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Paperiapina — Dragon design bits UPDATED
Published: 2012-03-15 20:34:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 16920; Favourites: 588; Downloads: 140
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Description
Okay, I'm uploading this mainly because of completely personal reasons. You know, dragons are usually seen as six limbed monsters, they have two sets of front limbs, one of them being the wings, and the average hind limbs. For at least few years it has been my personal goal to figure out how to design a dragon that would use the hind limbs instead for the purpose of flying.So, for me personally, this kind of feels like a conquer. Like my creature design skills just took a level in badass.
Umh, I'm just gonna roll in this feeling for a while in this corner here. Just a little while. Just until this gets awkward.
(I kind of want to make a character out of this now.)
Kind of inspired by a real life prehistoric creature named Sharovipteryx (because real nature always knows how to go neener neener on me). I just made it a power flyer dragon instead of a glider.
EDIT:
Added another paper. Some fine tuning with the design since yesterday. Also seems like it mysteriously spawned itself a commentary, in Papermonkey style.
Stiff spine with virtually non-bendable torso. Tail bendable, but not prehensile (horizontal movement easier than vertical). Haven't decided on size yet, but will not be bigger than an average horse. Most probably not even that.
EDIT2: 20.3.
Continuing with two new pages worth of scribbles. The head was rather challenging to design, can you tell? I think I like it now. Just need to learn to draw it. (The horns are for display, not for poking others. They are probably brightly colored.)
FAAAAAAACE!
Looks like I'm dumping here the entire design process. Umh, bear with me?
EDIT3: 25.3.
Two new pages worth of ponderings! Stuff like feet (or hands, actually, as all the walking limbs are technically arms), body covering and other random.
I actually also tried to put together a scientific-ish name for the thing. It's hereby Alapes scarabaeos. Or actually Älapës scarabaeös, the umlauted letters are held longer when pronounced. It is kind of blocky, as far as I understand, but it should mean something like "beetle-faced footwing". (All Latin, äla=wing, pës=foot, scarabae|us=beetle, ös=face) Just browsed my dictionary and sticked together words -without bending them- that made some sense and didn't make terrible pronouncing monsters. I mean, just try to stick "scarabaeus" together with something like "caput" (head) and make it sound like a single word. (Psst, if anyone knows how to mash together the Latin name properly, I do appreciate help if any of you knows better. In case I failed hard.)
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Comments: 181
That guy must have some crazy looking hip structures!!
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Will they be able to fly without poking their head downwards?
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Your creature design skills already were badass, now they are even better
I never thought of a dragon using its back legs as wings, the creativity is OVER 9000
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Rear leg wings! I am a bit smarter today. I had no idea something like this could possibly exist. I would love to see your finished design. (Goes to look up Sharovipteryx)
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it looks really god the wings are awesome the dragon is going to look great when its finished .
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This is absolutely amazing! Roll away in your glory, you surely deserve it!
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Yay! *rollroll*
Heh, thanks!
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Excellent! Now all we need is head-wings.
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Really cool. Too bad it wouldn't be able to fly... Or at least not well, not without a heavier tail...
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o//o No one's ever listened to anything I've said before. This is an amazing moment for me. And yes, it looks much much better. You're amazing with your designs. n_n
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well he could have 2 sets of back legs instead of still 2 sets of front legs, plus a set of back "legs" that are wings?
neat idea, though
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Pff, that wouldn't be as much fun.
Thanks!
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brings a whole new meaning to the term "spread eagle" don't it?
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it's like a frog and a bat got really drunk one night....
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hmmm. back legs are always so much stronger than front ones anyway. i wonder why no one thought of this sooner XD.
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Never thought about a hind wings. Really cool! Yeah, nature always knows what to do, and leaves it up to us to figure things out.
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Tämä on kyllä aivan erinomainen idea, ja todella harvoin käytetty kaikin puolin.
Varmaan lantio on vääristynyt aika mallikkaasti että liikerata on tarpeeksi laaja?
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Ainakin sen lantioluu on iso. Päivittelin nyt kuvaan toisen paperin, toivottavasti siitä näkee vähän paremmin.
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Ooo, no joo, tuo varmaan sallii aika hyvän liikeradan.
Varmaan se jalka/siipi ei muutenkaan taivu kamalan alas normaalisti?
