is there anything you have to say about the other four rider dragons in the nine realms when you may redesign them?
Yes! I have a lot of thoughts about them actually- I started with Thunder because he specifically offends me especially but I am not a big fan of the other dragons at all either. All the Nine Realms dragons just genuinely look so awkward and I want to redesign all the species from the show. Here are some design notes I have for the other main dragons:
Featherhide/Feathers - I want her to have more of a beak, similar to a deadly nadder. I’m considering making a lot of these dragons make more sense evolutionary- specifically making a lot of them hybrids who have features from different dragons but have inbred enough to be considered their own species. I think featherhides are most definitely a hybird of dramillions and deadly nadders, with maybe some woolly howl mixed in? They still look very similar to a Quetzalcoatl, they have similar body language to deadly nadders and dramillions, with the beak and head fan of deadly nadders, but they have the scale patterns/texture and cloaking abilities of dramillions. The dramillion fire mimicry I feel is also slightly present in featherhides.
Gembreaker/Plowhorn - gronckle hybrid of some kind! Likely gronckle and groncicle? Some sort of hybird of gronckles and groncicles, gembreakers are one of the worst designs in my opinion, they’re so awkward looking, I want to keep a bit of the beetle imagery but make it more dynamic and chill out with the horn size, it all just looks so awkward.
Mist Twister/Wu and Wei - fuck this dragon is so weird looking. I need those jaws to look more narrow and less awkward. These are definitely related to the Hideous Zippleback, probably a more eastern variant? I would like to give them more deer-like horns to look more similar to eastern dragons, and they need proper little ears, maybe a hybrid between Hideous Zipplebacks and Death Songs? I’d like to make their fire more amber-like in that case, and make their colours less… ugly. I’m going to change their colours to more mimic the moon and sun, a white/blue and yellow/orange. If that makes sense?
Deadly Spinner/Webmaster - deadly spinners are so dumb looking sorry. I still need this dragon to have 8 limbs, I fear it would be stupid without it, but the legs look really… clumsy? I’m giving him little forearms, two other legs, and the “middle” “legs” will be clawed wings, like a monstrous nightmare’s wings, definitely related to a monstrous nightmare, maybe mixed with a Silkspanner? I’m so disappointed they made so many more spider-like dragons instead of using the cool-ass one they already had (silkspanner). I need the body to be lower to the ground and the colours to be less… dull?? Not sure, I’ll mess around with that. The spines need to be less uniform too sighs. I want it to scuttle like a spider.
I hope this was interesting!! I’m gonna be working on these more between bits of uni work in the next few weeks :3