Coinhero's sketchbook

[ThereIsNoJustice]

I want to talk about this image:


I think you have the same feeling that there is something not quite working about this image. In your words, "the dragon looks stupid and out of place like it was taken from a different image and pasted on this one."

Try thinking of your whole painting. Think of the distances between the values and colors, and think more of those distances than of the colors or values themselves. Every large move away from the last value and last color will stand out and draw the eye, and everything similar will not.

Most of the reason, I believe, the dragon image doesn't feel right is because you have a high saturation background which is competing with the dragon's red eye. To me, the image is saying that the background and the eye are of equal importance because they are so close to one another in chroma/saturation and value, and that's not the effect you had in mind. You wanted the eye to be important. If you take the color out of the clouds, the dragon's red eye will regain its punch. It will get even more punch if the value around the center of the eye may reach next to white, and the clouds were darker.

Hope this helps!