I am guilty of often starting a painting before I am actually ready to do so, and should've done more planning; this is more true for challenge entries. This painting is based on an older Inktober piece of a farmer happening upon a curly dragon collecting its pearl in the forest. My sketch then was too rushed so I tried again, blocking out a model in Blender for lighting and everything. Then something else happened that's not exactly handy - it took me too long. Personal pieces like this take a back seat to jobs of course, but I paused for so long between sessions that I started to lose the initial vision, which in my experience is when things start to really go haywire. Once identified, I hurried up to finish it all before that happened.
I blocked out a basic dragon-like shapes in Blender to create a reference for the lighting. I love how dragons like this move like ribbons in the wind, and wanted to show it woven through the forest, like even at its size, this graceful creature has no problem moving through dense trees.