Gryphons

Some older sketches and drawings that I forgot to put here earlier. 

Designing gryphons for a personal project, based on the premise that they're small fire-less relatives of true dragons and tend towards scavenger behavior. For my world building purposes I don't necessarily require them to be immediately recognizable as gryphons/griffins, but need them to look like a creature that could have inspired them.

As dragon relatives, their wings are bat-like, and rather than fur their bodies are covered with rudimentary feathers, something similar to what therapod dinosaurs would gallivant around in or what modern day ratites wear.

Reference! Mostly stuck to vultures but there's some fish in there for flavor. 

Did these silhouettes later after already finding my general look and feel. Just narrowing down little things like overall proportions and wing shape.

Sketches 6/9/13

Just a couple things. Another sketch of Arro (the dragon) and a Behemoth rough concept. I hope to get back into working on the Aerie project soon. Producing a lot of concept sketches of the world and characters. The behemoths serve a background role. They're future magafauna, having evolved from either elephants, rhinoceros, giraffes, oxen or other large ungulate herbivores. They're prime prey for dragons, wyverns, and other big predators, as well as beasts of burden and livestock for humans. 

Sketch'agons

Arrogath

 Wanted to paint more dragons, and Arro (The protagonist of my Aerie story/world concept) needed an updated look. Here are some wips of the painting process. Went with straight colour for this one, so not too many steps other than detail detail detail. Was inspired by some of my fave dragon artists, Todd Lockwood and L.D. Austin.

Final image is on the very bottom.

Grey Beast

Painting of a critter from an old sketch. I have a thing for creatures with huge beefy necks and sloped faces it seems (via bull terriers). The Grey Beast serves as a sort of folk creature, fulfilling the purposes of a unicorn and black dog. All Grey Beasts have heterochromia, the right eye is always blue, and the left is always red. According to legend, whichever eye is seen first predicts a different fate. The blue eye predicts a peaceful and natural death for the viewer, the red eye a tragic and fast approaching demise. Only virgin maidens can safely approach the Grey Beast without succumbing to these twists of fate.

Protodragons

Draconic ancestral development for the Aerie. 

Draco Arboravus; from this tree dwelling ancestor came contemporary westerns, those that lost their forelimbs became wyverns, and those who returned to the ground and seas developed into various wyrms and eastern dragons.

Those that came before the protodragon dwelt primarily in the water, hence the remnant of a paddle-like crocodilian tail. An evolutionary development tree will be coming soon.

Next is Hexapteryx Archeophis. (Names aren't very consistent at this time, pay no heed) This guy is a little further along the line in terms of flight development. His middle limb set is being relegated to primary wing duty, and his forearms are taking on climbing. The tail is looking a little prehensile as well, and his body is overall more mammalian in structure. His larger teeth suggest he's tackling fleshier prey.

Tree Legged Behemoth

Another behemoth concept based on a thumbnail sketch. This took so long to get anywhere on because of my accursed addiction to Mass Effect. And then of course my subsequent mass effect withdrawal after finishing the last game. Now I must paint fan-art, ugh and I have so many other things to do already.
I got the idea for the blue head by looking at photos of rhinos in different lighting conditions, the particular image I was thinking of had intensely blue shadows. I didn't want that exact kind of lighting as I still wanted the detailing in the head to be distinguishable, so he's blue skinned instead. Perhaps it confuses predators by breaking up his shape.
Other info: Fatty deposits atop the neck for food/water shortages. Has an obscenely long tongue as its primary mode of food consumption. Strange tusks are used to tear up the ground, trees, other behemoths, whatever it wants. Is twice the height of an elephant, if it was standing in a forest it's legs could be mistaken for tree trunks.

Arro Facial Studies

Arro is my main character of sorts for the Aerie, so his design is important; he's a dragon but needs to be expressive and intelligent looking. I'm also not entirely pleased with how his face currently looks, so I'll be playing around with him a lot in the future to really nail him down. He needs to be lead role appealing, with a splash of somber solemnity and a dash of youthful exuberance.

Aeire Drakon Concept

Playing around with dragon anatomy. Trying to evoke a feeling of intelligence while still being as anatomically realistic as possible. I kinda like this guy, let's call him Rhaigo. He parties hard. 

Dragons are called Drakons in the Aerie, (a minuscule difference I know), it's more consistent with how "dragon" has been spelled historically. 

Long Necked Behemoth

One of many Behemoth concepts for the Aerie. Behemoths are strange herbivorous megafauna that inhabit the future earth, feeding all manner of large predators and scavengers. This one drifts between habits of grazing and browsing, it's body is low enough to the ground that it can munch grass comfortably without getting a head-rush, and its neck is long enough that it can pluck leaves from trees with its extensive tongue.

