New Year Choice Poll: All the dragons!

Tis the year of the dragon (or it soon will be), and as I said earlier, I am itching to introduce some more dragons in(to) my life. So when I thought of the topic for this year's first patron poll, I gathered all the dragons I ever wanted to do fanart for and thought to let you give them a spin.

To keep things simple, I restricted the pool to dragons from videogames I played (so no Temeraire, even if I do like him a lot). There is surprisingly very few games in my library that feature a named or prominently designed dragon. Shame, games industry!

The winning lizard (or lizardish creature) will feature in a proper fullscale painting. The losers may still end up drawn this year though, because I am looking for more dragon-shaped excuses to add to my gallery.

As an added twist, since I will be starting all of these from scratch, there is no way I would finish them within a month's time. But regardless of how far I'll get with the actual painting, I will also create a bonus piece unique to each of them.

And, well... sorry, no Guild Wars 2 dragons, because GW2 still gets the no-paintings rule. But there will be a stream in February related to GW2 stuff, too.

So without further ado, here are our dragon contenders. Please note that the doodle next to each portrait is not thumbnail for the resulting painting, just a quick show of the various shapes these beauties come in.

1] Seteth, the Nabatean who sucks at keeping a secret
(Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

A tiger-shaped six-limbed earth dragon, a member of a race that was hunted to extinction for its magic.

This is technically kind of cheating, because Seteth never transforms in the game and keeps to his human form, so this is fully a design of my own. I am also keeping this not marked as a spoiler, because while his true nature is officially a secret, he absolutely sucks at keeping it. I was still kind of sad we never got to see his proper dragon form, not even in the Heroes game, so I tried to remedy that.

As a bonus, I will finish the full design sheet I started working on when I first played Three Houses, as I have since learned how to draw wings properly.

2] Hraesvelgr, the scion of first brood who ended Dragonsong War
(Final Fantasy XIV)

Eastern-type dragon with six-fold feathered wings.

I make no secret that of all of FF XIV, Ishgard gets the biggest portion of my attention, investment and care. I love that place, its politics, its characters, and its heavy dose of dragons everywhere, so it was quite hard to pick just one. But even though there's plenty of other favorites of mine (sarcastic little pocket Midgardsormr came in close second), Hraesvelgr is the heart of the Heavensward expansion and his design stands out so prominently that he won.

As a bonus, I will ad a colored sketch of a certain member of his brood.

3] Barioth, the sabretooth cat that entered contest on a formality
(Monster Hunter)

I know this is technically not referred to as "dragon" in its own game, but he is dragon-shaped enough to count in my heart, okay?

Monster Hunter is a very frustrating series for me. On one hand, I am absolutely in love with the creature designs in it. It's the grownup version of Pokémon that I always wanted – fantastic beasts inhabiting a world in a way that makes them feel a part of it, tangled up in a working ecosystem. 

But I struggle to get into the games mostly because just murdering these was never enough for me. Still, I got dragged into at least Stories 2 and World, and those scratched a bit of an itch.

Barioth's bonus buddy will be a colored doodle of another MonHun monster, because an excuse to draw more of these is always welcome.

4] Arokh, the bonded dragon of Heron
(Drakan: Order of the Flame)

Good old european dragon, as basic as they get, but with lots of character.

"Once bound, we are as one. Whatever wound I suffer, you will share. And if I die, your fate will be worse than death."

How come nobody remade this game yet? Or even picked up its theme and idea? Drakan was absolutely amazing back in the old days (yes, I am that old), and Arokh stole the show in gameplay and story alike. I still can quote the lines, even if I spoke no English back then. Come on, Sony, you own the rights, do it.

As a bonus, I will challenge myself to mock up a concept art sketch for a fake "remake" of the game.

5] Bahamut, the prince who should not be trusted with a coup
(Final Fantasy XVI)

Majestic spiky wyvern-shaped dragon imbued with the power of light and able to cast a massive magic nuke.

Listen, I like Bahamuts in general. I have been naming my desktop PC "Bahamut" in my home network for over a decade, for crying out loud. But this one is somewhat more special. The story we got with him in FF16 was exactly my kind of jam, and I will very likely do more fanart of him whether you guys vote for him or not... but you could also get a very neat painting of his dragon form on top!

As a bonus, I will add some more doodles of the Sanbreqois dragonets being adorable, similar to the ones I drew last Summer.

6] Tav, who is just happy to be there
(Baldur's Gate 3)

Listen, I did not want to play Baldur's Gate 3. I am generally not too much into Forgotten Realms. But then they did that final Panel From Hell and showed the dragonborn and I got roped in, and it is genuinely one of the best games I have played, so I had to represent it somehow. And since there's only one named dragon in the game itself (Ansur) and that one is... uh... severely past its expiry date, so to speak, my monk had to step in. Dragonborn technically are dragons, right? Well... they come with the right kind of blood to count as one.

Tav, my dragonborn monk, will come with the added bonus of a sketch page featuring all of my other BG3 player characters (because it is never just one). 

That is it for today's contenders. Have fun voting, and if you do not know either of these... go give their games a try, I fully recommend them.

The rest of this month will be a bit louder – there's a post about the hybrid design coming up (it ended being twins!), some making-of posts that I have had on the write-up for a while, an official ANet stream on the 21st that will get you a charr fix, and a wee little secret that I am (hopefully) going to finalize next week.  Plus two more finished pieces to accompany the stellar dragon from earlier.

Happy February, everyone, and thank you for being a lovely audience.