#speculative dragon

[pixel-cherry-pie]

I'm back with my "monotremes" synapsid dragons and as always I'm widely open to any kind of suggestions so feel free to comment!

I realise that the design didn't change much, but in the end I was so stuck that I ended up just practicing and understanding better the anatomy. As you can see in the last panel I tried to draw them without horns, but I'm not a fan tbh. How do you feel about them? I'm aware that mammal carnivores don't have horns of any sort but I know early carnivore synapsids had some king of bony formations... I like the feets better, they kinda look like hands and they feel right, even if I can definitely imagine many other dragons with paws adapted for many purposes. For the flying panel I heavily relied on @ikrutt drawing of @jayrockin griffin to help me understand how this beast could possibly fly?? I'm somewhat satisfied but I might be horribly wrong! I really enjoy the colors! Obviously the blue nose it's a little farfetched but I'm calling mandrills to justify it.

[pixel-cherry-pie]

Hi! I’m back from this weird hiatus and I wanted to thank again all the nice comments and advices! Some of them I read after redesigning the dragon (thanks @synapsid-taxonomy and @doodlepede) and to which I promise that I’ll do another update since this is a personal exercise and I want this to be a continuos work in project.

I hope you guys enjoy this new design and especially thanks to @toot-bender and @bobthedragon2 I defined a more compact body shape (and I tried to give him a more built neck) and more wing membrane, and a more proper tail rudder. I went for a digitigrade look for the aesthetic, but I’ll definitely try also a plantigrade version! I added ears thanks to @thesumlax ‘s advices, but I was told that I should lower them, and honestly looking at actual synapsid skulls I think I’ll definitely too. Added some colours for communication display on the wings and got inspired by butterflies to be fair.

Hope that you can tell from the drawing that the eggshell is soft, so the “milk” from the mom is very similar to platypus milk (keeping the eggs hydrated and feed the babes).

The second pic is a dragon more evolved for gliding (took inspo from the majestic Quetzacoatl). I think that he’d be a pain in the ass of fantasy farmers, finding herds and gliding over them to steal a woolly rhino baby or two. (the new marine dragon version is still under construction!)