Going to repost these in chunks rather than separate posts because of well, fears of shadowbanned posts. I will put them into a dedicated post later when I can get the rest of it done.
So basically the series was that I have my own version of Smaugust since 2023 that I've been refining and doing for July-August. I standardised the 32 amount and the general character ref sheet format since 2024 and am hoping to repeat this again in 2026.
All of the characters are adapted from the Dracoghouls list of characters that are basically draconian.
A lot of the designs in these dragons - or more so my variant of my own original species (hence the tag #dracoghouls specifically) are less "draconic" generally in my head but they are still dragons because that's the label I've been giving to them and they still superficially look like dragons - and dragons are an alternate "name" for paramammals in Drachor.
Draconians become a specific term for the second major form/subspecies of the Nari for those with these explicit features - pronounced scales. Even the Dracoghouls (Nari) weren't appearing like dragons to begin with prior to modification - more like human-sized gremlins, though they might come across like a dragon even without the tacked-on features.
Some lean quite a lot into dinosaur or pterosaur designs specifically, so that's why you might see hadrosaur or ceratopsian head designs or pterosaur crests being as common as typical draconic features like horns.
With this year's Smaugust 2025 and kind of the recent foray into drawing together both draconian and ghoul versions together for a single character, there are also alternate canonical versions of their draconian form as... proper dragons. But I would describe them to be non-canon rather than canon in the context of the Dracosphere.
It is canon to one of the projects where they are depicted as feral rather than humanoid, however, hence Smaugust 2023 kind of started the whole thing so that I could get used to doing animal/creature designs more. (I've drawn a lot of humanlike characters in the past and alien creatures too but not like... standard quadrupeds that are not alienlike in design as an excuse.)
The third character that I've decided to revise for this month. I haven't really spoken that much haven't I? Well, its because I just don't feel like doing it that much at the moment. But there's always new stuff and thoughts that come to these refs I guess.
I made this one so that people don't try to mess up - or at least broadly speaking - the crest after workshopping the character for at least a year now; clear crest details are now on here that the previous ref sheet didn't do. Now that I said that, Toal didn't have a character profile on uh Art Fight so that is rectified a few days ago with the intent of updating this.
This is the final piece of illustration that I have imposed on myself before I can get started on completing the writeup of the next and final chapter of A Phoenix’s Ascendance - of which this illustration belongs. With that out of the way, I should have less distractions towards building up that final episode.
It took 16.5 hours over a few days (colouring took 4 days) and about five full watches of The Fifth Element yesterday to finish this thing. Probably the amount of dragon people didn’t help, as it was also trying to detail down every single prop, even though its very minimal and not so cluttered.
Alt text: A scene depicting the boarding and departure of a high-speed train in a station largely filled with alien, feral!Dracoghouls (“Drakons”), which are drakes or dragons that are typically in quadrupedal gait but are actually facultative bipeds in some way. To the right is a purple-feathered dragon seated while standing upward, giving off an impression of being “loosely” humanoid.
I’m still currently working on the bigger piece, but it does look like I might have to break it up into a few parts on other platforms.
Just wanted to put this down as a baseline reference to what to expect from Naric body language specifically and just challenge myself a little bit on how I would probably draw expressions of ghouls themselves if they had to be put onto one page rather than be spread out by many expressionless faces and heads. I once had some sort of sheet like this beforehand, but it's nice to just revisit it again in a more “contemporary” context, rather than the old hive mind canon. However, all of their expressions are pretty much similar to what I would have envisioned a few years back - just updated it.
Some of the brief dialogue cues here are some glimpses into how I sort of audibly hear them speak, if they don’t have dialogue or are speaking more eloquently - and yes, they can use speech and language structures similar to humans, but ghouls/draconians would sometimes interject these frills and sounds over actually speaking proper sometimes in their speech. I was hoping to eventually get around to explaining that part at some point, as it is now an idea I wanted to explore, but maybe not now.
Usually, nari are not that expressive, which reinforces the archetypical reptilian characteristic of theirs being “cold”, although it is more so due to humans not able to read their body language properly. Nari don’t have lips that humans have, so their expressions rely more on pheromones excreted from their skin, ears and eyes focusing only on facial expression rather than the rest - which also includes their flexible tail. Pheromones are a norm of communication in terrestrial and aerial paramammals in Drachor that it is considered a “third language” at this point, though it would be the nari that have a more sophisticated system.
It is due to pheromones specifically that also make typical ghoulish communication appear subtler or colder to a human eye as one can release certain receptors at one point - including illness to try and dissuade others from coming close. Ghouls tend to appear stoic and expressionless as they could simply sniff another individual nearby if they have any issue. As a result, staring at a ghoul by another ghoul from an anecdotal perspective wouldn’t be deemed inappropriate, but rather show empathy. This is all done without verbal communication generally. It only becomes more obvious to humans in heightened situations.
Curiously enough, pheromones also give off a ripple effect to other nari that is equated to humans’ own yawning - and yes, ghouls also do yawn as well. Given that most nari rely on pheromones as a third language, not just body and verbal language altogether, they are more susceptible to sharing similar thoughts of another individual expressing intense emotions - especially in a territorial mood, which facilitates a nari pack’s ability to easily mobilise collective hunting.
Again, one thing to note is that the nari don’t have any tear ducts that control emotional regulation. For them, crying is a foreign concept.
Drakons (non-canon feral!Dracoghouls) are pretty much comparable to humans on Gaia (Earth) in strength, despite their imposing size when standing upright. Their arms are weaker here and… they come from a slightly lower gravity environment. It can be said that they aren't really invincible. Maybe faster than humans in some ways - seeing and hearing better, but they're all on equal strength in a physical fight.
Something to break the quiet times as I'm working to finish the last chapter of a personal project that's overdue by 4 months now. If this is the reason why I haven't been posting a lot that is exciting to me, that is why.
There's three more illustrations to go till I'm finished and satisfied with its ending. This is one of them.
Alt text: A studio set composed of a desk and a couch designed for dragons sitting in most orientations. This place is suited for a television talk show; the red dragon with a white mane, a ceratopsian-styled frill and elderly darkened scales is the host. He wears a red scarf and is holding up the microphone, while his right hand is pressed on the table. To the left is another middle-aged yellow dragon with short horns and ears sitting on a couch gesturing to the host.
Some character references (of existing/living characters in my ongoing series) without the painterly look though it has some cel-shading as that is something I don’t intend to renounce using it.
Alt text: A depiction of four feral Draconians (Dracoghouls) with their full outfits. Feral Dracoghouls are typically drake-like (dragons without wings) in body configuration.
- top left: Feathshaag, a red-scaled draconian with maroon eyes, a short dark mane and ridges who wears a khaki-colored uniform and cape accompanied by goggles.
- top right: Bryk, a pale cyan-scaled draconian with earfins, blue eyes and small horns with his snout, accompanied by his armoured wear and uniform with a scarf and goggles.
- bottom left: Crogdrasdekroo (Krokdres), a bright blue-furred draconian with long brown hair, blue eyes and long sabre teeth. She wears a coat.
- bottom right: Rurrgnarl, only showing half of his body while standing upright, a dark teal-scaled draconian with a hybrid pterosaur-hadrosaur headcrest and dark mane. He wears a suit/coat with a scarf.
