Okay, I LOVE your HCs for the WoF dragons. But most importantly, I wanted to know about the war crests and how you went bout those. I’m in attempt on trying to make some crests for my dragonic gods and I have no idea on how to make them…
So, I wanted to know how you went about making yours. Mainly the RainWing one. I’m in love with that ancient style.
First off, thank you so much!
This might be a little long, but the crests are one of my favorite things to design! Feel free to DM me if something doesn't make sense.
The crests are loosely based on real-life heraldic animals; except for the Rainwing one, which is based on a foggy memory of Aztec carvings.
Heraldic animal (lion, salient):
The first thing I thought of when designing the crests was culture. For example: Two of my designs feature a depiction of the sun. The compass sun for the Sandwings and the spiral sun for the Skywings. The compass sun is a circle surrounded by eight triangles. Sandwings consider the (equilateral) triangle to be a lucky shape, as it symbolizes an unbreakable harmony between luck, fate, and self. The triangles also symbolize directions on a compass. The cardinal directions are the same size as the intercardinal directions, because Sandwings believe that all paths in life have equal importance. Conversely, the spiral sun represents the cycle of life and death, and it's rays represent strength.
The Rainwing crest was the most difficult to design so far because I couldn't get the colors right. The design itself was based on the idea of the quetzalcoatl, which I picked because Rainwings live in the rainforest and I thought that the Aztecs did too (they didn't, they lived in high altitude valleys), so I figured their art styles might be similar. I picked bright colors and patterns because it represents the Rainwings' ability to change their scales, and squared off shapes because it looks so different from the other crests (Rainwing culture is very different from the other tribes because of their isolation). On the face, there are three teardrop shapes that represent their venom. Looking back, I wish I would have made those purple. Oh well...
As for your project, I would think about what your gods represent. God of grain or harvest? Food is necessary for survival, so this god may be seen as generous for sharing its gift. God of the hunt? Very similar to the god of harvest, but a bit more wild and unpredictable. Keep in mind that a god may represent different things in different areas, or a just a bunch of unrelated things (like water, love, and horses). This may be because these things are related in mythology, or because a bunch of different cultures described similar gods that represented different things, and then future generations mingled and the different gods slowly became one.