Misplaced Dragons... What are they doing here?

People have been nicer than i am, but I'll be blunt: undel (and whichever extra artists are working on these breeds, if theres any) have an extremely limited visual library when it comes to animals, how their features works, or just shapes in general. The fact our cetacean dragon has the same body type as a pearlcatcher or mirror is insane!! it shows lack of creativity and care to developing the concept.

Right now, dragons are picked to fit in one of the 3 body types (generic dog body with lizard head western dragon, wyvern and tube), and then random decals are slapped on this mold to make them look unique. Theres no shape variation, no care at going "which animals fit this concept, how can we apply the features of these animals?". no research, just superficial flavorless dragon design. you dont need to be a biologist to spend a few minutes at a wikipedia looking at animals and mythology and studying what makes these animals themselves, how their species works, what features they have!!!

And even if you don't want to study animals, why is there no shape study? why are 90% of dragons slightly top heavy tubes with the pick of slender face and smushed face. They lack shape design, and refuse to elaborate on the animal influences to create stronger features than just random horns/frills/fur. its making me insane

anyway here's a merrigan

Auraboa! Before -> After + Speedpaint under the Cut (vid might still only be in standard definition when this is posted. sorry about that!)

Yes they're based on snakes, that's obvious, BUT they have fangs that aren't hinged and appear to be conical in shape suggesting the possibility of a few things

They could have a SECOND SET of fangs to inject venom as their rigid fangs dig in and hold onto the prey

They are very toothy-mouthed and their venom is similar to a komodo dragon's saliva. In which case they'd probably tear chunks off of their prey

Their fangs could actually function like a spider's fangs (perfect when paired with scuttle gene)

Either way they DO have some solid, and decently large teeth in their mouth

the elements should shake them up in a massive way and be like, angry beasts revived by the sheer energy. like no offense to sandsurge lore that has such great design, and then make them undertunnel workers...wtf? i'm like of the belief that ancient stuff should wake up from the earth angry and pissed because they got revived after so long AND forgotten by the gods