••

As originally conceived, European dragons, at least, were exactly that -- big, nasty, menacing. They laid waste to whole towns, and made a steady diet of virginal maidens, until some heroic knight came along and did 'em in. Usually after several slightly less heroic knights had failed.

Somewhere along the way, tho, dragons started to get the same treatment that has lately visited vampires -- suddenly they were "cute and cuddly". I suppose one could assume that not ALL dragons were evil creatures of darkness -- but does this have to mean that NONE of them are? Or that the evil creatures of darkness are the exception?

••

sigh

Wow. Really love how JB draws dragons. Very nice.

••

I don't use whiteout or liquid paper or any other such stuff on commission pieces. Over time, they tend to yellow, and even dry up and flake off! In this piece, I use something I learned from studying the works of Steve Ditko -- that any form (a figure, a bolt of energy, etc) surrounded by a heavy black defining form or line, will appear brighter than the page around it.

This is something which, alas, is constantly defeated by modern colorists. If this pieces was going to be a cover or a splash page, I would bet good money that the colorist would knock out the blacks on the dragon with some color, most likely red. Thus, the "brightening" effect of the solid blacks would be lost.