Wingless dragons

[Licawolf]

Just something random I noticed. I was looking for some reference pictures of the Dragon gods, and I noticed that some of the Dragons are wingless when you first encounter them, but later, in the video of the creation of the Dragon God, they have sprouted wings.

The earth dragon is completely wingless the first time and the green dragon has some sort of branches where the wings are supposed to go.




Technically, the red dragon is wingless too the first time you meet him, he grows wings at the middle of the battle.




The black, sky and water dragons don't change their appearance at all during the course of the game.




But the water dragon is wingless too, he has something that looks like small fins in his back, instead of wings, but he never grows proper wings (and still he can fly  ).



Not sure any of these are of any relevance to the game, but I find it really curious. I wonder if the wings of the earth and green dragons got in the way during the battle animations or were too distracting and that's why they were dropped?

[FaustWolf]

Whoaaa, I never noticed this!

[alfadorredux]

The things on the Green Dragon's back might be really weirdly folded wings created by a modeller who didn't think too hard about how they worked, and the Red Dragon does a pretty obvious in-game shapeshift, but the Earth Dragon is truly a mystery.

As for the Water Dragon, traditional Oriental dragons also fly without wings, IIRC, so the developers might not have seen anything odd in it. Of course, traditional Oriental dragons are also long and skinny...

[Licawolf]

As for the Water Dragon, traditional Oriental dragons also fly without wings, IIRC, so the developers might not have seen anything odd in it. Of course, traditional Oriental dragons are also long and skinny...

When I look at the Water Dragon I feel like I'm missing a cultural reference. He looks like a water creature, some sort of fish or amphibian. In the video, when he flies he moves like a fish or a crocodile swimming (which is pretty cool). Maybe his design is based on a mythological creature or something like that.

[utunnels]

Since you mentioned oriental dragons, there are some references in game, though they are only heads.

[Licawolf]

Nice find, I never noticed those were Oriental dragons before. Yasuyuki Honne did an awesome job with this scenary, those heads are seriously scary.

[Licawolf]

Ok, I'm starting to believe the modelers were just lazy  Is it just me or the Dragon god has 6 eyes in the video, and only two eyes in the actual battle?

[utunnels]

The texture has at least 2 visible eyes on each side.
But if the smallest eyes are just too tiny to display, it could have 6 totally.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Well duh! The Dragon God closes all his other eyes when he enters battle mode!

I always hated the design of the Dragon God.

[Licawolf]

@utunnels: The missing eyes do look very small in the video too, so I guess they are six then, oficially.

@Boo: I think it must be a very unique challenge for a character designer creating a creature that has to look like something from a different world-monstruous, grotesque and alien-but without losing the sense that it's a living coherent creature (I think the trick is the symmetry).

I have been doing some sketches of the Dragon God and I have come to apreciate a little better how it's composed. In many ways it's based on ocean creatures, I see hints of stingrays and whales in it's shape, but it's still so very alien and bizarre (six eyes and a giant glass sphere as a tongue, wtf?). Personally I think it's an awesome design, but it was created to be weird and unsettling, so I guess it's not supposed to be liked  (But I'm a weird girl who likes monsters  )

[utunnels]

And Kid's field model doesn't even have a ribbon, some details are ignored due to the fact psx game has very low resolution.
But as for the Earth Dragon, I guess it just grows wings after Fate is dead.