Yet another go at the dragon skeleton

[ffutures]

Another try at the dragon skeleton - I've lengthened the spine and neck considerably, beefed up the rear thighs, and added spikes on the neck vertebrae - the spine is a bit too straight, may tweak that a bit more, if not the caption will blame the artist!






Caption: Dragon’s skeleton sketched by the Yarge naturalist Lh’ook of Migantil, showing the anatomy of the upper and lower shoulders and wing. The spine would rarely be held this straight in life – the artist simplified its posture for clarity.

This will be about 2/3 page width in the finished book, I think it'll look reasonably good at that size.



Much later - to clarify things, here's some clip art I found on line that shows the sort of body form I'm going with. This one doesn't have hind legs, but it's otherwise about the way I envisage them looking.

Comments

[averageshmoe.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the presence of wings mean that the dragon wouldn't have arms?

I only ask this because I just had a similar discussion with the CGI artist who is providing the special effects for an amateur movie that I produced. I, of course, accept your decision on how the dragon would appear. I just think that it would look more streamlined without arms.

I didn't win the argument with the artist, he pointed out the need to have the dragon be able to move when upon the earth.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=nics3lbow


That's a link to a rough version of how the dragon will appear in the film. Take a look and let me know what you think.

pgavigan

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's pretty definite that they have forelegs, so I've gone with that.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Forgot to add that they walk long before they can fly.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

I believe (as a heraldry geek on occasion) that dragons have forelegs, but the things which look like dragons but have wings and hindlegs only are wyverns. But hey, it's really up to the author of any particular mythology to decide how they work in their world!

[inamac.livejournal.com]

If it didn't have forearms it wouldn't be a dragon,it would be a wyvern (whole other creature). This has always been a problem for artists - the only natural six-limbed creatures are insects - and insect anatomy won't work for dragons. The traditional solution (as here) is to add a second ball and socket joint at the shoulder and push back (or eliminate) the scapula.

Flying horses and gryffins present artists with similar problems, though the mammal skeleton gives a bit more shoulder area to work with than the reptile one most people use for a dragon. (This is why the heraldic dragon is more horse than dinosaur.)

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

That looks a lot more convincing to me, I think it works like that. Though I'm now wondering if having the wings attached just behind the forelegs, rather than above, wouldn't be more feasible from a musculature point of view. But I haven't looked at where they are on any illustrations you are working from.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I tried it with the wings behind, but it occurred to me that having all of the shoulders around the same part of the body made more sense if the body was really flexible - the trouble is that there is little or no consensus on this, but some of the pictures that show four-legged snakey dragons seem to have wings joining the body directly above the fore-legs, so I've gone with that.

Since I posted this I've curved the spine round a little more and got rid of that nasty kink in the middle, and generally tidied it up.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

I've seen it done both ways. The "dinosaurlike" ones generally do have wings at the shoulder, but I've seen "snakelike" ones with them attached further back. I'd have thought that the wings would need to attach close to the centre of gravity - assuming a mechanical rather than magical flight - otherwise there will be significant torque around the joint. (I'm not actually familiar with the background, though I think I want to be) For a long, tubelike (rather than pearshaped) body this is likely to be further back I'd have thought. Probably I'm thinking about this too much however!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

According to Jo they're magical creatures but don't know it! Their flight, longevity, and huge size increase when they eat the flesh of other dragons is all down to magic, but they can't cast spells etc.

I'm probably going to have some optional stuff on dragon magic, e.g. some dragons still know the arcane secret of using their inherent magic for other purposes. Of course they shrink or fall out of the sky whenever they cast a spell, unless they're necromancers and get the power by eating other dragons (which would be expensive rather than particularly horrible by dragon standards).