I actually have a book on drawing dragons (one of those How To Draw X books). From here
http://neondragonart.com/Store/dragonart.html. I don't really recommend it, there are better drawing books out there. But it does have an extensive set of suggestions for drawing dragons and similar critters.
Well, credit where credit is due, I started with this image by following her book (step 1, most of 2 and the eye placement in step 3, but not the new snout). The descriptions are mine. Using the colors from your original:
Step 1.
Draw a circle a little higher than halfway up. It doesn't have to be exact.
Add a hoop / U-shape that will become the jaw. Notice it is a bit pinched near the circle. This should be a clean line, but it will get edited, so don't spend too much time on it.
Add a squiggly line out the other side of the circle to make the neck.
Step 2.
Add the smile line in a different color. This goes from the front edge of the jaw hoop back far into the circle.
Add an eye line around the circle (light dots). This should parallel the smile line and curve gently around to the far edge.
Add some lines to thicken the neck. These can be rough.
Finally, add eyebrow ridges. You don't have to have them, but they really help. In 3/4 view the ridges go from where the new neck lines connect to the eye line. Just make them a curved glob, thicker in the front; use them to help suggest a spherical surface.
Step 3.
Add an eye spot. Many shapes will work for this. It fits between the eye line and the eye ridge. Adjust the curve of the eye ridge if needed.
Add a center line down the snout (light dots). Here I had to rework the snout shape quite a bit. This was trial and error.
Looks a bit like a duck at this point.
Step 4.
Darken the outline, filled in with some solid colors. The pattern of light and shadow isn't necessary here, but I wanted to see how it looked overall and experiment with the colors. A simple fill+outline is all that is needed so that basic shapes can be adjusted. I don't like the palette, there is too big of a jump between the 3 light colors and the two dark colors for my tastes.
Added some extra mass to the underside of the neck.
Adjust the outline of the lower jaw so the dragon has an overbite. This generally looks good.
Step 5.
Add minor bits: horns, glasses, twinkle in the eye. Glasses were copied from the original and tweaked to fit.
Adjusted the line of the neck both on top and the underside. The neck doesn't look that good, but no one will notice, and it could be covered with scales or a fin if necessary.
There is plenty of room to tweak further; textures, shapes, body parts can all be adjusted or added. I think this dragon could use a goatee to go with the glasses, but I got lazy at this point. The shading could probably use some work too, but I'd want to adjust the palette before doing much more of that (meh, lazy). Hopefully you can see some possibilities.
Compared to your original:
You've got the mass of the skull at the very top, and all of the features of the snout at the very bottom, with an empty space in between. This is not good composition. Balancing the important bits (eye/skull, mouth, extra bits/neck) works better.
Eye ridges. They do wonders.
Hope this helps,
Tourist
