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Description
Behold! My entry for ’s Dragon Persona contest!

All Contest-Related Pages:
Persona Ref and Description: You Are Here
Full Form (Pencil): [link]
Full Form (Color): [link]
Persona VS Full Form: [link]
Expressions: [link]
Extras: [link]

Cheeko, a super awesome artist here on DA (I only say it ‘cause it’s true) is holding a contest wherein you draw yourself a dragon persona! (Aka a dragon-you.) The rules were pretty simple and flexible, but the ones I paid most attention to were 1) has to be a dragon (no winged cats and the like), 2) try to make it simple enough that you could draw it regularly, 3) make the persona as much like yourself as possible, 4) you have to have something about you that is expressive of your emotions, and 5) Fang, Fire, and Flight: pick two.

I had a ton of fun designing myself, and as always, I went to town on diagram sketches and such so you can get a real idea of what all of the different features are like. And now I get the fun of explaining everything! Whee!

And before I get started on that: the deadline for this contest isn’t until Oct.31st, for those of you interested in joining!

Super-Long Exposition/Explanation of Detailing!

Overall Color Scheme - The idea that I had to make this persona as much like me as possible (aka no Mary-Sue-ing) really heavily affected my design. I kept my natural brown hair and blue-green eyes, but I chose orange for my basic skin tone because it is one of my favorite colors, and I have found that I look pretty good in orange. The undersides of my wings and the webbing of my ear fins are white because I like white and orange together – you have to admit that they are a good match. Now, for the prominent scales, I chose a mix of brown and crimson red, because both of these colors also match my overall colorscheme (I look good in earth tones for some reason) – and because I couldn’t decide on one or the other. XD

Clothes - I chose simple clothes, partially because of Cheeko suggesting we make a design that would be simple enough to replicate in comic form. (I totally botched this rule with those way-too-complicated scales, but eh! XD) Actually, this worked pretty well because I usually wear ridiculously simple outfits! I own a shirt of that color – I looove that shade of red! – and I like kaki and Capris. You will also notice the cargo pants pocket. I adore cargo pants; the more pockets, the better! Pfff, with how much I like storing stuff, I should have just given myself a kangaroo pouch. XD

Scales - Now, the reason I chose to line myself with these big, thick scales (my orange skin is also scaled, they’re just much smaller) is actually one of the most important special features in my design, because that sprang completely from my personality. I am all about defense, in various uses of the word: from my social skills, in that I tend to get defensive if someone comes at me and dislike intense confrontation (although I am rather argumentative), to the fact that I’m always the one who’s first objective in a group game of Age of Empires is to build a wall all the way around my territory. (I may not get as high a kill count, but my team finds it very helpful when they get trounced and can come hide behind me!) So, defense being important to me = heavy scales.

The scales themselves are actually quite versatile: while extremely tough, they are also slightly supple and can shift over each other to a degree, greatly minimizing any expected restriction of movement. The lines I made on them are to indicate that the scales are all very slightly grooved. This is to both give them texture, show how thick they are, and give them the supple nature they need to keep from being a mobility hazard. The scales on my arms, legs, and feet are harder because they are on areas that don’t bend.

I have more scales on the back of my neck and down my back between my wings, but these are covered by my hair and shirt.

Ears – I chose fins for my ears because I use this style occasionally on my dragons. I think they look cool, and they are fairly unique; I pride myself on my uniqueness, so it seemed fitting. The ears can fold up and down, and shift side to side a little, and that little extra flap in the middle surrounds my ear hole to help direct soundwaves. See, they really ARE ears, not just pieces of decoration!

And the size is helpful. I don’t have the keenest hearing, so I figure I need all the help I can get!

Fire, Fang, and Flight: Pick Two

My pick: Fire and Flight

‘Fang’ - Now, before someone calls me out on the ‘Fangs’ deal, I would like to explain why I can say that I didn’t cheat and use all three. Cheeko defined ‘Fangs’ as ‘Basically, the strength of your jaws and claws. You can bite through metal and chew it into shavings, lift semis over your head with ease and demolish buildings without so much as a scratch.’
I am of perfectly normal strength – which, for a dragon, I would estimate to be about the strength of an adult male who works out a lot. The reason that I drew myself with a snaggle fang, obvious claws, and even the fact that my feet are digitigrades (standing on my toes) is because these are features I ALWAYS include whenever I design a humanoid animal. Pretty much no exceptions. So I deem them to be additions that I can rightly and fairly add without breaking the ‘ick Two’ rule.

