Pressure

Okay, this is the first time I've ever done a critique, sorry if I do anything wrong, here goes...
First of all, this is a nicely constructed picture of a dramatic scenario, and a great character design too; I love the giant feather plumes at the end of the tail instead of the more traditional arrowhead or simply rounded end, and the feathers look realistically arranged, which is not always an easy thing to achieve. The dragon's body proportions look realistic and believable too; the talons in particular look great. The depiction of light and shade is also good as well; almost in the style of an anime cel image, making the design look sleek and graphic.

Onto the suggested possible improvements; one thing I might say is the use of background and positioning to give impact. As you wrote in the description, the pictured dragon is wounded and flying, or perhaps half-falling, through the air. You have chosen to keep the background as a simple colour gradient; this is a good choice, as it leaves the main focus on the dragon rather than the background. However, I personally thought that maybe to further convey the dragon's downward descent, maybe it would work well making it as a vertical rather than horizontally-formatted canvas with the dragon near the bottom at the page. This would mean that there would be less background area to the left of the dragon, which slightly detracts from the movement and more above the dragon, leaving more space for the rest of the dragon's wings and also to guide the viewer's eyes downwards in the same direction as the dragon.

I notice the wounds are swirled, stylized and also glowing softly, so they look more like magical wounds; this might be what you intended, and that's fine; but on first glance they looked more like markings than wounds-maybe a little more definition on the outline of the wounds under the glow might make them stand out a little, and possibly a few small highlights to make them glisten?

I thought maybe the neck could be lengthened a little more to counteract with the length of the tail-though this is more of a personal choice, as I have seen many artists depicting dragon's necks with varying lengths.

The thigh of the closest rear leg seems to be merged with the base of the wing; perhaps lowering it slightly would improve the anatomic proportions. Also perhaps the tips of the antlers could be rounded a little to make them appear stronger and less thorny-though this is quite a minor detail.


All in all, a nicely executed piece with a dramatic subject and very appealing usage of shading and stylized features. Well done!