scales
Hey Ferret,
I don't know if this will help you but this is roughly how I do dragon scales-
decide what knd you want. Here I have exapmles of oblong, fish like and random.
1.Draw a rough grid for the first two oblong lines are closer to 90 degrees to each other than fish scales. For random circles, I draw larger circles near the thighs, upper arms and dorsal horns with smaller scales everywhere else. For the smaller ones I often make circular scibbles. Don't worry if these lines are uneven or the circles have gaps in them. The scales shouldn't look like they are fabricated (unless its 's a construct of some kind, and even then...)
2. If you are coloring the piece, lay the pattern over the base color and shade in the lower half of each pattern. For the fish scales, make the point of a scale extend just below its natural intersection point to appear to be overlapping the ones below.
3. Muddy up the insides of the scales a little. Deepen the lower borders of each. For the circles, scribble over the smaller ones again making 'c' shapes to darken the lower sides.
4. Lighten up the center of each scale towards its top, just below teh shadow divider of the scale above it. If using pencil lightly erase a cirles in each scale. For the smaller scales, randomly lighten in spots. You can also make small highlights in areas without shadow to suggest very small, alomst smooth scales
5. If you are drawing an older or battle damaged dragon, darken out a random scale here and there.
6. If using photoshop to color, create a random feathered selection in parts of the scales and shift the color one place (purple or orange for red, purple or green for blue, etc)
7. create one larger highlight to cover an area of the scales. While each scales reflects a bit of light, the skin also reflects it as a whole.
I hope this is useful and coherent. It is late and the brain is shutting down.
Good luck
