Drawing Starflight post-volcano: a guide nobody asked for
I don’t know about anyone else, but the fact that Starflight got kinda shunted off after being blinded (with very little mention of other scarring, which is >:/ at Tui given that he nearly took lava to the face) pisses me off. So! When I draw him I try to give him some visual signs that he’s been through some shit.
Dragon glasses: Wires to wrap around the ears are fine, until you try to fly and the wind pushes against the lenses and throws them off of your face. There’s a reason why you’re supposed to take glasses off when you go on roller coasters, and it’s because flat surface meeting high-speed winds does not make for a good combo. So, for dragon glasses, I have them loop around the lip and tuck in up either between the jawbone and the lip or looped around a tooth. It’s less likely to slide that way, and 1000x less likely to fly upwards and awaywards in flight.
Tinted lenses: Starflight is blind; if he’s wearing glasses, it’s not to correct near or farsightedness, which is what clear lenses are for. Glasses in his situation would be worn to prevent bright light from causing further damage to his already damaged eyes, since blindness means he can’t adjust his pupils to brightness. Ideally, this would be done with full-cover goggles, but I would guess that in an indoor setting like the library, he’d only really have to worry if he ended up looking directly into a light source without knowing - so, tinted lenses in front of his field of vision.
Overall burns: As I said, he’s not really mentioned as being scarred, despite, you know, the lava. Which seems weird, considering Clay’s only surviving it because he’s heat-proof, and it’s melting rock. So, when I draw him, he’s got burns where he was exposed to the lava’s heat; across his face, his wingtips and tail, and to a lesser extent along his chest and legs (as Clay later blocked some of that heat). Because they were caused by temperature, it’s best to think of them like a light source when you’re figuring out where they go; a rush of hot air would skim over some parts of his face because of the bone structure. Put scarring where there would be highlights, and less (but still present!) scarring where there would be shadows.
Eyelid burns: We know his face got super-exposed, because he’s blinded. Thus, when I draw him, his facial burns mean he can’t fully open or close his eyes, because the scales on and around his eyelids are warped and scarred so that they can’t move as intended. So he’s always going to have his eyes a little bit open! And because of that, plus the scarring, he probably has issues with dry eyes - not something that can be conveyed in art so easily, but something that may be worth noting in written formats. I would imagine (though I can’t remember if dragons can cry or not) he would also be unable to cry, at least in the tears-from-eyes way.
- Glasses with tinted lenses and scarring.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk
blakekathryn
gummygunk
gamechangershow
prguitarman
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
