Qwertee - Toothless

        For my fifth design, I decide to revisit the How to Train Your Dragon Universe, as designs featuring Toothless seem to be reliably popular among the Qwertee voters. I also thought it was time to add some colour, albeit not via digital painting, but with watercolour, in the hope that hand painted images would still be acceptable as long as they do not excede the maximum number of colours (5 on a dark shirt and six on a light). Hopefully any natural variation in the ink and paint will not be classed as a separate colour.

        Just to be certain not to use any more colours than were necessary, I chose to keep the design simple, as with my previous designs. I recalled a scene in which Toothless is plagued by baby dragons, his exasperated and somewhat confused expression reminiscent of a cat or dog, highlighting how well his designers and animators are able to draw such a subtle performance from a creature which does not speak. I found the image of a baby dragon hanging from Toothless' tail highly endearing, and hopefully the voters will too.

        When I first began to colour over my carefully inked design with dilute Indian ink, I was very apprehensive. The grey just seemed far too dark, obsuring some of the finer details which had take me so much time, while the coulr was not quite right. This latter issue was resolved by the addition of a thin layer of blue ink over the grey, correcting the brown tinge the image was taking on. The other colours are watercolor, with the same green being used for the baby and Toothless' eye, to keep within the limitations.

        Despite my initial reservations about the colours being too dark, once the image was scanned they appeared drastically lighter. This is no doubt one of the downfalls of hand colouring, rather than digital painting, that the shades can change (drastically or slightly) in the transition from analogue to digital. Although, as I may have mentioned before, my abilities with Photoshop leave much to be desired, I was able to adjust the colours satisfactorily, in order that the design would stand out better, yet the colour would not obscure the ink work beneath.

        The only thing left to do now is submit the five designs to Qwertee. After submission, there is a period of 24 to 48 hours where all designs must be reviewed. After this period, they will either be rejected, or accepted an placed on the website for voting. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that I haven't unknowingly broken one of the conditions which would result in my work being rejected.