Following my recent propositions, I started drawing some sketches for another dragon.
To be honest I had a pretty clear image in mind, so I haven’t really explored many different solutions with this first set of thumbnails.

The idea is that the dragon is resting at the top of a tall mountain, while the first lights of day wake her up.
She turns her head towards the sun (yes, she will have puffy morning eyes), the movement uncovering a litter (gosh, is a bunch of newborn dragons still called a litter?) of baby dragons peeking from behind one of her wings.

As you can see I just made a few experiments with the curve of her neck and how her right wing will partially unfold.
As for the hatchlings, I think they would just look like bird chicks, with big grey eyes and a small bill.

There are some things I still have to decide in terms of the internal logic I’d like to follow.
Is the dragon a cold climate creature? In that case, what physiologic traits would she have developed?
I figure a dragon living at high altitudes would have oversized wings, evolved to improve gliding.

At the same time, its wings should be thick and possibly hairy, to avoid losing heat through such a large area of skin.
I would have liked her tail to have a big bony end, like some kind of rudder to increase its manoeuvrability amongst strong winds.
Unfortunately to show the tail I would have to chose a completely different composition (I’m quite happy with this one already), or extend the canvas into an awkward vertical ratio.
I might make another drawing with a full figure, possibly flying.

I also thought a female dragon shouldn’t need conspicuous colours or shapes, whereas males would have oversized fangs and spikes to impress females during mating seasons, and of course flamboyant colours and markings.
Another idea for future dragons maybe.
The next one could be males mauling each other to impress a female, or maybe be a female and a male teaching their hatchlings how to fly.
Who knows.

by Paolo Puggioni