Long before I illustrated the Raising Dragons Graphic Novel or even read any of the Dragons in Our Midst novels, I illustrated one of the fan favorite characters at the request of my wife. Her name is Sapphira Adi and she made her debut in the book titled Eye of the Oracle, the first book in the Oracles of Fire series by Bryan Davis. This is pretty much all I had to go on, which explains why she doesn't exactly match her description in the book itself (my apologies to the fans).

The Sketch

The only reference I had for her was the cover of The Bones of Makaidos, the last book of the series. She was wearing a medieval armor with chainmail and I thought it was such a nice design. I was told that in the book she lives as a slave in a cave. There is a scene where she finds a flower and it was very special to her. I took all of these elements and put them together, although she doesn't wear the armor until after her escape from the caves.

The Line Art

I drew this back in 2012, back when all I had was a humble little Wacom Bamboo fun drawing tablet. The software I used to draw my lineart was called Corel Painter Essentials. I really liked how the G-Pen handled in that program. I would eventually move on to the superior Clip Studio Paint, but Corel was a great place to start drawing digitally and I made some nice art as a result of my years of practice.

The Flat Colors

I used Adobe Photoshop for the coloring of this piece. While working in layers, I had my colors on the bottom and my line art on top. I used the lasso tool to create my shapes and fill them in with solid color. I like to keep my anti-aliasing turned off so that I can use the magic wand to select these shapes as needs, especially when adding shadows and highlights.

The Finished Illustration

I colored my line art (color holds) and I think it was for the better, especially for her silver white hair. Having black lines there would make her hair look darker than it should be. By having the cave's stalactites and stalagmites in the background, I was able to blur them and make the focus on Sapphira. I didn't cel-shade this piece. Instead, I opted for an airbrush look. I don't do this very often, but sometimes I feel bold and give it a try.

Ultimately I gave a copy of this illustration to the author of the Oracles of Fire series, Bryan Davis. He liked it very much, as did his fans when he shared it on his Facebook page. If I ever illustrate the sequels to Raising Dragons, I might get the chance to draw Sapphira again. If that ever happens, I will certainly draw her accurately to the story (she's suppose to look like a young girl, not a teenager). Nevertheless, I don't regret drawing this piece. :)