Last year I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to work on a dragon book for Scholastic by way of Becker&Mayer Books. I got to take a crack at designing 16 different mythical dragons from all over the world for a book called Sink Your Teeth Into Dragons.



I had no idea that Zmey Gorynych was so popular, definitely the most requested dragon. One thing I was exploring on this project was bringing the serpent back to dragon designs. So many historical accounts of dragons describe them with snake-like features but I feel like that's been mostly lost in modern dragon designs. I wanted this one to be less extravagant than most of the others to give it a more classic vibe. That being said, I was't going to pass up an opportunity to paint sweet glowing through holes. I bet this thing is a real nuisance for those castle-goers.

Photoshop CC: 6 hours

Illustration©Becker&Mayer Books