The black dragon lighting effect is very simple to do and can be done if you are comfortable with moving lights around Poser or DAZ Studio.  This lighting technique works especially well with fantasy art, but it has the potential of slowing down rendering speeds if the technique is over done.  We often recommend that beginners and intermediate artists limit the number of lights used to 3 or 4 lights because in all honesty that is all that you really need to create some fantastic art, but this type of poser lighting is the exception. Our Dragon Archer image was created with only 5 lights and 3 of those lights were as a direct result of this technique.

Here's how the black dragon lighting effect is created: In the picture on the left you see 2 lights, a point light and a spotlight. The first step is to create a point light and stuff it in the dragon's mouth.  There are two effects that you can get by doing this. The first effect is the one that we are talking about now and the second is to create the effect that fire is coming out of the dragon's mouth. The placement of the point light all depends on what type of lighting effect that you want to create in the mouth of your dragon.  You can move the light up, down, forward or backwards just as long as the point light is inside of the dragon's mouth. Moving the light too far forward near the lips will cause the light to start shining outside of the dragon's mouth and onto the body. Lighting adjustments may be required in order to keep the light traveling too far.

We usually watch how the light falls on the crease of the mouth and on the teeth when trying to find the right location.  The second light that we will create is the spotlight.  The purpose of the spotlight is to light the eye area.  Notice we said EYE AREA, we aren't trying to make the eyes glow even thought that's the effect that it will create.  The purpose of using the spotlight on the eyes is to have control of how much area we want to light around the eyes.  The amount of area that you choose to light up is up to you. You can choose to light only the eye, or you can decide to light the eye and the area around the outside of the eye.

     Now in order to prevent headaches with the light settings make sure to parent the point light to the mouth and the spotlights to the eyes or the head.  This way the lights will move around as you pose the dragon.  This simple lighting will add new life to your fantasy art creations. You won't be disappointed. Don't believe us? Click to see the full size black dragon lighting effect.