December Days 29 - A Thing I Have Noticed

[silveradept]

[It's December Days time! There's no overarching theme this year, so if you have ideas of things to write about, I'm more than happy to hear them.]

An observation, and perhaps a request for help.

For as much time as I have spent in places with art and statuary of fairies, dragons, and other mystic creatures, I have yet to find an artist in stock who doesn't depict their dragons in one of two ways

1. Fierce creatures of elemental destruction, whether armored or angry or otherwise upset or in aggressive poses intended to show off their status as apex predators, guardians, or, in some cases, the shackled mounts of other Fae creatures (which horrifies me to think of them as involuntary mounts).
2. Cute creatures of rounded lines and cartoonish proportions, often small, sometimes not much bigger proportionately than the other entities they are with.

Call it some sort of mental thing for me, if you like. As much as I give grief to all the other things in the Dragonriders of Pern that deserve every bit of it, it is a series that has managed to balance the majesty and size and power of the dragons involved while making them helpful to the people they are around. (Admittedly, the required telepathic bonds are still a form of shackles.)

I can't seem to find an artist who is able to make their dragons properly powerful and respected without making them hostile. My conception of dragons may be very different than anybody else's, but I'd like to believe that this is really just a small world problem and I haven't made the right connections yet.

That's a thing I've observed. Make of it what you like.

Comments

[vass]

Hmm. I agree it's a Thing.

Where would you place the original Temeraire covers on a helpful vs hostile scale? I don't think they're cute.

The other dragon art I immediately thought of on reading your post was the original cover to Tea With the Black Dragon (which I still haven't read.) That dragon is not much bigger than humans (unless that tea set and book are scaled up for draconic use), check, rounded (in that it has a belly), check, but I don't find it cartoonish or cute or lacking in dignity.

[silveradept]

The link for Temeraire has broken images, but from the image search I did afterward, it looks like those covers and images are pretty squarely in the right spot.

Tea with the Black Dragon is also in the ballpark, although the dragon in question looks kind of grumpy.

[aurora77]

Temeraire was my first thought. Ciruelo's dragons were my second. Ciruelo does majestic, powerful creatures who seem like something that could organically exist. Not every one of his paintings would fit, but enough might.

[silveradept]

Ciruelo has some that work, too. Thanks for the recommendation.

[alexseanchai]

DRAGONS

...I got nothin'

[cxcvi]

Reminds me on a thread on Reddit about alternative dragon hoards. This comment and its reply stick in my mind as a more colourful picture of who dragons are. The rest of the comments are also interesting, although probably more in a "I want to make my D&D game more interesting" way.

Speaking of: I had plans at one point to run a D&D campaign where the dragons were more than just expendable slaythings. My vision of this was that they are few and far between, and believed by many to not even exist at all. Each one would have their own... details, both large and small, and their own area of interests. The first one I had planned for the party to meet was a dragon that collects beer, and his icy nature providing a suitable environment for the storage of the many brews of the different lands. Sadly, I never had the chance to run the game, due to a strong undercurrent of distaste with the gaming groups I was a part of at the time... but the idea has not left me.

Because dragons are people, too. And yes, some of them are assholes who just want to watch the world burn (or perhaps be a little more pro-active with their desires). But not all of them?

I'll ask around, given as I'm interested in seeing a more... full-flavoured portrayal of dragons myself.

[cxcvi]

Two plausible suggestions, from an art-focused elsewhere:

1: The dragons on the front cover of the Inheritance Cycle (4 books, starting with Eragon). John Jude Palencar's dragons look wise and majestic, and kinda remind me of those paintings of ancestors that you see often in the homes of the wealthy.

2: Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons. Various artists, various different types of dragon. Harder to find good photos of what the art inside looks like.

[silveradept]

The Inheritance Cycle covers aren't bad, but I might be reading a little bit of anger into the dragons there.

I'll have to look inside the Dragonology books and see if their illustrations are any better. Thanks for the suggestions.

[azurelunatic]

*pictures a great big dragon sunning himself, and a human napping under a half-spread wing*

... It's possible that a nonzero amount of my dragon at rest body language comes from the tiny feathered dinosaurs I grew up with.

[silveradept]

Entirely possible. And I do like that picture idea.

[azurelunatic]

(sharing here, too, so everyone can enjoy)

https://twitter.com/Nambroth/status/748184355521036288

dragon and chicken flock, all sunbathing!

(I had approximately this mental image at first, but edited to "human" before posting, because I felt it would be super rare to find an artist that does Proper Dragons and Proper Chickens. But just look at the relaxed tail and happy face on that bearded one!)

[redsixwing]

Hm.

What physical traits are you looking for?

What personality traits are you wanting to see?

I agree it's a problem, and the cute-ifying of dragons in reaction to the aggressive portrayals isn't really a complete solution.

>.>

Maybe we can do something about this one.

[silveradept]

Personality-wise, it's more about capturing poses that aren't the "rearing dragon", "flaming dragon", "hissing dragon" or "hoarding dragon". A dragon in a respectful conversation, or a dragon at play, or dragons sunning themselves.

Physically, I'm looking for large and well-proportioned wings relative to the body, scales, claws, the angled lines in the head, barbed tail, all of the elements of a fantasy illustration.

So if someone can merge the visual idea of the fantasy dragon in art but change their expressions and poses to read a lack of hostility, they'd be very close, if not exactly on, what I'm looking for.

[redsixwing]

I am A Slow Artist but I am also taking this as a prompt, because dragons. :3

[silveradept]

Okay. I look forward to seeing it, even though I will probably forget about it.

[redsixwing]

In the mean time, Todd Lockwood has some good stuff, even if most of his dragons are still acting aggressively toward /something./

Niv-Mizzet consults with a humanoid...

An unnamed silver dragon accepts an elf's praises...

Bahamut the Platinum Dragon is friggin' gorgeous...

And my single favorite piece of dragon art, in which a pair of red dragons are good to their hatchlings. This one appears to have ended badly for an ambitious knight, but there's no aggression happening in the frame.

[silveradept]

Those are good ones, all of them, although the last leans a bit on the space I didn't want because of the corpse in mouth.

[redsixwing]

Sorry about that. =/

Yay! I'm glad they're mostly along the right lines.

[sithjawa]

Made me think of this artist who's a staple at the LosCon art show, though she has a penchant for tiny dragons & that may not be your thing.

http://www.clemensart.com/fantasy1.htm

Particularly:
http://www.clemensart.com/images/whenitrains.jpg

[silveradept]

Those are what I'm looking for, yes, although I would like full-size ones, too. But dragons and cats are both cute together.