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Peet-B — Misc - Dragon skeleton
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Published: 2013-02-23 20:07:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 18758; Favourites: 784; Downloads: 351
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Description
The last of the skeletons. It was the most complicated and the biggest challenge, but im pretty muchhappy with the result. The extra pair of limbs gave me quite a headache, but i refused to go on the road of 4 limbed dragons with 2 wings + 2 legs... those are wyverns >:l I will use this in further projects (at least 1)
Front 3/4 view
Suggestions and comments are welcome
Useful and interesting articles i found:
[link] - Wiki animal skeletons
[link] - bird limb mutation
[link] - "The biological implausibility of dragons"
[link] - Avatar's hexapods
[link] - bat flying
[link] - walk cycle
[link] - avian muscles
Related content
Comments: 47
Hey, I know this is pretty old and I'm a little late to comment, but I really love this!! I have a character who happens to be a skeleton dragon, and this has always really helped me in drawing him. You're really talented!!
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Really great stuff, but your collection of links is what really sold me!
As an aspiring dragon artist, I think you for making my road easier!
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Awesome! I used this with my drawing of an undead dragon
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I usually disagree with fictional skeletons on instinct - but this one has a grace reminiscent of falcon or hawk skeletons - I can really see the function and flexibility throughout - it looks like you made yours more like a horse - not as likely to be on hind legs like some versions.
The large "tail wings" are beautiful - I can even see the shape of the skull and horns as aerodynamic, actually providing some lift to the heavy braincase.
Something bothers me about the mid-spine and shoulders. Not sure what.
I wish I had a better look - the ribcage and gut cavity seem to be missing something, just intuitively. But maybe I'm just hung up on the latest versions of dragons - yours feel slike an elegant take on a pre-millennial concept.
Beautiful.
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This looks really nice. The only problem is that the wings cannot move independently because they are attatched to the forelimb's shoulderplades :/ As an animator, If I had to animate this skeleton this would be a major problem.
Don't mind me if it's too late to be bothered with, I understand that CG takes time.... a long time.
This comment is just from a professional animator and a life long amateur dragonologist n___n
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People undervalue animators in other fields of design.
There's a roboticist who went to animation and acting school before heading to MIT and is responsible for creating programs based on cartoon-like (pixar-ish) personalities. Inquisitive, helpful, risk taking, etc. complete with emotional motions.
He based them on animation and acting principles, inspired by Luxo jr. (he even built a Luxo robot)
Imagine if more machines were designed to move to emotive motion in precision.
Imagine if a car door's hinge or other things evoked an emotion like a pet. The impact on the world could be rather interesting.
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This is amazing C: I was wondering if I could use this as a dragon anatomy sort of guide?
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Sure, just no commercial use please and put my name there somewhere : P
Also i suggest to read the comments, the anatomy could be upgraded easily
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alrighty C: I figured I'd ask first X3 not sure if I will use it for anatomy just yet since I keep changing my mind about things <<;
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Nice looking dragon skeleton, it looks so real. ^^
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Very plausible looking wing attachment. Excellent work!
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Hűha, ahogy elnéztem, elég sok hozzáértő hozzászólód van, bármelyikük hasznosabb, építő kritikát adott, mit amit én tudnék.. úgyhogy a magam részéről csak gyönyörködöm a gerinc és csontok ívében
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Köszi szépen : )
Elég sok hasznos infót kaptam, meg elfelejtettem dolgokat menet közben... de a végén úgyis csak egy klasszikus sárkány : P
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This is awesome, but there is one thing bugging me. Not sure if it's the angle we're viewing it at, but wouldn't it be better if the longest wing bone(the "fingers" of the wings) was the second or third bone? Like you often see in bats. They way i understand it this is for stabilisation during flight. The way it is now it just feels unbalanced in a way. But then again, dragons don't exist so whatever do I know ^^
Apart from that this model is extremely well done. Would have loved to see it animated, but I can imagine that must be one pain in the @$$ to do
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That totally evaded my attention.. the fingers are made purely based on aesthetics and some top-view d&d picture that had a cool shape.
