Dragon

[fred]

Here's a dragon I've been drawing. It's supposed to be a boss monster for a top-down perspective rpg. I feel I need some fresh eyes on it, so any advice is welcome, especially on how to fix the scaly areas on the wings, as well as the face:



Also, here's the lineart in case someone wants to start from scratch. It's heavily inspired by an old citadel figure, btw:

[Jon]

I like the scaley texture! Although I think that the tail seems somewhat odd (It seems too centered and there could be something on the end of the tail), and the left leg is not in proportion with the right, other than that it looks good.

[Buckethead]

That would be cool for the coloring ball 

[auriond]

Maybe you could try having the tail twist to the left or right, instead of up and over? Then maybe it wouldn't look so odd.

Also, maybe you could have some hint of fiery red eyes on the head.

Some claws for its left hind leg too?

Other than that, this sprite rocks hard

[esper]

I'm not sure... there's a million different ways that people perceive dragons... but I might change the texture on the wings to a thin, bat-like leathery material, with the green dragonscale texture just running across the edge of the wing. I don't find any fault with the scale texture. Also, in addition to what these others said, the tail is way too short. He looks more like a happy puppy instead of a dragon. I always envision a dragon's tail, especially a flying dragon (as the tail would have to act as a rudder, and therefore would need to be this long in order to compensate for it's weight and overall length) as long as the dragon or 1.5 times as long. And yes, eyes would be key to making him more menacing.

And he needs shoulder blades... good sharp ones, maybe even with little spikes coming out. Right now he looks like a humpback.

[fred]

Thanks for crits, I made some changes to details in this version:



* New wing texture - more leathery.
* Tail twisted slightly to the right, curly effect.
* Front claw details.

I tried putting eyes in there, but it looked odd if they were visible from this angle. Maybe paintovers of the face could give some suggestions on how it could be doneÃ, 

Also, my attempts at shoulder blades seemed to put the figure off balance, so I think I'm going to keep that region as it is, supposing the shoulder blades are under the wings, like supposedly the right side claws are under the body or wings.

Buckéthead: you can use it for coloring ball, but it's a rather big sprite so some would-be contestants might decide they don't have time for it. I would love to see alternative colouring and paintovers though.

[Medical Waste]

I also felt that it could use some eyes to make it more lively.
Did this quick and it isn't that good, but here is an idea:

[Babar]

I'd remove the line you've got connecting the two wings together (it even shows in the lineart). Nonwithstanding that dragons are....not very commonly seen creatures, I'd assume that the wings' bones go INTO the spine instead of over it.

Something else that might make it look better is if you gave it bigger wings (or even have big wings that are folded over each other, although that might be difficult to make in a top-down view).

[fred]

Ok, here are two version with eyes, both heavily inspired by Medical Waste's paintover. I'm still not sure I think either of them is an improvement, in comparison. Any opinions?

Ã, 

Babar, you're right. I'll see what I can do. Probably also what esper meant about the shoulder region being wrong. Not sure I can make it better though.

[Mr Flibble]

To me, it looks too long. There's a section of blank dragon in the middle with nothing that interesting happening in it.  Will this even fit on the screen, along with your characters who will presumably fight it?

[esper]

That's precisely what I meant about the shoulder blades. It looks like you've got a deformed humpback dragon on your hands. Just make, like, a little ass between the wings.

And I'm not terribly sure what you changed about the wings. I didn't mean the texture should be more leathery there, I meant... Well, here, this is what I meant:



A creature with solid wings like that would have a terrifically hard time getting off the ground, I imagine. Just like a bird or a bat has long "arms" that reach out from it's shoulders and have a different material coming out of it (feathers make up a bird's wings, and a membranous skin makes up the  wing of a bat) so too would a dragon have wings like those pictured above.

[fred]

Ok, new version, probably final. Thanks for the suggestions you guys, I used some of them.