I love painting one-stroke dragons and one-stroke snakes and they are very popular with the people I’m painting (young and old) and when I discovered the Flora brush, my one-stroke dragons and snakes got better and quicker, so I love this brush! As you can see in the examples I simply lay it down flat to create the snake ‘stripes’. For the ridges down the dragon’s back I like to put a little curve into it – I lay the point and sort of pull the brush up towards the dragon’s back a little to give it a better shape. It’s hard to explain but simple to do. I found by accident that if I don’t fully load the handle-end of the bristles you can get some bare lines at the fat end of the shape – which actually makes the dragon ridges look more realistic!
As when you are using a round brush to lay teardrops, you can apply just half the bristles or so to create smaller shapes, and you can create longer shapes by moving along the skin as you press down. I use this latter method for monster horns.
The Flora brush also works well for tiger stripes. The very fine point and fat base gives you great thin-to-thick lines.
You can also use the tip of the brush for doing the outline and other details but it’s easier to use a good round brush.
