Taurus- Zodiac Dragons+ The Process and Coloring Tips

Hello everyone and I hope your are all doing well! I've been working on this longer post for a while, which is why I've posted less small posts. I hope you guys enjoy it and find something useful to try out.

Taurus is the second zodiac sign. Its main element is earth and the sun is its astrological sign. Taurus is usually known for being trustworthy, practical and headstrong.
If Taurus is your sign, how much does this description apply to you?

Even though Taurus'es main sign is the sun, I drew a moon on it's head, because it's more recognizable. The moon also reminded me of my childhood anime: Sailor moon. In particular the magical cat, which inspired me to use purple colors on the dragon instead of brown as I had first planned. My favorite Sailor moon character was Mercury- blue, because of her color, gentle personality and cool gadget.

Artists often leave some of their personality, history and inspirations in their art. Sometimes it's accidental and done unawaringly, other times it's on purpose. Either way it's fascinating, almost like a puzzle and makes art in general more attracting.

For the drawing I started with a rough pencil sketch and it took me around two tries to draw a composition I liked. 3B pencil is probably the best for sketching softly and erasing.

Next I used a 0.4 ink pen for outlines and details. A 0.1 ink pen is better for more realistic drawings with more details, while 0.8 is nice for a more simplistic or cartoonish look.

Colors

This step is very different from what I usually do, which is shading. The atmosphere here is meant to be cute and lively, so I avoid using any blacks or greys. Instead with the help of the color wheel, luminosity and hue temperatures I portray lights and shadows.

Here is a simplified example of the shading method I'm currently using. This isn't a rule, rather an easy guide to get started with, based on the natural sky and sun lighting.

For smooth blending I try to use colors adjacent on the color wheel. However, warmer hues are for the light areas and colder for the shadows. This is because in real life, the sun is a natural source of direct light while the blue sky is the source of ambient light (all around). Moreover, if you turn colors into greyscale, you will notice that yellow is the lightest of all, while blue and purple are the darkest. This is my quick example of a color wheel, you can find many other versions by simply searching "color wheel".

Now for the coloring process: use many layers. What I mean is, draw softly and set the base color first for uniformity. Then keep adding color softly over and over, including other hues. Personally I love a pencil if it leaves pigment on my fingers simply by touching or rubbing it, as those pencils are the easiest to blend.

I don't use any special blending methods, as it all depends on what you want to want to achieve with your drawing. Blending by layering is a bit time consuming, but it's very clean and straightforward. The minimum number of layers I use is around 10. This may seem much, but this way the direction of the lines isn't visible.

The following are some thumbnails I did for the other zodiac signs, as I plan to do all. When I feel stuck, I always turn to thumbnails. They are quick and fun small sketches to generate new ideas and they are highly recommended by many artists. While doing these I felt that Gemini Zodiac is extremely tricky, because essentially I have to draw two dragons on the small A5 paper. From these I feel that Leo and Capricorn are the most defined and one of those will probably be the next Zodiac I draw.

Which Zodiac are you?

My sign is Aries and it was the first one I drew. You can check out the Dragon and the whole process in this post: https://steemit.com/doodle/@kristyglas/daily-dragon-doodle-4-aries

All of the art and photo in this post were made by me, @kristyglas.

My tips on improving your art posts and getting noticed: https://steemit.com/art/@kristyglas/improving-you-posts-and-getting-noticed-artists-edition

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Thank you for reading!♡