This is another version of the same dragon – I resized a cleaned-up version of the black & white outline I did, printed it out onto some parchment-textured paper I found in my stash, and then inked it. Literally inked, that is – the green & red are calligraphy ink, applied with a pen, but the bronze outlining is acrylic paint.

Apologies for the rather blurry picture – today is not a good camera day for me and the tail is just slightly too long for my scanner.

I was walking along Datchet High Street, under a flight path from Heathrow, and looked up to see this. I thought I hadn’t got my camera up in time, but I just managed it.

This is the first stage of an attempt to illustrate the firework dragon Gandalf conjures for Bilbo’s Party at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. I was inspired by these posts on Tor.com, where Kate Nepveu is blogging her Lord of the Rings re-read. I’m going to colour it, but I wanted to post the black and white version first.

Quick post to mention another good materials source.

Falkiner’s (formally Shepherds Bookbinder Ltd) on Southampton Row (near Holborn) – specialist bookbinding supplies. Good paper in large quantities, thin leather of just about any description (including stingray, parrot fish, perch, and cane toad skins), and Useful Tools. They also sell good-quality lightfast pigment ink calligraphy pens, too.

They do leather scraps & offcuts at £3.50 for 100g, and they aren’t stingy about what goes into the offcut box either – I picked up some very nice pieces.