Flight – ‘You can fly or you have wings. ‘
Ah, the wings. I had to give myself wings; I can’t imagine being a dragon and not having wings! And, once again, I totally had a reason for my design! (If you haven’t figured it out by now, I detail EVERYTHING, so I hope you’re enjoying this, as it ain’t over yet. XD)

I drew my wings full-body because I am a realist when it comes to things like this: logically, I would not be able to fly if my wings were these great big things that only attached to be at the shoulder. Look at any bat or bird: it wouldn’t make sense. On that same note, I do not consider my wings large enough to support full flying, but I am very capable of gliding. I can even gain a little altitude with a few flaps, but some decently long-distance gliding is the most I can manage.

Also, if you look closely at the main drawing, you’ll see that I have some extra wing membrane there. There is an extra flap on both sides of my backside that attach my legs to my tail, starting at just below the base of my tail. Kind of like what bats and flying squirrels have; the extra ‘wingspan’ gives me a little more lift and helps me stay aloft longer.

And I only colored the undersides white because it wouldn’t have looked right if both sides were white. I fiddled with a striping or splotchy pattern of brown on the backsides, but nothing looked right and so I left them blank.

Fire – ‘You can breathe fire, spit acid, or expel poison (or any other substance) from your mouth.’

Ohh I had fun with this one! First off: I do not breath fire. Cheeko made it clear that if you picked ‘Fire’, you could basically give yourself any substance you wanted. Now, again, I am not an offensive person, but I DO love practical stuff, and being original. So my Fire?

Adhesive.

As you’ll note in the handy little see-through head diagram up there, I have two glands on either side of my snout (like a snake’s venom sacs) that excrete a clear liquid substance. When taken out of my mouth, it proceeds to dry into a solid substance within 30 seconds. It dries clear, and the solidified version has the strength of steel-like concrete (aka something between steel and concrete).

I like this idea, because imagine how handy it would be to have the equivalent of superhuman superglue on hand at all times? If something breaks, I glue it back together. If I get a rip in my clothes, I paste it shut. April Fool’s Day is taken care of with any number of incidents involving gluing people to the desk/floor/computer/pencil/plastic frog. And I don’t have to worry about punching holes in my wings to make my clothes stay on them! (Yes, I even thought about that!) I merely dab my finger in my mouth in the morning, run a streak down the hemline, and I’m set!

And if you’re wondering how I don’t glue my own mouth shut by accident or if I have to wear the same set of clothes for my entire life, the answer is simple: the dissolving solution is my own saliva. Other people’s saliva works okay, too (if they need to free themselves for some reason), but not nearly as quickly.

And as a bonus, the glue tastes faintly sugary.

Expressive Feature – Oh right, almost forgot! We had to give our dragon selves something that displayed moods/emotions. For me, it’s a bit of a dual-action feature: both my wings and my ear fins will shift slightly with my mood, especially if I am very excited, very surprised, or very angry/scared. My ears will almost completely flatten down against my head if I’m freaked out, but both ears and wings will flair out at least a little if I’m excited or enraged. And my ear fins occasionally tilt or twitch when I find something surprising/interesting. I can control this if I think about it, but naturally, one is not usually thinking about these things in the heat of the moment. And I tend to be very emotional, so you’re bound to see my ears twitching at least a little bit most of the time.

Other Fun Facts:
-The snaggle fang on my upper lip is there because I have always, for as long as I can remember, drawn carnivorous animals with that little snaggle fang. I think it was my way of showing they were of the pointy-toothed variety. I have no idea where I picked it up, but I continue to like how it looks to this day, and so of course I would give one to myself! ^^ There's a slight groove on the side of my mouth that the fang fits over, so it isn't awkward.
-The claws on my hands are fully retractable, like a cat’s. The claws on my feet are not.
-I can spit my glue up to six feet on a good day. I’m not a proficient spitter, and the stuff is really not that handy as an offensive weapon, anyways.
-See how my clothes fit seamlessly around my wings? Wondering how I do it without tying them on? Simple: dab some glue along the hemline of that shirt and it’ll stay put all day!
-I don’t have anything on the end of my tail like most dragons do because I couldn’t think of anything that worked.
-Just because I don’t have super strength doesn’t mean I’m defenseless. I won’t use my claws unless I have to, but my wings and tail are pretty powerful in their own right. A solid hit from either would be like getting a very hard punch. (Ever been hit by a bird’s wing? Them things are serious business!)

And that's that! If you actually made it through all that text, you are officially awesome. Please be so kind as to leave a # in your comment if you'd like to show me that I'm not just talking to myself here.

Dragon Me is copyright me.

Drawn with 0.5 mechanical pencil and colored/rearranged/touched-up using Paint.net.