Im not into animation and im afraid this would be a 'bit' harder than the typical human walkcycle 
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This is interesting, but having the forearms share scapula with the wings prevents the limbs from moving independently from each other. Which would be a problem whenever this guy is strolling around or trying to do something with his arms while flying.
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Until the last 30 mins, they had two separate scapula. But i realized the wings would have no stability with a random bone flapping in the middle, so i fused them together. In a similar way as the chicken experiments showed the shared bones. Anyway, without some out-of-this-world quality muscles and bones or magic, i doubt this guy would ever fly : D
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It is possible to design a plausible flying hexapodal creature, if you scale it down a lot and adhere to some unavoidable flexibility restrictions. But if for some reason vertebrate hexapods did exist on earth, it's more likely that they'd be their own separate thing, having evolved with six limbs to begin with and thus with their own scapula rather than maintaining and developing a genetic defect until it becomes usable. Evolution doesn't work that way. No known vertebrate animal has maintained genetic defects like this, they usually die from them. It's the reason why there are no natural hexapodal sheep or cow species running around. Regardless, this is very cool looking, and I can't imagine how long this took to make. But it just wouldn't be able to even flap it's wings without it's arms flailing around and potentially injuring itself.
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When you say "to begin with," do you mean when they were placed in the garden of Eden, or when the first Tiktaalik mutated to have six limbs instead of four? Because if a land-fish can grow another set of limbs and maintain and develop their genetic defect until it becomes usable, why not a sheep or cow? It just depends on if the mutation is beneficial in evading predators, and extra limbs could be pretty useful for a cow or sheep...
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It's easier to develop a mutation into a new working fin than a new working fully developed terrestrial limb. In cases where cows or sheep have been born with extra limbs, it's usually because two twins merged imperfectly in development. The excess limb is never functional.
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Kamani Hubbard was born with 12 fingers and 12 toes, all perfectly functioning. It's rare, and extra limbs are probably much rarer, but it's not impossible.
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The perfectly functional generation of an extra toe or a finger is very different from generating an entire arm complete with scapula and independent musculature. And the extra finger/toe is not always perfectly mirrored on the other hand. In order for that defect to be passed on it needs to be immediately useful (something that gives those with it a higher chance of survival) and there needs to be similarly mutated partners around to reproduce with. There's no reason an already dragon-like creature would keep an extra limb. Evolution doesn't know to wait and hope for the extra limbs to become wings. And a single perfectly formed copy of a limb that already exists is redundant. Of course, a fish having extra fins is also probably redundant. Six limbs is already a stretch, I just find it easier to buy if it starts earlier in the creature's evolutionary path, to a small creature with more flexible genetics, than much later.
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Also, we should probably stop cluttering up this person's comment page. (Send me a note if you wish to reply).
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Nicely done. My only critique would be that there's no visible clavical (wishbone) or structure (coracoid bone) to brace the front of the ribcage during a down stroke of the wings. The compression forces from the flight muscles would pull the ribcage inward, making breathing difficult unless there's something to push back against it. This will also help with transferring the power from the wing muscles to the wings themselves, making it more efficient for the animal to fly.
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aaand I just realized whats the purpose of the carocoid process.. but i put a carociod-like thing on the scapula without reading about its purpose. My bad
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This is one that I've been toying with for a while now. [link] It's interesting to see how many different variations you can get with dragons. I pulled from horse, bat, bird, cat, tyrannosaur and sauropod anatomy for this sketch. A bird's scapula lays flat and parallel with the ground, this would give you some mobility with the forelimb girdle so that it'd have freedom of movement with its forelegs.
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During the sculpting process the scapula had the place for the wishbone, i cant bring up any reson why i decided against it in the end :l Thanks for the useful info
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Super cool! Also, probably anatomically right, too bad there are no dragons available for a reference.
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Thank you! : ) yes i tried to make it as real as i can. Fusing feline, dinosaur, bat and bird parts
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Oh Brill, must have taken an age. I just want to rotate the table to view from all sides.
Well done
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Thinking about "What the heck should i put where" and studying anatomy took far more time than the actual process
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That is beautiful! 
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