Flight Rising Discussion

i have no clue how people are suggesting you're looking too into things, the proof is right there! you laid this thread out nicely and i agree with a lot of the points ur making, i am also tired of the samey dragon design for ancients.

I've been thinking this for ages. I genuinely still can't tell Sandsurges and Banescales apart often, and I own several of both. I think that Aberrations are by far the best use of the ancient breed concept - this is a dragon that really couldn't be a modern. Maybe Undertides, too. But Banescales and Auraboas are just missing a set of legs, and the rest could be modern breeds with no alterations.

Why not use the no apparel feature to be super funky? Two heads was great. Now let's have a burrowing dragon with no wings, a centipede dragon with a ridiculous amount of legs, a spider dragon with 8 eyes and 8 legs and web-like wings, a dragon with a mace for a tail. Not just modern-breeds-but-no-apparel.

ill have to come back here later.

but imo, this thread's strongest point IS the faces + head anatomy.
i just feel like it's hard to avoid long bodies since these are dragons.

The same faces are a lil more of a stronger missed oppertunity...

I could definetly be down for some more bulkier snapper-like dragons tho.

but Obe's aren't too far off.

I don’t really agree with the face shape thing admittedly, like I don’t think the difference in diversity between then and now is very big. I mean I AM cranky that the last three had a very short snoot but I think that’s coincidence, I do consider all the ancients to have unique faces; undertides in particular I am SO glad they have their pointy eel jaws a la monhun narwa and ibushi, imagining their jaws opening like that is so <3 it makes their faces less “conventionally attractive” but thats what I think makes em cute anyway yeah I agree that. fat dragons need to be around more. I’ve said it before but I think its weird if earth is The Only Flight to get stocky dragons (boggies being unflighted), so I’m praying we see more next release, if these ones are also fat? and not neutral. I know some of it is practical business decisions bc snappers are like the least popular breed but also its not just the roundness its bc the males look like theyre staring into my soul and displeased with what they see anyway I wouldnt say I’m worried about the current direction of the art, not yet at least–I think a lot of recent breed releases have been experimental, or had experimental elements. like aethers are mothy, which had been a widely requested thing for years bc of that concept art, but they also have these weird little monkey faces? ik that immediately did not appeal to a lot of people, myself included. and ik a lot of us warmed up to it, but my point is like they had a winning formula with the moth dragon but still took a risk to give them unique features, and I am happy in that sense. but also we need more fat dragons edit: also huge, huge, powerful disagree with the notion that long shapes are inevitable bc theyre reptiles, things can be both long And fat or at least stocky. plesiosaur edit 2: to illustrate what I mean abt undertide jaws, like. awww big sretchy mouth [img]https://i.imgur.com/ul1Cc8G.png[/img]

This is something I have also been thinking about for awhile, mostly in how they are tending to a more 'round' or 'cute,' shaped design without the more dynamics of some of the best (imo) designed dragons they have made on site (which seem to be their older ones). I think that is where a lot of my overall disappointment comes in, and even with the namesake of Auraboas they don't even have the distinctive 'boa' head shape that even the apparel boa does!

From a design standpoint, I was really hoping the nature ancient would have been more like a bear, a bulky guardian much like the many 'bears' they have made as familiars throughout the site. I think they make very creative and weirdly shaped familiars but don't seem to fully push this towards the dragons themselves. Imagine some of the familiar designs as dragons I think would add such a beautiful variety.

I love thin, lanky dragons as much as the next person, but not even those shapes seem to be fully exaggerated in comparison to what we have. I believe 'fat' is a bit of a relative term here, and I'd rather we don't just make 'overweight' dragons necessarily, but include a variety of body-shapes. Just because you have a more 'bear' shape doesn't mean you're overweight, our bone densities can be built different, even from culture to culture. It is what makes us unique! And I'd love to see this applied to our dragons.

I think having long-billed dragons, or dragons with jutting out jaws, thicker trunks or wider faces, etc, while not always 'conventionally' appealing, offer a variety that works for someone, and become well loved through time. Not every dragon species has to be super popular to be lovely.

I think FR has great potential and I really hope that we will get more unique designs that don't constitute a noodle with big eyes. Or a noodle with small eyes. Noodle dragons are great and all, but I am feeling a 'sameness' in a lot of the recent designs (which we really only have ancients to compare to from the past two years). I want a dragon with a wolf-like face, etc. A moose inspired dragon would honestly make me quite happy, they're one of my favorite mammals. The world is vast and wide, and it has with it a variety of animals to pull inspiration from, in some form or fashion. You can make a dynamic pose regardless of bulk or shape, dynamism is not based on shape, it is based on movement and placement.