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Varmaan sen suht alas saa, mutta ei kyllä ihan suoraksi. Jos se seisoisi siivillään, veikkaan että sille jäisi länkisääret.
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Nii, se varmaan seisoisi silleen reidet suoraan sivulle ja kantapää taipuu alaspäin -> varpailla tai varpaiden rystysillä.
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That's a really awesome idea! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? I've obsessed over dragons for half my life, and this is totally new X3
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Le Pfft, your levels in creature design were always in the badass level. This design just proved that, because this is amazing.
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Ooh, very interesting. Been thinking about dragons biologically myself lately. So very unlikely...
Interesting design, though. For such a large animal, legs kinda makes sense. Bigger muscles, though only to start with evolutionarily (hence birds). Looks like it's gained an extra set of forelimbs to compensate?
Good to see it has thumbed hands on the forelimbs though. The best reason I can think for a dragon to even bother having the extra pair of limbs is the dexterity hands give, humans being an example of their usefulness. Otherwise, those extra limbs are simply additional weight. Certainly, looking at flight lately in zoology along with personal study into birds has made it even more obvious just how difficult flying really is, more so than I'd previously realised. One thing I hadn't realised is how centralised a bird's body weight is, hence you look at the skeleton and see how truncated and short the spine is, and how the pelvis kinda grows up over the spine. Having all the weight centralised is important, as opposed to having it spread out awkwardly.
Will it likely have teeth? Birds obviously don't as a weight saving feature, but a beak is limited compared to teeth usually. Also, part of the reason is being front heavy, rather than weight alone. With the tail counterbalancing, might work, assuming it can reasonably support that extra weight. Flying is rather energetically expensive.
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I hadn't really thought about dragons at all for years untill just recently I started to get interested again. It's like finding my teenage again,but with less stupid.
Dragons are usually portraid with six limbs, having one pair of hind legs and two pairs of front limbs one of which has developed into wings, and I just find playing with the basic structure to be fun. I guess this guy had common ancestors with "normal" dragons, inheriting their leg count from there, and just evolved wings from a different set.
Flying is such an awesome feat for vertebrate life (not that invertebrates would be any less awesome, having their wings evolved from gills, but I'm more familiar with things with internal skeleton). There's both really fine and very radical adjustments to their anatomy to make flying possible. Also the variety of different strategies for wings is fascinating. Like how azhdarchid pterosaurs used their wings for walking and running too and launched themselves airborne by catapulting themselves using their wings.
I haven't actually thought about the head yet. When it comes to dragons designing the head is the hardest part for me. I want the design to feel fresh for me, and that makes it hard, I'm so used to the types of heads I normally draw that making up something new that would also fit the rest of the design is a challenge. We'll see how it turns out in the end, but I'll try to keep its weight small.
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Looked at the updated page, is there enough room for organs in there? I'm supposing there's air sacs but could be wrong. Are more efficient though, and the energy burden crops up in my mind.
Though saying that, the size of such energetically active animal, as well as lack of gut space makes me think it will at least be primarily carnivorous. Which will influence head design. As for being unique, teeth are a bit heavy, beaks have been done. Raptors tend to use their legs anyway rather than risk facial damage (especially the eyes), so their beaks aren't the most helpful reference in that sense. Perhaps an intermediary stage or something would work best?
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He'd have to have an EXTREMELY long tail to balance out the weight of his body.
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Yes! With all the comments you get, I am honored by you replying to me. ^^
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Pretty cool design. Makes me wonder about the bone structure a little. How would the pelvic area support internal organs and the spine, AND allow for a large enough range of movement to allow flight while still providing enough surface for the flight muscles to attach?
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I scribbled some more with a bone structure I had in mind. Does it look any good now? (Updated the picture)
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I see, that actually makes a lot of sense now.
Do correct me if I'm wrong, but this design makes me think the creature would be a better flier than runner. The position of the pelvic joint would probably limit the backlegs' range of movement somewhat. In fact, given the size difference between the... err... front-frontlegs and back-frontlegs, it seems likely that it would move on ground by hopping like a rabbit.
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of course your design skills went up in a level in badassery! You just made a dragon have freakin leg wings!!!
Nice!!!
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Holy cow, that's amazing! 
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