Thxs a lot! Actually this is part of a much larger piece. There's a good chunk of his back missing along with 2 other dragons, a river, and a cliff. I don't have a digital camera so I had to be picky when I scanned it. I'm really glad that you liked it so much.
A tip when working with Charcoal. Spray it! A spray fixative will keep your charcoal from smearing. The only down side is that you can't erase. This is also good for finished works, to keep them from getting damaged.
Thanks again ^-^
I'm amazed that you managed to get that much detail with charcoal, 'cause I usually find it too smudgy to work with in detailing. The lighting on the scales is really impressive and I'm in awe of the way that you managed to realistically structure the face, it actually looks like there's bones and muscles under the scales (the shading works well too). My attention was really drawn to the eye though, which looks..well, really, really real. The only complaint I might have is that the shoulder(?) looks a little flat, but it's nothing major. The background seems just about perfect, because it'd probably take attention away from the dragon if you went into crazy detailing on it. Very nicely done ^_^