(click for DA version - large size is highly recommended)

The water of the shallow river bank lapped around the dragon's massive form as it rested.

It didn't take long for the Jester to grow bored.

"What do you think you are doing, human?" the dragon asked. Its voice sounded like the pulling of heavy chains over flagstones. It opened a black eye to gaze down at the little woman. She was in the process of putting feet and hands in the dragon's rugged head-armor, heaving herself upwards.

"I just realized you are MADE of hand-holds!" the Jester declared as she swiftly climbed up on the long head and smiled directly into the dragon's black, and rather incredulous, glare. Moving to the side, she let herself hang by her arms off the side of the dragon's jaw so her feet just touched the water below. "You are so easy to climb I would think people would want to climb on you all the time."

The dragon didn't like the sound of that. "Such climbing creatures are usually called parasites and should be squashed".

"I think you are missing out on some new experiences here" she said and shifted her grip around so she hung with her back to those large, grim teeth. "Why not just just accept your lot in life. You are ... the eminently climbable."

"And you are eminently squashable, human" the dragon rumbled ominously.

"That I am" the Jester agreed cheerfully, completely ignoring any perceived threat. She splashed water with her dangling feet, swinging from side to side. "Our lots in life eh - you are climbable and I am squashable." She pondered, "Hey - between the two of us I would say you have the better lot in life. So you should really try to be more cheerful!"


Technically, this image is the fourth one in my Dragon meeting Jester series, but it felt dull to keep naming them by numbers. This took quite a bit of time to do, mainly using MyPaint for all painting work and GIMP for texturing and some other adjustments. The initial sketch was done on the tablet.

[MyPaint + GIMP]

Comments and critique is welcome as usual!
.
Griatch

Wow; extremely cool Griatch.

The detail and color in this is amazing. At first I thought the jester's left leg was awkward, but when it is blown up, it looks better.

Beautifully done. The story is great too.

Nice as always Griatch.

BTW... I just added you to my DA watch.

Awesome Griatch. I thought you couldn't get any better and you keep surprising me!

Her arms look somewhat unnatural but other than that it's really good! And I liked that story.

Amazing Griatch. What a job you did on all those scales, it must have taken hrs.

Thanks for the comments everyone!


Cool, thanks.

Yeah, the loose pants change the shape of the leg when seen from a distance. Glad you like the details and color, took a good while to do.

All my images tend to come about as snippets from some larger story, a very useful way to come up with interesting scenes (and also why I tend to return the same characters (although it's also good training to draw the same character recognizable over and over)).

Glad you be able to surprise you then!

Glad you like the story. As for her arms, just writing that they look unnatural is unfortunately not very helpful without any more details. I added some more shading to the arms, better now?

That it did indeed. But I find that drawing on a phone/tablet helps me be patient with making lots of details.
.
Griatch

Isn't a phone tablet pretty small to draw on? Do you use a stylus?

@molly

I said "phone tablet" to avoid it being confused for a graphical tablet (like a Wacom Intuos). It's a Thinkpad Tablet, with a 256-level pressure sensitive pen (not wacom):



But I think it could probably work to draw on a phablet-style device too (like the Galaxy Note).
.
Griatch

Thanks Griatch, I knew you didn't mean ipad or wacom. I looked up phone pads and there were serveral but I haven't looked up think pad yet. I see it comes with a stylus. I have a few small apps that you can paint with on my ipad but your only tool is your finger, which is quite awkward. The think pad looks really nice.

Made some minor fixes and updates to the jester's clothes and arms.
.
Griatch

I meant like, her arms look like how it would look if you are grasping something in front of you but they are behind her. She must be real flexable or I'm just being blonde! xD

I thought they looked fine. To me she looks like she is hanging on with her fingers.

@mokonafan

I hear you and it's great to get feedback! I don't agree with you in this particular instance though. Maybe I will see it differently after some time, but at least for now I see no anatomical flaw when it comes to the direction of the arms.
.
Griatch

I could just be missing it, I work 12 hours shifts 3 days in a row with no real sleep and takes me the other 4 days to recover. I'm probably just missing it. LOL

I'm going to back Moko up on this. The position of the arms might be theoretically plausible in an extremely flexible person, but try holding your arms up straight, then twisting them backwards and at the same time imagine hanging from something while you are like that. I don't think many people could do it.

@Erisian (moko):

Hm. I just ... did it. Just now. It's the way you hang off a ledge (or a cliff, if you are a climber) without expending much energy. Sure she is an acrobat so she is both flexible and strong in her arms, but I still don't see where the position is unnatural. I'm curious as to what I may be missing now. Maybe we are seeing the pose/grip in different ways?
.
Griatch

Now you got me wondering again. I opened the image in Gimp and increased the size to 200%, did a screen shot. Now that I see it larger, the hands seem to be facing toward the back, the first time I saw it I thought the palms were facing out and her fingers appeared to be hooked on to one of the ledges of the beast. I just tried it too and with my hands facing the back, I don't think I would be able to hold on that way, I would be lucky to hang on one minute.