In this webinar, learn dragon designs with Frida Haas!

Design #1

This split cake is from the Fusion Happy Pixie Petal Palette and I just picked up the blue and green range, and some purple on there, too. I'm gonna lay down a quick base for some wings on the eyes.

For the actual dragon, I'm using Global Tokyo. I'm gonna put the head right here in the center and I like to always start with the head. You can also start with the neck if you feel more comfortable with that. So I'll start here at the top, go in with my bridge, my snout. And I want this one to have an open mouth. Lay both horns. I find that you get a much more balanced dragon when it has this shape to it, if you pull the belly sort of in line with the tip of the nose. I'm gonna do a little bit of a flare, and then for some wings, then just do this basic scallop.

Because we just wanna make this as cool as we can, right here on the bottom, I'm gonna put in a little bit of space for just a couple of big horns just to tie in that dragon.

I'm gonna go in with white first to do my teeth, some horns and spikes. And then I just kinda go in with a little bit of black and Blazin Brush Round #2 just so I don't have to outline the teeth at all. Do a little jowl. I always start outlining with the bridge of the nose on the face when I'm doing the outline, then flow down, follow these scalloped edges that I created.

You can flush these out as much as you want. Add different colored one strokes, do stenciling on those wings. I will sometimes just come in and suggest some scales 'cause I'm an on-the-job painter. I usually just do an s-curve serif and then I come in and I flick around like that to create a menacing eye. But this is a pretty quick, successful dragon.

Design #2

Using the same concepts as painting the other dragons, we can also make something super cute. I'm gonna load up Leanne's Lollipop and I'm gonna put in a little rainbow there. 

Then I'm using DFX Posie. Now, this dragon is gonna feel really super cute and friendly. The way I've kind of thought about it before is that what you're doing is that you're giving your dragon more human features. Give it a little nose, a little jaw. Super, super cute, round little face but I'm not really changing the features that I'm drawing, just the shape. I'll come in with a little horn in the back and up front.

Let's put in some blue and give it a little bit of hair. Give it a tail, and I like to do a heart at the end of the tail. I'm gonna come in and do this teeny tiny little wing. I'm gonna put a little bit of blue in there for an eye. This dragon will definitely have more of a pony eye than those mean eyes I did before.

I don't always outline with black but I am doing it now because I know it's definitely gonna show up better on camera and you can see the lines a whole lot better. But especially for these guys, staying away from black is kinda nice because it will just soften the design if you do that. For these noses, I usually like to do a little heart nostril.

I'm gonna go in and do that horn. I don't wanna do too much outline 'cause I feel like it gets too heavy.

Then I'm gonna take a little bit of pink on a sponge, and then I’ll just dab in a little rosy cheek and a rosy nose 'cause it's cute. And I'm just giving it a little bit of highlight. So that's a cute, cute dragon!

Design #3

This time, I'm loading just white on my 1/2" and then in the very, very corner, I'm dipping it into some Superstar Petrol Blue just for a little bit of dimension, so it's not really a one stroke. This one has a little bit of a water horse feel.

Before I start with the dragon, I'm gonna go in with Bluebelle Shimmer from the Fusion Leanne's Happy Pixie Petal Palette again. I'm just gonna put some color on the eye, and see if I can pick up some of that purple, too.

This dragon is just gonna have a bit more delicate wings. I'm gonna do just a little bit of a tail, and the end of the tail is a place you can have a lot of fun with. You don't just have to do the pointy end. You can come up and do pretty flares and stuff like that.

I have that Petrol Blue there on the end of my brush so I can just go in and lay in some color for that eye. And this one's gonna have more of a pony eye again. I think I can use Petrol Blue for the outline on this and it's gonna show up because it is such a dark color. I'm gonna do a lot of teardrops because it feels like splashes of water, so I'm gonna be doing that with this guy, keeping everything delicate. I'm not even gonna do a pupil on this one, come in with a couple of dots for highlights.

You know how to fill in those spaces where things didn't get as tight as you wanted them to be? Well, you come in and do some little dots there. I'm just really playing around right now, just seeing where things fall in the moment. So for this one, add glitter, add swirls, add lipstick. All that fun stuff.

Design #4

What I like to do with a dragon face is to keep everything tight with your basic shape. I definitely go in with some color on the eyes, on the bridge of the nose, and then on the nose itself. I will come down to the lips just for this. I'm gonna go just a tiny bit above the eyebrows, and then I don't really wanna go past the eyes. From the nose to the corner of the eye, I'll put some paint in that little triangle right there, but I'm not gonna go past that. We wanna try to create the illusion of a skinny snout and not too big or blocky of a head.

Now what you can do is add horns and spikes and all that fun stuff. I like to do little bits of jagged lines, do the place for a horn.

To switch this from your basic monster to make it more dragon, I would definitely come in and pull these shapes in here. This would be a great opportunity for fangs or spikes. I'm also gonna come in and do nostrils.

I'm gonna come in with a little bit of an off white just to give this dragon fangs and stuff. These horns I'm gonna have curved, and do a big fang. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. 

I'm using this 1005 BAM stencil. It has a narrow strip so I like to sort of lay that down in the middle of the eye and just go in so that those scales travel in towards the face.

Then I'll outline. I like to just sort of play with teardrops so I'm just doing little teardrop flicks to outline those teeth, some jagged cracks.

If you have the time, of course, this is certainly a great opportunity to come in with some shading and all I'm doing right now is taking a dry brush and just pulling that paint in and you'll get instant dimension, especially here at the corner of the eyes. You could also lay down some fire if you want a fire-breathing dragon. But if somebody wanted a full face dragon, that's what I would do!

Products Mentioned in the Webinar:

Blazin Brush Round #2 Brush
Blazin Brush Round #3 Brush
Kraze FX Splash 12-One Stroke Palette
Kraze FX Jalapeno
Fusion Leanne's Happy Pixie Petal Palette
Global Body Art Tokyo
Global Body Art London
Fusion Leanne's Lollipop
Diamond FX Posie
Superstar Petrol Blue
Fusion Bluebelle Shimmer
BAM Stencil Snakeskin #1005

If you missed the live webinar, you can watch it now in the video above or later on our YouTube channel. Thank you, Frida, for sharing your talents with us! Thank you to everyone who tuned in to the webinar. Click here to know our upcoming webinars.