It had been awhile since I got to sit down and work on a piece - a bit too long. Due to my workload and relocation/expansion of my studio, I haven't had much time to work on what I enjoy doing most. I shot the model, Terra, for this piece back in July - and had been working on this piece ever since. This piece was challenging for a variety of reasons, and taught me a lot about what kind of artist I was.

I was very much enamoured with the pose, and I had built the background first, which I really liked. But as I worked through my original idea, I decided to change directions. Unfortunately, the direction I went in didn't really pan out and coupled with some personal things going on, I was having a helluva time figuring out what I was going to do with the art. I actually abandoned this piece and thought that I would never revisit it, and just start over with something else.

What some people might call gumption, other people might call Obsessive Compulsiveness - My brain could not accept defeat by a piece of art. I thought about it incessantly, even though I wanted to forget all about it. I felt guilty leaving it behind, I also felt like I was giving up - and that is not a personality trait that I subscribe to. I decided that if I had to stare at this piece for 40 hours, I was going to finish what I started - and believe me, I ran through several ideas before I conjured one up that I really liked. I probably did stare at this for 40 hours before I finally figured out where I wanted to go with it - and so it ends up as The Dragon Queen.

I really wanted to capture a true Pre-Raphaelite feel with this piece, especially with the background. I focused a lot on richening the color to give it a nice earthy quality, to contrast the unearthly green flames. The most fun part of this piece was creating a realistic baby dragon hatchling!