Letter Project Reflection

1) When I was assigned my letter ("D"), I knew more or less instantly that I wanted to use a dragon as my concept. There was no real reason for the decision, other than the fact that I quite like dragons. I thought that perhaps I might come across another idea through the thumbnail sketches, but as I continued sketching, I realized that the dragon idea was the only one that significantly stuck out in my mind.
My process for this project began with the twenty thumbnails that we were required to complete. 

Initially, I wasn't sure that I would be able to come up with twenty different ideas for this design. However, I ended up with twenty-four. Five of those explored the concept of the dragon a little more in depth. I was trying to figure out how I could position the creature so that it looked the most like the letter I was trying to create. This part of the process was quite helpful, because it allowed me to experiment with different ideas. Eventually, I decided that I liked design # 24 the most (pictured to the right). This is the design that I had in mind while drawing my drafts (pictured below). 

 

I focused on two of my thumbnail sketches in the drafting process- Design # 2 and #24. The reason I chose to duplicate these particular designs was because I thought they most closely resembled the "D" shape. As can be seen above, I did diverge from my thumbnails a little, but I drew inspiration nonetheless from them. With these sketches, I tried to really capture the letter shape, but also try to draw a convincing dragon. I also tried experimenting with different color schemes, narrowing it down to two different color palettes- red/purple, and blue/green/purple.  This led me to my final draft. 

My final draft ended up being a fusion of the two sketches. As can be seen, I once again experimented with the position and shape of the dragon. I used the general shape of the dragon from the first sketch and the color scheme from the second. I also added in a background that I'd tried out in my sketches. My final turned out a lot better than I'd expected, given the fact that I was having second thoughts about my drafts after I'd completed them. This was relieving and gratifying. 

I received quite a bit of teacher and peer feedback during this process. It was an enormous help to hear other people's opinions, and hear suggestions about what I could do to make the final result feel more authentic. For instance, this drawing would probably not be shaded in properly if it weren't for the advice of my teacher and peers. 

2) To represent my concept visually in my design, I knew that I would have to orient the body of the dragon in such a way that it would exhibit a noticeable enough curve to pull of a "D" shape. In all the sketches apart from one, I used the tail of the dragon to achieve this. The tail of the dragon is a lot more flexible than the rest of its body. Although I could have done something like I did in thumbnail # 24, where the actual body of the dragon curved to form the "D" shape, I thought it would be more believable if I utilized the tail to do that. 

3) The most challenging aspect of this project was definitely trying to settle on the position of the dragon. I experimented a lot with how the dragon would be sitting- would it be sitting up, like in the final, or crouched, like in the draft? Would it be standing on anything? Should I draw it from the front, in profile, or a combination of the two? How should its tail be positioned? Where can the wings be positioned so that they are out of the way and don't distract from the rest of the drawing? How detailed should the dragon be? Should I make the tail two colors or one? Should the wings be a completely different color, or similar to the body and the tail? It was difficult for me to decide on any of these things, because I'm just naturally terrible at making decisions, but also because each different way I answered these questions, I wasn't necessarily completely happy with the result. The exception was my final draft. 

4) That being said, I am very satisfied with my final draft. I was worried that it wasn't going to come out looking the way I wanted it to, but I am pleased to say that it did! I love the dragon, and I think that the "D" shape is prominent enough to be discernible, but subtle enough to blend in with the design as a whole. To me, when I look at it, I see both a dragon and the letter "D", which, of course was the goal. 

5) If I were to change anything about the design, it would probably be to shift the entire dragon over a couple of centimeters. I made the mistake, when drafting my final, of drawing the wings last. I had colored in the whole dragon before I realized that I had very little room for the wings. I ended up having to draw them a lot smaller than I originally intended. Although I was relatively pleased by how they came out, they still look slightly cramped, and I find myself wishing that I had had the foresight when drafting to move the dragon over to the right just a little more.