Fire Dragon (1999)

One of my oldest dragon drawings, in fact the second one I made. I ascribe my love of dragons to the classic game 'Spyro the Dragon', which I played and loved (and to some extent, still do). This dragon probably exemplifies the Spyro heritage the best, with the squat legs; thin, large wings; the round body, and swept-back crest horns, characteristics all based on various dragons in the Spyro realm.

Early on I decided there would be two visible gender differences among dragons. Males would have a horn on their nose and a split-brow crest design; females would have a plain nose (no horn) and a single-ridge crest (refer to "Dragon Hunting" for an example). I eventually ditched the single-ridge design in favor of the split-brow design, and even to this date the presence or absence of a nose horn is the sole visual distinction between male and female dragons -- look at any dragon I've drawn and you can immediately identify its gender.

Medium: 0.7mm pencil
Time: About one hour
Scale: 75px/in