Cute Baby Dragon

There are many images on the interwebs of baby dragons made in colourful polymer clay. I thought I might try making a young dragon in that style, and then see if I can create how that dragon may look after a thousand tough years…

I made a rough sculpt of the basic form. (It will have a lot of add-ons - spine plates, wings, spikes etc)


I would like to be able to animate both models, so before getting into details, I thought I would do a low resolution retopo and try it with one of rigify’s new animal metarigs.


With the model, my main problem area is the nose area. Most dragons have a reptile face with crocodile or lizard nostrils. I thought I’d try with a cat/dog shaped nose, then thought it would be too hard on the elderly model, and got stuck somewhere in the middle.

With the rigging there is a lot to do - apart from making the joints work better, the main area I see is that the back legs should pivot a lot higher up and the rump should move better. The tail should be slimmer. Also I’m having a bit of trouble with rigify and the feet. It’s using a cat metarig, and in a cat the paw is small and so not articulated. I would like a human foot rig on an animal leg, but I can’t see how I can do that with rigify (Not complaining! The new improvments are great!!)

Any comments would be appreciated…