Fighting with Dragons

"The man who fights too long with dragons

becomes a dragon himself."

~ Friedrich Nietstzsch, German philosopher, 1844-1900

Nowadays perhaps I've been buying a lot of Asian food lately and perhaps that's why I've been surrounded by dragons. The Blue Dragon, that is. That's the commonest brand of Asian food you can find in England, France, and some say Norway. It's pseudo-Asian though, because it's based in UK. Ah well. What can you do when you miss home-cooked food?

Anyway, so this morning I was staring at the packaging when I noticed the dragon logo. Dragons always puzzled me. Did they ever exist in man's time? Was it a long-lost descendant of the 'saurs? How do people know how to draw something they've never seen? How did they describe their looks? Fierce, they might say.

The Blue Dragon on my sushi nori looks like this:

Kinda cartoonish, isn't it?

Dragons, I tell you, are a real bummer to draw. You get bummed. Your pencil gets bummed. Your head bumps onto the table in despair.

How do you draw a mythical creature (that you've never seen in your entire life) look 1) fierce 2) graceful 3) fiery 4) authentic when it has bulging eyes and awkward long-bodied proportions with four legs??? Where do you put the legs?

A few years ago I had a crush on a guy whose Chinese zodiac sign is a Fire Dragon. Thus I drew this and sent it off to him. I thought I drew something *fierce* *Roar!*

The end result looks disappointing. It looks a little wimpy to me, even *gasp* feminine. I have failed. 

No more dragons for me, I said. I put in so much effort colourin' it and this wimp is what happened. It even looks friendly and sly, but not in a good way.

Even the cloud looks ten times better than the entire dragon. Look Ma, it's pink!

Actually I think the tail is the best part of my dragon. However it still looks too stiff. Not fiery like how I would like it. I was picturing the dragon like a hot blue flame. Kinda like that of a Bunsen burner in chemistry labs.

I was so dedicated to emphasizing it's a fire dragon, that I wrote the description I found from a Chinese zodiac book I found, on a piece of tracing paper and overlaid it on the drawing.

End of my dragon story.

Or is it?

(maybe I should try it one more time)

(I must be careful...I might become a dragon myself if I fight this too long)

x

pixy