Description
Behold! My entry for ’s Dragon Persona contest!

All Contest-Related Pages:
Persona Ref and Description: You Are Here
Full Form (Pencil): [link]
Full Form (Color): [link]
Persona VS Full Form: [link]
Expressions: [link]
Extras: [link]

Cheeko, a super awesome artist here on DA (I only say it ‘cause it’s true) is holding a contest wherein you draw yourself a dragon persona! (Aka a dragon-you.) The rules were pretty simple and flexible, but the ones I paid most attention to were 1) has to be a dragon (no winged cats and the like), 2) try to make it simple enough that you could draw it regularly, 3) make the persona as much like yourself as possible, 4) you have to have something about you that is expressive of your emotions, and 5) Fang, Fire, and Flight: pick two.

I had a ton of fun designing myself, and as always, I went to town on diagram sketches and such so you can get a real idea of what all of the different features are like. And now I get the fun of explaining everything! Whee!

And before I get started on that: the deadline for this contest isn’t until Oct.31st, for those of you interested in joining!

Super-Long Exposition/Explanation of Detailing!

Overall Color Scheme - The idea that I had to make this persona as much like me as possible (aka no Mary-Sue-ing) really heavily affected my design. I kept my natural brown hair and blue-green eyes, but I chose orange for my basic skin tone because it is one of my favorite colors, and I have found that I look pretty good in orange. The undersides of my wings and the webbing of my ear fins are white because I like white and orange together – you have to admit that they are a good match. Now, for the prominent scales, I chose a mix of brown and crimson red, because both of these colors also match my overall colorscheme (I look good in earth tones for some reason) – and because I couldn’t decide on one or the other. XD

Clothes - I chose simple clothes, partially because of Cheeko suggesting we make a design that would be simple enough to replicate in comic form. (I totally botched this rule with those way-too-complicated scales, but eh! XD) Actually, this worked pretty well because I usually wear ridiculously simple outfits! I own a shirt of that color – I looove that shade of red! – and I like kaki and Capris. You will also notice the cargo pants pocket. I adore cargo pants; the more pockets, the better! Pfff, with how much I like storing stuff, I should have just given myself a kangaroo pouch. XD

Scales - Now, the reason I chose to line myself with these big, thick scales (my orange skin is also scaled, they’re just much smaller) is actually one of the most important special features in my design, because that sprang completely from my personality. I am all about defense, in various uses of the word: from my social skills, in that I tend to get defensive if someone comes at me and dislike intense confrontation (although I am rather argumentative), to the fact that I’m always the one who’s first objective in a group game of Age of Empires is to build a wall all the way around my territory. (I may not get as high a kill count, but my team finds it very helpful when they get trounced and can come hide behind me!) So, defense being important to me = heavy scales.

The scales themselves are actually quite versatile: while extremely tough, they are also slightly supple and can shift over each other to a degree, greatly minimizing any expected restriction of movement. The lines I made on them are to indicate that the scales are all very slightly grooved. This is to both give them texture, show how thick they are, and give them the supple nature they need to keep from being a mobility hazard. The scales on my arms, legs, and feet are harder because they are on areas that don’t bend.

I have more scales on the back of my neck and down my back between my wings, but these are covered by my hair and shirt.

Ears – I chose fins for my ears because I use this style occasionally on my dragons. I think they look cool, and they are fairly unique; I pride myself on my uniqueness, so it seemed fitting. The ears can fold up and down, and shift side to side a little, and that little extra flap in the middle surrounds my ear hole to help direct soundwaves. See, they really ARE ears, not just pieces of decoration!

And the size is helpful. I don’t have the keenest hearing, so I figure I need all the help I can get!

Fire, Fang, and Flight: Pick Two

My pick: Fire and Flight

‘Fang’ - Now, before someone calls me out on the ‘Fangs’ deal, I would like to explain why I can say that I didn’t cheat and use all three. Cheeko defined ‘Fangs’ as ‘Basically, the strength of your jaws and claws. You can bite through metal and chew it into shavings, lift semis over your head with ease and demolish buildings without so much as a scratch.’
I am of perfectly normal strength – which, for a dragon, I would estimate to be about the strength of an adult male who works out a lot. The reason that I drew myself with a snaggle fang, obvious claws, and even the fact that my feet are digitigrades (standing on my toes) is because these are features I ALWAYS include whenever I design a humanoid animal. Pretty much no exceptions. So I deem them to be additions that I can rightly and fairly add without breaking the ‘ick Two’ rule.

