Dragons

By Jesper Ejsing

Wrath of Ashardalon 

"I love to do dragons". My main thing is beasts and monsters. The over exaggerated anatomy is fun to fool around with, and the way it goes over the top of realism appeals to me.



But dragons... They are the top of the pops within the world of monsters. They've got the brute force of a troll and the cunning of a wizard. They've got everything the other monsters have got, but combined into one fierce bad-ass opponent.



Which is also why I take it very seriously when having to portrait one.



Actually I think it is pretty hard. You have to capture the animal anatomy of a lizard but it still needs to have elements of a thinking being, like facial expressions and posture - some dragons have both wings and arms. So the difficulty is, that my dragons often becomes too lizard-like or too humanoid.



Actually I think it is super hard to do a REALLY good dragon. "Come to think of it, I hate doing dragons"



...but I have painted a lot of them. I think of them as a T-rex morphed with a seagull, for how it moves. I did that in the Dragon Magazine illustration and I think it made for a great showing of how a dragon looks when in motion.