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HazelNutty
Taking a second look at your lair was fun, since I got to highlight some of the dragons who caught my eye the last time, and see some new dragons as well. Mosspants (I'd love to hear the story behind that name) made the second cut immediately. Wildclaws have a more randomized placement of gembond than some other breeds, say coatls or skydancers, that makes the gems look less patterned and ornamental, and more like something that naturally grew there. With a name like that, his jungle gembond immediately brings to mind patches of moss, and his midnight iridescent makes him look like a slick river rock that it's growing on. Midnight's dark blue tones complement the deep green of jungle probably better than anything else in the black color range. His midnight stripes are a nice subtle touch, but the especially dark midnight blue they bring in at the tips frames the rest of him nicely and, if I may continue my metaphor, look like currents of water washing against his moss-covered hide. His dented iron tail cuff completes the look of something a little mossy and forgotten, and also does a nice job hiding the purplish highlights that midnight iridescent starts to bring out on his tail, which wouldn't have looked so great with his jungle gembond.
From a subdued, naturalistic gembond, let's jump straight to a bright, ornamental one. Brightstone more than lives up to his name, with his bright banana gembond, but let's acknowledge that it's his primary and secondary that really help it shine. His black clown primary provides a dappled backdrop with light grey and darker black that lets his gembond stand out, the same way a jewelry store puts their gems on black velvet or a light counter to show them off. Meanwhile, his royal shimmer wings provide a bright but contrasting backdrop. Since purple doesn't have any yellow in it (only red and blue) it's a perfect contrast to the banana gembond without clashing or absorbing it. Royal is also one of the darker purples, and banana, being one of the lighter yellows, shows up particularly well against it. Skydancers have one of the more elegant placements of their gembond, so when they wear this gene, they wear it well, and Brightstone is no exception.
Moonlight is a very elegant dragon. Her obsidian iridescent primary and splash eye spot secondary evoke the colors of the day and night sky, and her moonglow silver runes, of course, echo the moonlight for which she's named. One big complaint about obsidian iridescent is that it picks up a lot of green highlights, but that's mostly avoided on her, and the bright blue of her splash wings downplays any instances of it by being the most colorful, and therefore eye-catching, part of her. Her accent, and her ice eyes, add elegant little touches of silver to her obsidian primary. Her navy wraps, meanwhile, carry the same dark blue that comes in just at the tips of her wings downward. Finally, I can't help but admire that beautifully subtle thistle underbelly, which really ties the whole look together. It's faintly grey enough to complement the runes, and a nice light neutral that doesn't draw too much attention to itself, while making the obsidian primary look darker in comparison and slimming down the lines of it so it looks even sleeker.
I used to live in Colorado, so aspen trees are very close to my heart, and I'm glad to see such a lovely dragon as Aspen representing them! He's a very well done tree dragon. Slate is one of those soft, greyish browns that I think most closely resembles the bark of a real tree, which tends to be more grey-brown than true brown. His tiger markings are nicely subtle and suggest a weathered trunk. Freckle is the perfect gene to represent leaves, since it looks like a clump of overlapping leaves on a tree, as seen from below, and avocado is a nicely naturalistic green. Leaf is a lovely color, but I don't see a lot of real leaves that shade of neon green. His apparel is the perfect finishing touch, since the peacekeeping vest is a nice weathered, natural looking brown, and hippie apparel is great for a tree dragon. The built in necklace's blue beads are the same shade of blue as his eyes, which deals very well with the one little detail about him that might have otherwise stood out strangely by itself. You could put ripple on him, which is popular for tree dragons, but if you're not itching to regene him, I honestly think tiger is a really excellent look on him as is.
Charcoal's double obsidian here really shows off the beautiful natural variation you can get even on doubles of the same color. Who could possibly think x/x/y's are boring when Charcoal shows off how obsidian's highlights can go from deep blue to dark green, and then his gorgeous eyespot wings show off no less than two shades of black with the elegant near-white trim at the edges that's so especially flattering on coatl wings? A common problem with obsidian iridescent is those non-black colors in the highlights that compete with other colors, but Charcoal's double obsidian sidesteps that nicely, since his all black color palette means that the highlights in his primary are in good company with exactly the color they were meant to complement. His chocolate underbelly shows off just how well brown and black go together (the answer: very) and coatls with underbelly get an especially nice two-tone effect on their crests from it. Finally, his bright blue lightning eyes round out the look, by being the only spot of bright color on him, making them a focal point that's subtly emphasized by the colored highlights in his primary.
Last, but hardly least, is PinkLemonade who I would have had to review for his name alone, but who is also a very handsome tundra. Tiger is a very flattering gene on tundras, since it goes so nicely with the lines of their fur, and tiger on his brown primary really brings out some nice dark stripes, which look especially good with the way it lightens the fur around his paws. Brown on the FR color wheel is a nice warm shade (as opposed to say Aspen's slate, which is a cooler brown) so it pairs especially well with his warm secondary and tertiary. Tangerine shimmer looks absolutely beautiful on him, since the gradient from pink-orange to yellow- orange looks just like a sunset, and stays soft and light against his darker brown primary. Coral can be a difficult color to work with, but in this case, his coral underbelly is absolutely perfect, since it matches the pink tints to his shimmer wings perfectly, and brings out "Pink" in his name. His red plague eyes are the perfect touch, bringing out the red in the brown around them, and complementing his warm color scheme.