Flight – ‘You can fly or you have wings. ‘
Ah, the wings. I had to give myself wings; I can’t imagine being a dragon and not having wings! And, once again, I totally had a reason for my design! (If you haven’t figured it out by now, I detail EVERYTHING, so I hope you’re enjoying this, as it ain’t over yet. XD)

I drew my wings full-body because I am a realist when it comes to things like this: logically, I would not be able to fly if my wings were these great big things that only attached to be at the shoulder. Look at any bat or bird: it wouldn’t make sense. On that same note, I do not consider my wings large enough to support full flying, but I am very capable of gliding. I can even gain a little altitude with a few flaps, but some decently long-distance gliding is the most I can manage.

Also, if you look closely at the main drawing, you’ll see that I have some extra wing membrane there. There is an extra flap on both sides of my backside that attach my legs to my tail, starting at just below the base of my tail. Kind of like what bats and flying squirrels have; the extra ‘wingspan’ gives me a little more lift and helps me stay aloft longer.

And I only colored the undersides white because it wouldn’t have looked right if both sides were white. I fiddled with a striping or splotchy pattern of brown on the backsides, but nothing looked right and so I left them blank.

Fire – ‘You can breathe fire, spit acid, or expel poison (or any other substance) from your mouth.’

Ohh I had fun with this one! First off: I do not breath fire. Cheeko made it clear that if you picked ‘Fire’, you could basically give yourself any substance you wanted. Now, again, I am not an offensive person, but I DO love practical stuff, and being original. So my Fire?

Adhesive.

As you’ll note in the handy little see-through head diagram up there, I have two glands on either side of my snout (like a snake’s venom sacs) that excrete a clear liquid substance. When taken out of my mouth, it proceeds to dry into a solid substance within 30 seconds. It dries clear, and the solidified version has the strength of steel-like concrete (aka something between steel and concrete).

I like this idea, because imagine how handy it would be to have the equivalent of superhuman superglue on hand at all times? If something breaks, I glue it back together. If I get a rip in my clothes, I paste it shut. April Fool’s Day is taken care of with any number of incidents involving gluing people to the desk/floor/computer/pencil/plastic frog. And I don’t have to worry about punching holes in my wings to make my clothes stay on them! (Yes, I even thought about that!) I merely dab my finger in my mouth in the morning, run a streak down the hemline, and I’m set!

And if you’re wondering how I don’t glue my own mouth shut by accident or if I have to wear the same set of clothes for my entire life, the answer is simple: the dissolving solution is my own saliva. Other people’s saliva works okay, too (if they need to free themselves for some reason), but not nearly as quickly.

And as a bonus, the glue tastes faintly sugary.

Expressive Feature – Oh right, almost forgot! We had to give our dragon selves something that displayed moods/emotions. For me, it’s a bit of a dual-action feature: both my wings and my ear fins will shift slightly with my mood, especially if I am very excited, very surprised, or very angry/scared. My ears will almost completely flatten down against my head if I’m freaked out, but both ears and wings will flair out at least a little if I’m excited or enraged. And my ear fins occasionally tilt or twitch when I find something surprising/interesting. I can control this if I think about it, but naturally, one is not usually thinking about these things in the heat of the moment. And I tend to be very emotional, so you’re bound to see my ears twitching at least a little bit most of the time.

Other Fun Facts:
-The snaggle fang on my upper lip is there because I have always, for as long as I can remember, drawn carnivorous animals with that little snaggle fang. I think it was my way of showing they were of the pointy-toothed variety. I have no idea where I picked it up, but I continue to like how it looks to this day, and so of course I would give one to myself! ^^ There's a slight groove on the side of my mouth that the fang fits over, so it isn't awkward.
-The claws on my hands are fully retractable, like a cat’s. The claws on my feet are not.
-I can spit my glue up to six feet on a good day. I’m not a proficient spitter, and the stuff is really not that handy as an offensive weapon, anyways.
-See how my clothes fit seamlessly around my wings? Wondering how I do it without tying them on? Simple: dab some glue along the hemline of that shirt and it’ll stay put all day!
-I don’t have anything on the end of my tail like most dragons do because I couldn’t think of anything that worked.
-Just because I don’t have super strength doesn’t mean I’m defenseless. I won’t use my claws unless I have to, but my wings and tail are pretty powerful in their own right. A solid hit from either would be like getting a very hard punch. (Ever been hit by a bird’s wing? Them things are serious business!)

And that's that! If you actually made it through all that text, you are officially awesome. Please be so kind as to leave a # in your comment if you'd like to show me that I'm not just talking to myself here.

Dragon Me is copyright me.

Drawn with 0.5 mechanical pencil and colored/rearranged/touched-up using Paint.net.