how to draw a dragon

first, get swept up
in the art of the moment and
by the time you get to the end,
you have a dragon. If you missed it

think about trying to do it step-by-step
backwards, which you could easily have done,
but it seemed dishonest somehow. So you thought,
"fuck it."

"Here there be DRAGON."
Always put your caption on first.
A bold statement of purpose, to guide
your muse
as you go. Note what you did here: first
typed the text out, then
cut and dragged the word DRAGON
to the bottom. This creates suspense

and provides a natural framing device
for the drama that unfurls
in the space between worlds.
Imagination and fantasy
are a natural combination: artifice
effortless and easily. Step 2.

As you can see,
The head. "Rough it in"
with some lines, drawing and redrawing
– eventually the design and contours
come out, and are settled on. Got one you like,
"trace over" those lines in a different color,
and erase the rest. Step 3.

The body. Similar. Many, many "roughed in"
contour lines, describing the sinuous curves
of the beast's serpentine form. Then
rounded contour lines, to fill it out
and add body. There it is! The body.
The reptilian impression of volume
is beguiling. Finally

Step 4. You add wings and limbs. Note
if only one limb is visible? (There
wasn't room for more, somehow) – this is a touch
of almost magical realism, it creates the illusion
that the other limb(s) go(es) out of sight
on the other side. Psychologically, this little
trompe l'oeil touch

makes the dragon seem almost enormous
in the viewer's mind.

Color. Step 5. This part's easy. After
you decide on that dark blue for the background,
you end up changing the color of the caption
TO RED
so it "pops."

STEP 5A. FIRE! Loose the pink
streaky-looking lightninglike lines
of the dragon's fire-breathing, and then
– in the single most complicated step –
'cut' the entire image

leaving only the blue background,

oops.

Ctrl-Z, can we back up? WHEW
It's back. Now that's

a dragon.

I think it ends up looking better that way,
arguably. Explosive. Ferocious. Step 6

Finishing details! Go to town
back to the head and add horns,
those stark "outlineless" white
snagglefangs, nostrils, and
– most ghastly of all –
glaring jet black eyes
with piercing red pupils
and rims. Shocking
If you actually screwed up
with a bucket fill and couldn't turn
the whites of the eyes back to white
without turning the whole dragon white?
That's how it ends up - an accident,
but an improvement! Leave the whites
of the eyes black, and what we're left with

is this stunning effect.
Those eyes turn my blood cold.

Perhaps the most important step
can sometimes be a mistake