Part 4: Basic Flesh
Part 5-1: Back Legs
Part 5-2: Front Legs
Part 6-1: Bat Wings
Part 7: Torso
Part 8: Facial Expressions
Related content
Comments: 18
π: 0 β©: 0
Wait, I thought that the tibia and fibula are leg bones.Β
π: 0 β©: 2
Annnnd fixed.
How embarrassing.
π: 0 β©: 0
Yes, yes they are. I have no idea how those got in there. That should be Radius and Ulna.
Congratulations. You caught a brainfart/typo that somehow went unnoticed for over three years.
π: 0 β©: 0
Very helpful in building a robot...*ahem*...lifeform.
π: 0 β©: 0
No problem. I'm glad you like it.
π: 0 β©: 0
I'm glad it was helpful.
π: 0 β©: 0
You're welcome!
π: 0 β©: 0
Just looked over your entire "How to Draw Your Dragon' series and I actually feel like I have a better understanding of the dragon anatomy, though I do have one question, how would you incorporate more phalanges? Enlarge the carpals and modify their structure to allow for more digits?
π: 0 β©: 1
More wing phalanges? I would guess you'd enlarge the hand, yeah. I would look up information on polydactyly, which is the condition of being born with more fingers than your species normally has. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactβ¦
Maybe you can reference some X-rays of a polydactyl's hand. Like this: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipediaβ¦
The reason I used 5 fingers in the wing hand is because 5 digits is EXTREMELY common. Most animals that have fingers or toes at all have five or fewer. But I can't think of any that naturally have six digits (no, panda bears don't count, as the sixth finger isn't a finger at all but a lump of bone) or more.
Instead of a sixth wing finger (which I recommend against, both for the reason above and because adding more fingers makes it increasingly difficult to draw the wing at a decent size and have all the fingers connect properly), some people add a strut or spur on the dragon's wing elbow, like in this drawing: tattertailart.deviantart.com/aβ¦Β (although that one only has three wing support fingers - but fewer fingers is more realistic than more fingers). This is both more realistic and probably a saner choice for an artist, as you won't have to squeeze additional phalanges into a small wing hand.
π: 0 β©: 1
Thank you, a lot of my favorite pictures depict the six-digit wings so that's why I asked. I like the spur concept, now that I have all my art supplies unpacked I'll start working on my wing studies again. 
π: 0 β©: 1
No problem.
π: 0 β©: 0
Helpful ^__^
Although...I know I'll rip my hair out drawing these..lol
π: 0 β©: 1
Take breaks when you get frustrated. Trust me.
π: 0 β©: 1