I hope we can see some more dynamic and ingenious designs for the future. Thank you for putting this thread together I actually think it is a great take, especially from a creature design stand-point.

Hope that this doesn't come across as a whiny post, but I get OP's point. It feels like artwork is definitely leaning on the safe side, with cute/fluffy/elegant being the main design themes. The body shape seems to be mostly sticking to "average and already tried and tested" instead of something very different, but since I have literally 0 interest in ancients, that doesn't affect me much.

In relation to other art choices: I've accepted a few years ago that the design direction that the devs are taking isn't specifically catering to my tastes, and that's fine, because it doesn't have to. I've also accepted that the definition of what passes here as a "dragon" is vastly different to what I consider to be a dragon. For instance, to me, skydancers are just hippogriffs/birds with 4 legs and obelisks are cats with horns and wings. If I showed that to a random person on the street, I don't think they'd describe it as a dragon, unless they knew FR.

In my head, I'm actually playing "Magical Creature Rising" instead of "Flight Rising" haha, because most of the breeds here are way too diverse for me to describe as draconic. Something menacing, reptilian, dangerous, not cute etc, what some others have described would fit that bill better, for me.

That comes as a surprise, because I'd think that an actual reptilian-looking dragon would be "the popular choice", because other fiction is teeming with such designs.

Sometimes I also find it a bit strange that there isn't more variety in the "monstrous dragon" department, considering plague is a highly popular flight. I'm under the impression that plaguelings aren't playing this game for the cute an fluffy breeds. Maybe I am wrong? I'm always confused.

This is just my 5 pence. I'm still happy ridgebacks and guardians exist. I just hope they don't "cancel" modern breeds in the future because ancients are way easier to make. And maybe if I hang around long enough, there might as well come another modern, scary/scaly dragon without feathers and fur.

I think this is a totally fair point...I notice I tend to like serpentine dragons a lot. I seem to have an awful lot of spirals in my lair at all times, and Auraboas are the ancient that really does it for me, next to Aethers. However, I do like the idea of a dragon with a much chunkier face, like chinese dragons or the super traditional western dragons. Imo more variety is better. I do see the above point about an easier to read dragon being easier to dress, like I love Bogsneaks but I do find them much harder to design well. But then again, ancients can't wear apparel anyway do I don't think this applies as much to them, and a lot of people felt when Undertides released that they had a lot of tangent lines that made them less readable than other breeds. So hopefully this is just a coincidence and the next Ancients will be something a bit different. I have also kinda expressed a similar desire in my thread where I'm speculating on a more chunky and square Earth Ancient, though I'm not talented enough to illustrate it.

[quote name="PeachyGremlin" date="2024-04-16 09:12:31" ] All of these are noodles when broken down to round shapes thanks to the tails. Some of yours aren't nearly as simplified as I would have done to be honest. Though I think that's the issue of the exercise. To compare the designs, I would have focused on the silhouettes. Perhaps an exploration of a variety of basic shapes to emphasis who is more angular vs. softer. As a head example though, the imp m and veil m head shapes aren't all that different from one another when reduced to the basics, but they still stand apart with detail. However, your sketch adds an exaggeration to the imp m's head that I would not have included nor see when I look at the dragon. So this and others is why the comparison feels off to me. Don't get me wrong, I understand what you are trying to say, however, I don't think "ugly" is quiet the word here. Rather you seem to want to see more creative approaches to the size and length of general shapes (torsos, limbs, tails, etc.) to create more unique designs. :) I'd love to see a really chunky owl bear dragon. :0 [/quote] [img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/ef3ec4578f98cdd32388e1d0f810d10e/b1fe4d905c528fa0-64/s500x750/d7f5f3c02338aaf34a38c0390ac9efcc4a7dfab7.png[/img] While I do agree that these are nearly identical I'm not sure how else to trace the face here without the eyebrow ridge and jawline? You can see how there is a difference between them that I've tried to trace earnestly: [img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/c0d6eb57939f202ee60457f5e0b6f352/1592ade241e12552-c0/s500x750/dcd7d94be509e4fdd90b1f8d4c39c22abd066087.png[/img] If anyone else would like to trace these to be more "honest" so to speak I will erase my own drawings and add yours. However my point here is not that none of the original dragons look like the ancients, it's that when you line up the initial dragons for the website and compare their faces and body shapes there's a lot more variety than the more recent dragons of the past 5 years, so not really sure why this matters necessarily?

yes! i am a new player but i have noticed lots of dragons have noodle necks and that is not my personal preference haha they are just tubes when u break them down! i love them nonetheless but more variation in basic shapes would be great to see