I am mildly annoyed at some of the redesigns/suggestions, they are either:
1/Do not look like dragons.
2/Aren't drawn into a square (yes many can be easily redrawn to fit into a box, but this is a limit factor I feel most people don't think to)
3/Small wings so they don't have enough space to show secondary, the colors will look unbalanced. The same goes for any Pangolin-like design where the plates cover half the body.
(Dusthide F has this problem, the male pose has a much better color ratio. But it is a design choice to show that the outer wings have the same color as the body, so when Dusthides are in ball mode they will have a solid color. Additionally, the area where the back wing touches the head gives accent artists plenty of room for head accessories.)
4/Modern breeds must have simple designs to dress up. They also need to have safe concepts or else the player base will be upset that they had waited for years just to get an ugly breed (poor Bogsneak)
I agree that ancient breeds could have pushed the design further, especially with how fast devs can make them now, but some critics do not think about color ratio, site mechanics, and user expectations.
this is just my own opinion on your opinions, but i thought id reply because i do think this topic is fun to discuss
1. pretty subjective imo. Dragons are much more a narrative concept than a solid mythos. Theyve had various designs, versions, variations all with different animals inspiring them, including straight up normal humans (thomas real?). A dragon is what the story needs, and flight rising has so many normal draconic dragons, I don't see why they couldnt have weirder ones imo.
2. the designs that people have offered in general seem pretty easy to put in boxes, especially the larger ones as they tend to have silhouettes without major branches. designs like spirals and auraboas are much more of a nightmare with the extreme flairs and random decals, which is why auraboras have pretty awful silhouettes and spirals look super off when flipped.
3. I never saw this as a big issue. snappers are my favorites and their secondary space is pretty dire, and thats ok imo! if anything, having dragons with unbalanced proportions lets people get away and do things that you wont really with 1:1 prim:sec spacing. also itd be so cute if the plates were secondaries.
4. Being honest, i dont think thats really true anymore. We get one to two dragons per year, and theyre starting to feel like less of an event and more like a mini update everyone is expecting. Of course moderns will always take longer, but ive seen quite a few people mentioning how they dont care that much despite them being moderns because of the overall dragon saturation. we also, again, have SO many dragons. Id much rather they have a clear vision and say something and be loved by some and hated by others, than this stream of everyone being lukewarm and then moving on to not caring. some said they straight up forgot sandsurges exist and thats wild
Yup. I know Snappers and Bogsneaks have their fans, but you don't see them in lairs nearly as often as the "conventionally attractive" breeds for whatever that definition is worth. If I was part of the dev team, I sure wouldn't take the risk of releasing a controversial breed as a modern. You want to please as many people as possible with those.
Though I also think they can and should go wilder with the ancient designs - those are frequent enough that everyone can get their fill.
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Re: FR Art Direction thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 08:03 am (UTC)(link)1/Do not look like dragons.
2/Aren't drawn into a square (yes many can be easily redrawn to fit into a box, but this is a limit factor I feel most people don't think to)
3/Small wings so they don't have enough space to show secondary, the colors will look unbalanced. The same goes for any Pangolin-like design where the plates cover half the body.
(Dusthide F has this problem, the male pose has a much better color ratio. But it is a design choice to show that the outer wings have the same color as the body, so when Dusthides are in ball mode they will have a solid color. Additionally, the area where the back wing touches the head gives accent artists plenty of room for head accessories.)
4/Modern breeds must have simple designs to dress up. They also need to have safe concepts or else the player base will be upset that they had waited for years just to get an ugly breed (poor Bogsneak)
I agree that ancient breeds could have pushed the design further, especially with how fast devs can make them now, but some critics do not think about color ratio, site mechanics, and user expectations.
Re: FR Art Direction thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 04:20 pm (UTC)(link)1. pretty subjective imo. Dragons are much more a narrative concept than a solid mythos. Theyve had various designs, versions, variations all with different animals inspiring them, including straight up normal humans (thomas real?). A dragon is what the story needs, and flight rising has so many normal draconic dragons, I don't see why they couldnt have weirder ones imo.
2. the designs that people have offered in general seem pretty easy to put in boxes, especially the larger ones as they tend to have silhouettes without major branches. designs like spirals and auraboas are much more of a nightmare with the extreme flairs and random decals, which is why auraboras have pretty awful silhouettes and spirals look super off when flipped.
3. I never saw this as a big issue. snappers are my favorites and their secondary space is pretty dire, and thats ok imo! if anything, having dragons with unbalanced proportions lets people get away and do things that you wont really with 1:1 prim:sec spacing. also itd be so cute if the plates were secondaries.
4. Being honest, i dont think thats really true anymore. We get one to two dragons per year, and theyre starting to feel like less of an event and more like a mini update everyone is expecting. Of course moderns will always take longer, but ive seen quite a few people mentioning how they dont care that much despite them being moderns because of the overall dragon saturation. we also, again, have SO many dragons. Id much rather they have a clear vision and say something and be loved by some and hated by others, than this stream of everyone being lukewarm and then moving on to not caring. some said they straight up forgot sandsurges exist and thats wild
Re: FR Art Direction thread
(Anonymous) 2024-06-11 08:21 pm (UTC)(link)Though I also think they can and should go wilder with the ancient designs - those are frequent enough that everyone can get their fill.