Ichneumon Sketch

Quick concept sketch that I took to a semi finish of a creature for the Aerie: The Ichneumon. 

In medieval zoology the Ichneumon (in actuality the Egyptian mongoose) is the enemy and killer of dragons, as well as serpents and crocodiles. Dragons in ye olden times were interchangeable with snakes, and anything that could kill serpents was treated as the enemy of the dragon in myth. 

In thinking for the Aerie, these will be large creatures; lion-sized, fearless, and coated with porcupine-like quills. They're not capable of tangling with adult dragons, but will sneak into dragon dens and kill hatchlings. If the Ichneumon should happen upon a young drakling out on its own, it may also try to ambush it; savaging the drakling with bites to the neck before its prey can fight back.

Aerie: Tanngrisnir Final

Finally found the time to finish this up. Been working on it on and off between commissions and schoolwork.

Anyway, Tanngrisnir goats, a hearty meal for today's dragon on the go. (As long as you avoid the pointy bits). 

Aerie: Sapient Dragons

Designing the dragons of Aerie around the idea that they're a sapient race as well as bestial predators. Playing around with head shapes, trying to give them an intellectual look and a slightly alien one as well (as observable by the two Mass Effect inspired dragon heads). I really love the design of the Turians and the Drell from that game.

Sapient dragons definitely have a difficult and sometimes contradictory life. They live solitary existences, and harshly guard their territories against intruders. Their warm blooded, big brained, multi-limbed bodies consume a lot of energy, so land and prey is highly valuable. But when they meet others of their kind on friendly terms they're highly social and inquisitive. They mate for life and make effective use of their mental prowess by carefully managing the prey populations of their territory. They set and construct traps to catch prey, so they don't have to hunt constantly and have time to explore other mental outlets.

Their population is consistently fragile, as their young take a long time to develop and they only lay two to three eggs every other decade after reaching maturity. This worked fine as a way to stabilize their population in ye olden times, but now that prey is scarcer and humans have overrun everything, there's less food in general and every individual lost is sorely felt. The kicker is that as sociable and as intelligent as they are, killing each other over a mate and a patch of land is the natural norm. So if the dangers of their highly evolved world don't kill them, they still have their own kind to worry about. They're not suicidal and will admit defeat or reach amiable agreements if possible, but injuries do stack up.

Aside from fighting over food, land and mates, they may develop rivalries and even enemies over purely ideological disputes. If someone holds a big enough grudge they may challenge their rival to battle. Ignoring a challenge is considered an act of cowardice and can cost the recipient as much trouble as the battle itself in the long run. So battle they do and not everyone lives or comes away without injury. Elder dragons who are often sought out for advice, may voluntarily oversee such duels, and decide the victor without the need of anyone being maimed or killed.

Depending on the local culture, not all mates are won by fighting. Some dragons impress mates with a hoard (not necessarily of valuable items, but of anything shiny), others sing and impress females with showy displays (like birds), some race their potential partners and win the girl if they can catch up to her, and other times it's a combination of various methods. Nothing can compensate however for being a jerk, if the female simply the detests the male for his personality she won't accept him, however worthy he may be. 

Aerie: Winged Horses and Wyrms

In addition to designing new creatures for the Aerie, I'm also planning on revamping old ones. Dragons, gryphons, winged horses, etc. And anything with six limbs and this kind of body plan is going to be related. Dragons will be the oldest of the hexapods, with creatures like wyverns, wyrms, winged horses, and gryphons stemming off of them, losing limbs as necessary.

 Wyrms are very old, specifically lindworms (serpentine dragons that possess only arms). For these varied creatures I'll need to create multiple iterations. Some will be more serpentine, while others will resemble modern "drakes". First up is an amphibious lindworm, this guy heralds back to medieval stories of wyrms living in wells and rivers. They spend about as much time on land as they do in the water. For these and all wyrms, I want them to look almost prehistoric, like the ancestral mammal-like reptiles, (I'm thinking of creatures like Lycaenops). They're likely to be venomous and may kill their prey via constriction. 

The winged horses are not horses at all. They're based on the idea that early civilization easily mistook strange animals for something entirely different. For example, a manatee becoming a mermaid in the eyes of a sailor. These creatures will be rare herbivorous hexapods, having branched off from dragons very long ago. Their large guts (needed for digesting plant matter), make them too heavy to fly, but they retain their wings for gliding purposes. As the winged horses live high atop cliffs and hillsides (much like goats), their wings come in handy for quick getaways. If they are cornered or a predator ventures too near, they simply leap off the cliff and sail away to safety. 

Though the majority of the animal will be covered in feathers, the wings will be leathery like those of their ancestors. As there is no reason for a dragon to lose all their wing membrane and then regrow the wing composed of a new material. The wings however look very much like that of a bird, specifically an albatross in profile because of the feathery vanes the webbing forms.  

