So, you’d like to draw a tribal dragon?
Great!
It’s going to be a lot of fun. And I say this with great enthusiasm, as not only when it comes to dragons – does creativity and imagination, reign supreme…
But also…
This particular style, a popular design-type for tattoos – leaves so many doors open, an infinite number of ways to make your drawing unique.
…
Please use this lesson as a guideline, for coming up with you very own unique drawings and tattoo designs.
Let’s begin!
Learn How to Draw a Tribal Dragon
Drawing a tribal dragon, one that you may want to use for a tattoo design – it’s all about style, silhouette, and simplicity.
Using a simple vertical line to begin, along with a curved "S-line" – establishing the core arc of our dragon’s body…
Here’s how it begins…
The head of our drawing, will be at the top left – end of the grey line.
The tail, will wrap around to the right – at the bottom of the grey line.
Next, let’s add some more lines, to establish a bit of a guideline…
Next up…
OK. Looking pretty good.
With this particular tribal dragon, I’m only focusing on the head, body, tail, and wing – no arms or legs.
But please feel free to incorporate whichever extras you feel necessary.
Branch off as much as possible from the design laid out below. And remember, it’s only a guideline.
…
More grey lines – and this is the structure, from which my final drawing – will be based upon…
OK.
Switching over to black now – this drawing will only be two colors (black and white) – begin to mark in the head and neck area of your tribal dragon.
There are a zillion different combinations and forms to come up with – change the curves, points, etc. – to make a tattoo/picture, that’s unique to you.
Like so…
Fading our previous work out to grey, next – mark off some additional features of your dragon.
Below, you can see how I’ve carefully placed some horns, a tongue, and a few teeth.
Notice how simple these shapes are.
Do the same. BUT DON’T!!!
Make yours COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. 🙂
More curved shapes – and you can see now, how we’re only going for the *general idea* of what a dragon may look like.
Lines (shapes) broken up like this – really look great, especially when it comes to creating a simplistic tribal-looking tattoo design.
Here’s how the body, along with part of the tail – is looking..
And so, just a few more things now.
Giving off the idea of wings – draw in some longer spikes, if you like.
And just a *hint more* detail – sketch in a few more shapes, in and around the body of your drawing – in whichever places you feel it’s necessary.
Similar to this…
And finally – bringing it all back to black, and even shading in the area where its wing skin may be…
…and your tribal dragon drawing – is complete!
Come to think of it though, it actually looks great, minus the wing skin.
And more simplistic, too.
…
Well, there it is…
Hope you had fun with this lesson – and please keep online… more cartoon drawing lessons to come!