The yellow dragon [WIP]

[Lazycow]

Hi, I am currently working on a ... Yellow Dragon

For this, I want to construct the dragon out of multiple parts, which will be concatenated in realtime:
- head
- neck (16x16 sphere)
- body (32x32 sphere)
- tail (16x16, 8x8, 4x4 spheres)
- 2x wings
- 4x feet
- shadow

To enable a full 360 degree movement, head, wings and feet have to be drawn in 8 directions. For flying or running animations, the wings and feet have to be animated, too. (probably)


bodyparts / mockup

C&C are welcome

[Lazycow]

I tried to do the flying animation, but it does not look very dragon-like. (don't look at the glitches at the body - I was concentrating on the wings, so far) Any hints?

[iggybork]

Think of dragon wings as small arms bent at the elbow with long, thin fingers, and canvas stretched between every piece. In order for the dragon to flap its wings, it has to wave its bent elbow up and down, same as if a human were to fake the wing-flapping motion. I'm taking all this from this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ321UoUor0

[Lazycow]

This anim is really quite nice. It could help me. The dragon is rotating, though.

[PypeBros]

The dragon is rotating, though.

Nobody's perfect, I guess ...

More seriously, it might be a stylistic choice, but i'm unsure about the result of a dragon made of balls. (Yeah, I know, who am I to say that). It could be more impressive and interesting if you make it more look like "made of fireballs", that is, alter sufficiently the shape of those elements so that they look like single flames rather than perfect spheres with small spikes on their top.

HTH.

[Lazycow]

It could be more impressive and interesting if you make it more look like "made of fireballs"

Hey, this idea is really good!  But animating fireballs doesn't look very easy. I should try, though.

[Lazycow]

Recently, I had time to continue working on the yellow dragon... But obviously, I still have problems drawing some wings. Suggestions are welcome.

[Elk]

I tried to do the flying animation, but it does not look very dragon-like. (don't look at the glitches at the body - I was concentrating on the wings, so far) Any hints?

I recently made a doodle of my soon to be created Avatar... (will recreate the animation)


Maybe it helps for your case

[Rydin]

Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyFNr40dQmg
It's one thing if you animate it dynamically through programming, but you could be far more detailed than spheres if you're animating it by hand.

[thedaemon]

I tried to do the flying animation, but it does not look very dragon-like. (don't look at the glitches at the body - I was concentrating on the wings, so far) Any hints?

I recently made a doodle of my soon to be created Avatar... (will recreate the animation)


Maybe it helps for your case

Elk, your wing's curves are better but the timing and spacing aren't better than Lazycow's. Notice how the down push is faster than the up drag. It's this timing that is why the dragon can fly.