Dragon bookmark and lettering “tutorial”

I made this bookmark for @curiousfae in the bookmark swap.

I was pretty happy with how the drawing turned out. It was based on a tattoo I saw.

Personally, I think my partner’s lettering skills are phenomenal. But she said she wanted to learn how I lettered the bookmark, so here’s a quick and dirty, mini tutorial.

I start by laying out the space where I want the lettering to go.


In this case, I wanted to center the lettering so I found the midpoint.

Then I worked out where the center would be for the phrase I wanted to letter.

Roughing in the letters.

Adding flourishes

Inking main lettering

Crossing and dotting

Then you just erase all your pencil lines.

This was done a lot larger than I’d normally do it. Here’s a sample in the scale I’m most comfortable with:

I’m confident that @curiousfae would take this process and create an amazing new art form with it!!

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Cool tute,thanks!

I never thought to add the flourishes to plain letters, great technique!

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Beautiful bookmark; that eye is amazing! Thanks also for the tute.

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Thanks!

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Thanks for the lettering tute, I’ve wondered if you could pencil in first and then erase but was always scared to try it and have everything smudge.

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Just make sure that your ink is dry, that’s all.

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A bookmark like this might make me stop reading more often! And thanks for including the tutorial for lettering!

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What a magical book mark! That eye is stunning. Thank you so much for demystifying lettering a bit…your results are fantastic!

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Thank you!

Looks really good, nice spark of life in that eye.

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Thanks!