Right now I'm leaning toward the sketch in the bottom left corner. I'll make more sketches based off that one and continue to refine the creature design. The goal is that this animal must look powerful like a horse while still being lightweight and distinctive. It evolved from a carnivore after all, and while it should still be reminiscent of its namesake, it must also display hints as to its original nature.

Aerie: Wyvern Anatomy

Some quickish muscle drawings, as though a wyvern is very easy to design anatomically in comparison to a hexapodal dragon; I myself have to figure out what wyverns in Aerie will look like. They'll have to exist alongside the larger hexapods without competing for the same niche. And will most likely be less intelligent and more colonial than their six-limbed cousins. A good comparison between the wyverns and the hexapods in Aerie would be that between wolves and coyotes. Farmers don't like either of them, but one is smaller, more troublesome, and much more numerous.  

There are multiple ways to structure a wyvern. Whether they're bird, bat or pterosaur based. 

Both of these are very bird like, with keeled sternums, coracoids and furcula. 

The first wyvern walks like a bat or a pterosaur would, and can gallop quite quickly when using its wings as forearms. It's thoracic vertebrae is only partially fused, leaving the spine semi- flexible. I imagine this guy as gliding and climbing a lot. This dragon is likely to be what an early wyvern would look like when transitioning from a hexapod to a four limbed biped.

The bottom wyvern is essentially a modified heron, with a birds skeleton. This guy is smaller and can take off much more quickly. He's a bit more like a medieval wyvern with a snakish neck and tail, and a short bulbous midsection.

The desired end result for the wyvern is something distinct from the hexapods, that will play off the creatures original mythological comparison to a viper. (The word "wyvern" comes from the latin 'vipera' for viper or asp) The wyverns will be small (in comparison to the hexapods), instinctual, clambering creatures, probably living along cliffs in colonial groups similar to seabirds, but hunting separately. They won't be venomous and are unlikely to breath fire, but will have barbed tails as they did in myth.

Aerie: Tanngrisnir Goats

Concept creature for the Aerie project. The idea was to design a large burly mountain goat. The Rams of which could adequately defend themselves and their harems of females from draconic predators. The females are fairly similar to the males, except for diminutive differences in the size of their horns and a lack of shaggy mane. The goats are named after the animals that pulled Thor's chariot in Norse mythology. Tanngrisnir meaning "teeth-barer" or "snarler". The name owes to the animals habit of baring their teeth at threats, their sharp tusks, and their adequacy as beasts of burden. These sure-footed herd animals can pull a cart as well as any ox, and with markedly improved agility.

As for the Aerie project, it started originally as an idea for a novel or series of novels with a dragon protagonist. And though this is likely where the idea will eventually culminate; in an effort to flush out the story, characters and world, I'm going to treat the property as if it were intended as a video game. I will create concept artwork for wildlife, environments, weapons, vehicles, enemies, characters etc. The world of the Aerie takes place in a pre-apocalyptic fantasy earth with sci-influences. Human civilization has largely crumbled, governments have collapsed and the world has largely returned to wilderness, with only occasional reminders of the high tech development that preceded it. 

The word aerie (pronounced "eerie") refers to the nests of large birds of prey. In this world, Aerie is the name by which dragons refer to the earth.

 Original sketch concepts.

 Concept 1, of a Mountain Goat inspired design.

Concept 2, and likely the final. This one being more Bighorn Sheep inspired.

There will eventually be a painted model sheet for this guy. The next prey animals to be tackled will be a giant caribou/elk, a rhinoceros inspired unicorn, and a mammoth/mastodon equivalent. The creatures of the Aerie will largely be inspired by mythological beasts, but altered to look like probable relations or future evolutions of current world animals.

Fiachra in Repose

Here are some progress pics of a painting I recently started. (I haven't had a chance to work on it lately, unfortunately.) I wanted to paint my silly female gryphon character "Fiachra", whose an aesthetic mix of a raven and mountain lion ( or cougar, puma, catamount, panther, etc) The pose was inspired by a photo of the aforementioned cat, but I've seemed to misplace the link to it. 

Fiachra is an Irish native, her name is indicative of the region and has multiple meanings, the most descriptive being "raven". Others include "battle king". In Irish legend, Fiachra was also the name of one of the children of Lir, who was transformed into a swan for 900 years.

The gryphon character herself is much like a raven, an optimistic curious and talkative trickster living on future pre-apocalyptic earth. Many of her brethren have been enslaved by an antagonistic Ragnarok worshiping cult, but Fiachra escapes and searches for aid. Here she is resting, a rare glimpse of the boisterous creature.

Anyway, that's enough from my mystical headworld. 

  

After much tweaking, here's the end result-

(any critique is welcome)