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A quick guide to for drawing Dragons ^-^
most of it is rough pencil sketching, but you'll get the basic idea as it goes on.

Heads:
- start out with two circles. One large which is the base of the skull, and a smaller that's located at the edge of the nose.
try to start out light, so you can erase the guide lines later



-next connect the two circles with two guide lines. The first should e a gradual incline to the nose depending on the direction the head is facing, but the bottom should connect slightly lower to give the dragon it's lower jaw. depending on how low you drop the line, the thicker it's jaw will be.
also add a line extending backwards to identify it's spine, or the top of it's neck.



- last set of guide line you want to add is going to be are normal guide lines you would add to a human face to position the eyes. the horizontal should go from about the tip of the nose, while the vertical should fall on the base of the larger circle.



-at this point now, you could even have the base of a horse head, so go in and add details to the chin and top skull. the top of a dragon's eye brow is usually ridged and sort of resembles the top of a crocodile. also the more triangular or sharper you make the lines the meaner it will end up looking.
you can add more circles or short lines to start the bases for horns and spikes to give your dragon more of it's own personality.



Eyes:
eyes for dragons are like anything else. start out with a basic circle, the add it's eyelids. the basic are two long lines to give the eye a more slandered look. their pupils are usually slit like a cat's eye, but depending on your dragon's mood, the eye's will capture more of it's personality.



-add more features and erase the guide lines. and you have the base head of your fire breathing killer ^^




*Open Jaws

This part of a dragon can be a bit technical depending on how you try it but it's not that hard with practice. Let's do this with some head turns though xD

-first start out with yous basic head circles again, one large for the skull and a smaller one for the tip of the nose. next add a line from the underside of the base of the nose and bring it back in a curved motion. this is going to be the base line for the jaw. the farthest point you can bring the line back to should be the vertical guide line of the skull from before.



Next go in and add the detail to the base of the jaw, and then finish up the rest of the head, by adding eyes, horns, and a tongue between the rows of pearly whites xD

Body and Wings:

Bodies:

-start out with the same two circles for your head, but make them small depening on how big you want the body to be. next start from the back of the larger circle and carve out a long line. This is the line of motion that the body flows along. Think about which way you want the spine to move in, then give it life. the line of motion starts at the base of the head, all the way down to the tip of the tail.



-add two more circles that will give you it's shoulders and hips. the shoulders should be slightly larger then the hips if you're going to add wings. (i'll show why later)



-connect the two circles to form it's main body. it should be a bit thicker towards it's shoulders because of the rib cages, thin out a bit like the bodyof a horse, then connect back up at the hips.
underneith the body, start to plan out what you want done with the legs. use small and medium circles for the joints. usally you don't have to draw out all four limbs because usally one is hidden behind another if you have a good angle. if you get your postioning wrong, and don't like what you have the first time, you can always go back in and try something new.
also go back in and add the guide lines to the face.


Wings:
ok. one thing you have to remember is with any type of wing they follow the same structure.

-start out with a medium circle, then draw a large line up or outwards. next draw a small circle at the top of that long line then add three, four or more lines for the digits of the wings. the farthest two lines away from the main circle will be the longest, while the rest will grow gradually smaller in like your hand is to your middle and index finger are to your hand.
NOTE THOUGH: all digits are connected to the top circle, Not the bottom.


-two most common type of styles are bat wings and bird wings. Bat have the favored dragon webbing, while bird wings are more for a mystic look. you want to make sure that the wing span has enough space in the wings though to get a lift if you want it to look like it can fly.



Back to Bodies

-to add the wings, draw the base circle just above or rather ontop of it's shoulder blades. the wings of a dragon come out of that naught, while the membrane (or lower wing) should exstend to it's lower back or it's hips.



-From there, go back in and add full detail. keep in mind though if your adding spines or horns they should follow the same line of motion. this serves as the guide for the spine, and should line them up right.

Drawing Specific Dragons from Movies and Games

Haku from Spirited Away





Coming soon:
Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty and Kingdom Hearts
Smaug from The Hobbit
Saphira from Eragon