Best Friends - Doll and Dragon

Last christmas I decided to do a painting for my boyfriends mum and my mum as their christmas presents. I personally like you acrylic paint but watering it down a bit. I had gone on a theme of my doll and decided that they can have the doll with something they love and the one below was for my boyfriends mum who loves Dragons. I first of all designed the dragon and then decided to change my doll now I have learned more and I think he has really improved! Personally I wanted the stitching to be black like my design but she saw it before I'd done that and wanted it with light stitching but as thats what she wanted and it was for her that is what I did.

Progression of the Painting
When I was a bit through the process of painting it I decided to start taking photos to show how I went about doing it as I thought she and anyone else who sees it might find it interesting.

I started by drawing the design on the canvas and then the background using shading techniques to make it as it is. I then did a base layer on the dragon in a deep blue and tried using a lighter version of the background for it's ears and back of wings. I also tip the wing tip and a base layer for the dragons chest. I also did the ear a dirty pink colour but soon changed my mind.

I decided after doing the red in the wings that it didn't work so I made it blue too. Here I added lighter and darker shades of the blue to show the shape of the Dragon better.

Next I shaded in the chest and ear and also added its eye. You can see the dragon really coming together now.

Then I went onto the doll and gave it a base layer with some shading. Then gave it mismatch eyes and some features.

Finally, I finished the dolls shading and added the black outlines. I ummed and ahhh for a while about adding the black lines but its more my style so i thought best to add them. Although I do still look back at the image before and have a twinge of regret for adding them as it looks quite beautiful without them. Maybe I will do this painting again for myself minus the lines.