The Evolution of an Idea: Allie and the Dragon

Lately, my daughter has been asking us to tell her stories.  After several stories about princess Allie, I introduced the character of the dragon.  Now she always asks for dragon stories.  I've been having so much fun telling the stories, that I really wanted to illustrate some for her.  However my human drawing skills have never been great; animals are my thing.  But I decided that I should try because the worst that can happen is I draw something really ugly.  Here's a peak at how my sketches have been growing and evolving.  (Please excuse the poor quality of these images- I took them with my cell phone)

Here is the first person I drew out.  She looks about the quality that my daughter would draw.  Okay, maybe a little better.  Her people look like scribbles.

I realized I needed to shift the eyes down a bit and work on proportions.  Better, but still kind of goofy looking (and not in a good way).  Here is my second try.

Third time was the charm.  She looks pretty cute at this point.

Now I moved from my little sketch pad and tried to recreate my drawing on my watercolor paper.  This is typically what I create my final pieces on.

Finally, I added in a dragon.  He ended up looking a bit like a pet dragon, so I drew his tongue hanging out and made him look like he's staring at that ice cream cone.

So that's a peak into my process.  The image is still in pencil so I may do a few edits/additions before I add paint and ink. 

What do you guys think?  It's mostly just for fun and to show my daughter, but I do want to do it well.  The one thing that is troubling me now is that in the stories, the dragon is more of a friend than a pet.  But I thought this could be similar to a Mickey/Pluto kind of relationship.  Thoughts?