SciFi and Fantasy Art: Dragon R

Love the shadeing and just the whole pic is great !!!

Marika Viklund replies: "Thank you veyr much! "

ahhh sweet dragon and excellent shading....hes looks very tough and intimidating....nice work

Marika Viklund replies: "Thanx a lot! "

Wow, amazing dynamic poses always get me running for the guestbook to leave comments.
Well done - though I liked all of your greyscale pictures so far - and keep ’m comming!

Marika Viklund replies: "*lol* Thank you very much!
Will do! But I prefer colour though, so the grayscales are lagging behind a bit.
It looks a bit like some super hero pose, doesn’t it? "

This is exceptional! I was commenting to another about scanning pencil into Photoshop to color instead of having to ink things in -- I have been using a method I’d share with anyone interested. Wonderful scarey beastie!!

Marika Viklund replies: "Thank you very much!
Well... if I tried to colour this in photoshop it’d never ever get finished! *lol* I’m veeery slow at computer painting. I’d rather not colour this one though as it’s one of my few "meant to be grayscale" pictures. But other pictures though. What’s the method your mentioning?
"

In a kinda nutshell: scan grayscale to Photoshop CS (or CS2, CS3) use Curves to lighten the whites just a tad, and darken the pencil more towards black. Then use Background Eraser: make sure your foreground color is black and background is white and set the following: (left to right along the top) brush size 900px hard; sampling=continuous; sampling background swatch; limits=contiguous; tolerance=50%. Then you erase over your whole drawing and the background should drop away without taking any pencil with it, and should be pretty smooth. Whew, that’s a lot, and I skipped over how to use Curves. Don’t know if such a condensed version will be any help to anyone.

Marika Viklund replies: "Tell me something. If I erase the background like that and colour (or don’t colour) the "object" and then for example adds it to Elfwood... will this mean I’ll have an "invisible" background and that the EW background should show through? I’ve been wondering how to do that for a while. Because this background thing doesn’t require any layers or something like that right?
Where’s the Background eraser? I have CS2.
Thank you though! I shall try a few things in PS now! ^^"

I have sent you an email, with jpeg attachments, as this is a rather drawn out process. Sorry, but you won’t wind up with EW background coming through, as you’ll need to flatten the whole layered PShop image to get it uploaded. Let me know what you come up with!

Marika Viklund replies: "Yeah, I saw that. Thank you very much! I didn’t have the time to read it yesterday though. I’ll do that.
But if I use this method on an unlayered picture... then the EW background would be seen through??
I’ll let you know! Thanx!"

Beautiful! Very well realized and the tonal qualities are excellent. Nice anatomy. Great job!

Marika Viklund replies: "Thank you very much! "

Ah, this is why I love plain pencil-art the most; all the different gray shades and the natural look of the picture, gives the whole piece a timeless feel. As the other ones have mentioned, the anatomy, pose and shading looks splendid, and I love the fact that you have paid attention to details like the shadow of the arm across the body and well-defined knees. If I had the guts to get myself a tattoo, I would definetly be drooling over this one . Fantastic job!

Marika Viklund replies: "Thank you very much!!
Well, the arm has to cast a shadow somewhere! *lol* But it was hard to get it right. I wasn’t quite sure how to bend it, the angle and such.
Thank you again! "

is lika humanoid dragon

Marika Viklund replies: "Yes, she wanted it to be more human then I normally draw my dragons. But since it’s her picture (the girl who tattooed it) she’s the one who decided it’s looks! I like it anyway though. "

He’s beautiful! I adore this picture! I have a dragon in my gallery kinda similar to him, only yours is sooooooooo much better! Keep up the awesome work!

Marika Viklund replies: "Thank you very much! I’ll try! "