Project Description

This year’s dragon for my wife’s birthday clocked in at almost 30 hours. It’s the most complex illustration I’ve done for this annual tradition to date. I was originally going to go with a different animal to chimerize (yes, I made “chimera” a verb), but one night, unable to sleep (as usual) I randomly thought “what about a snail?” I keep a running list of potential dragon hybrids, but snail wasn’t even on it. It conjured up a strong enough mental image, even though it was paradoxically very vague on the specifics and details, that I knew that’s what I was going to do.

I still struggled a lot once I started drawing, though. There were lots of details I had a hard time figuring out. Despite how rendered they are, all these dragon illustrations are still kind of first drafts. They’re kind of initial, stream-of-consciousness, figuring-it-out-as-I-go designs. Sometimes they work, sometimes they’re too close to the animal they’ve been mashed up with, sometimes they’re a little too dragon. Which features should be kept from each source? How can I take them a step further and be creative? It’s a fun challenge, especially in the initial stages, but as usual, I get caught in the details, textures, and overall rendering too early (though I’m getting better) and sometimes I feel the finished chimera is a little to patchwork with elements too distinct from the source animal.