Rooster Dragon is a probably a bit more dignified, not chicken dragon. Been playing a lot of Dragon Age (again-for my birthday, Josh gave me all the dlc + awakening, though now that I’ve played all of that, I’m a bit dragon age-d out for a little while…) so seem to have dragons on the brain. Also recently saw “How To Train Your Dragon”, which by the way is probably the best animated film I’ve seen in awhile (I think I might have enjoyed it more than “Up”) and all the dragons in that were fairly creative*. Anyway, here is half of rooster dragon:
(I really liked his head, and then I added the wattle/flap and he sort of looked like a chicken, so I felt like I had to continue. I don’t much like his body, which is why there isn’t much of one. Since this is just a sketch, I should be able to give him better treatment in painter…)
In other art-y updated, I’ve been working on some concept sketches for a private project I’ve been sort of pondering. Over at Concept Art.org, there was a Character of the Week (CHOW) challenge to re-design some of the wizard of oz characters. I didn’t really get around to doing it, but once I did, I sort of took the idea and ran with it.
I’m thinking of a different sort of oz, where dorothy (who might not be named dorothy in this version) doesn’t get the ruby shoes. Anyway, haven’t gotten much further than some character designs (and a monkey), but there will probably be more. In my version, the cowardly lion isn’t actually a lion, but a prince (with a hamlet-y backstory and his family crest is a lion-SYMBOLISM!) exiled to oz; the tin man is a golem of sorts and dorothy doesn’t wear a dress. The scarecrow I’m still sort of working on, but will probably be something undead…
Oh and the winged monkeys aren’t called winged monkeys (but you know that’s what they are…). I imagine they’re more of a prosimian-esque species, probably cave dwelling (or at the very least nocturnal- hence their overlarge eyes). They’re a smallish scavenger/predator (probably about jackal size- but lighter, seeing as they have to “fly”) that dwell in caves and deep forests. They are notable for their modified wing arms- though they’re much more like flying squirrels than bats (hungry, terrifying flying squirrels…)- which they use to glide between trees. They have prehensile tails with a single claw on the end that they use both for stability and defense. They are also notable for mobbing behavior when they encounter a potential predator, which has given them a reputation for malevolence…
*my only major gripe with that film was the final, big bad dragon. While pretty to look at, it’s wings were WAAAAAY too small for it to believably make it into the air. The dragon itself was way too big to fly (as are most fantasy dragons, but they’re allowed some leeway), at least the other dragons in the film were designed with at least a small nod to aerodynamics and to a lesser extent, physics. Magic only gets you so far, your wings have to be believably large enough to get you off the ground. Apart from that, the movie was beautiful and adorable, and the dragon animation was fantastic. Definitely worth checking out.
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