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✨Another art trade done!! 🐟

https://pin.it/4inVXuioK

Hopefully it works!

BAHAHHA IM ONLY JUST SEEING THIS NOW BUT OMG??? First time having my art stolen, kinda nervous 😛

Thanks for the heads up tho mate!!! Even if it’s a few months late LMAO!

LOOKIT!! HOLY CAMEL TOES THAT'S MY ART????? (also old pic because currently the MAP's sitting at 5k+ views and counting SCREAMS)

In hindsight its not gonna be there for very long (probably one more day or so) because it was a reward for placing 3rd in the thumbnail contest, bUT IM SO STOKED ABOUT IT AHHHHHHH

i made this thumbnail a year ago so i might redraw it now to show how far ive improved LOL

^^ the OG images

If you havent seen it already, go check out Lico's MAP -- its amazing and everyone in it did such a great job!!!!

Just a quick note, however: before I go onwards I will be editing in extra drawings of my already-existing challenges so all of my posts have the same (or similar) amount of info.

I’ll edit the list below once I’ve added new sustenance to the designated characters (:

Clay - Unedited

Tsunami - Unedited

Glory - Unedited

Okay, so this may be the part where people start getting mad at me. Before you see the design (or probably afterwards, because it's the brightest part on this blog lmao) I just want to clarify that the design choices I make are usually my interpretations of what the tribes might have looked like if they were even more adapted to their environments. Some of them haven't changed much, but others (such as the Rainwings) have been altered quite a bit -- mainly because I saw potential to make them more unique, and partially because I wanted to appease my thirst for scientific reasoning.

Okay. Now that's out of the way, I would like to introduce you to Queen Glory of the Rainwings.

Just as a note, I LOVE ORIGINAL GLORY'S DESIGN!! She's actually one of my favourite designs in the entire series! I was really trying to make her pallette fit in my own, but no matter what I did, something kept bugging me. I kept thinking about how Glory - a dragon from a tribe that picks and chooses their own scale colours on a dime - would have ended up adopting a primarily tropical green and yellow palette when she would have never seen those colours in her first seven years of life.

Henceforth, I went with 'dull' purples and blues the most, as they're the colours she would have first seen under the mountain. I figured I could add small amounts of yellows and oranges that came from both the DOD and the Guardians, which I used along her ruff mostly.

I like to think of the Rainwing tribe as really snakelike, so with this design, I really leaned into portraying the 'uncanny valley' that I love seeing paired with them. Henceforth, I subtracted their horns and external ears (don't worry, they can still hear! They're just internal like lizards!) and replaced them with two HUGE frills. I wasn't able to extend her neck to the amount that I wanted as I ran out of space on the canvas, but like... Rainwings should have looooong necks.

Oh, yeah, and the python-like heads were another choice I thought would be cool. If you want a scientific reason, then I'd say that their jaw structure descended from ancient Rainwings who used to swallow their prey whole, and the adaptation just never left. This also makes their retractable fangs more comfortably placed, too.

Our second protagonist has been designed!! Introducing, Princess Tsunami of the Seawings!

As you may notice, a lot less has been changed in comparison to Clay. Since I'm rather happy with the canon Seawing design, the only real things I added onto the base were the multiple whiskers and 'feelers' on her body, particular around her snout area. In a biological sense, since Seawings are supposed to be able to withstand the deep dark depths of the sea in limited light, the addition of extra whiskers was a no-brainer.

I made her webbing larger to give her sharper edges that reflected her brash personality, and decided to tear parts of it to reflect the fights she's been in. I debated adding more scars, but ultimately decided against it.

Now, the colour palette. I personally believe that Seawings are the second-most colour-diverse tribe. I'm sure you've seen marine life and the beautiful arrays of colours that they share, so I figured that Seawings should be able to adopt almost every shade of colour under the sun. I still decided to make Tsunami predominantly blue, but I added spots of complementary orange and yellow to give her a more eye-catching appearance.

(I wouldn't usually critique designs, but oh my god, drawing Tsunami's original design killed something in me. They literally reused the same blue EVERYWHERE. Come on guys, I know she's just on a cover page but WHERES THE VARIETY?)

And of course, for every design I make, I'll be describing all the stylistic choices I ended up making. If you have any other questions about these design choices, don't be shy to put an ask in my inbox!!

So, starting off strong, we have the best boy, Clay of the Mudwings!

Most of Clay's design changes stem from my own personal interpretation of the Mudwing species. The most obvious being the antlers.

I believe that male Mudwings would have antlers as a type of sexual dimorphism; the bigger and 'prettier' they are, the more desired the Mudwing is by the populace! Of course, this comes with the drawback of being pretty visible whilst submerged in mud, so Mudwings usually drape long strands of moss and vines to cover up their antlers whilst hiding.

(Plus, they look cool)

The tusks are just cool af, and I've seen too many Mudwing designs with them that they're impossible to not include lmao! But if you're looking for a more practical reason, I can envision that Mudwing tusks are just extra weapons that they use for gorging prey and enemies alike. As the tanks of the dragon world, I feel like these are deserved!

I changed Clay's pallete to a darker brown, accentuated with greens and flecked with the amber that he's most known for. I've always believed that Clay had less amber in his design than his cover counterpart suggested; 'undertones' of amber means a lot less than 'his main scale colour'.

The beads around his horns are a gift from the rest of the DOD, most likely for some reason along the lines of 'So we can be with you wherever you go,' which was probably more or less Sunny's idea.

And of course, I added little gold freckles because he's a softie.

Must be possession 😂😂

I think I was feeling inspired whilst doing this 🤔