Myself: Alba Palacio
Artstation
Facebook
Portfolio
Email: albapalacioest@gmail.com
Team : Fantasy
Name of the character: Skatral
Hi all, first of all, thanks for viewing!
I choose team fantasy, not only because of my love since childhood to magic and mythology who only grow with the years as I read more and developed my passion for fantasy creatures, fairytales, magic, and ultimately to my profession.
Anyhow, dragons and knights had been a recurrent theme for me, I love to design armors and knights, in not so shiny armor most of the time.
So I started with the idea of, what if I told the usual theme /the dragon and the knight/ in a different way, what if the dragon is the survivor and it has a story to tell.
So, I started experimenting with the dragon anatomy and form and loose sketches until I found something that inspires me more, a figure that has a background worth exploring and where I can find my champion.
UPDATE FOR CONCEPT CHARACTER SHEET: SKATRAL THE WINGLESS ONE
FINAL ILLUSTRATION
Bits of background from my champion:
How could I design this creature after being trapped there, without any chance of escape while it eats just enough to survive lost in the interior of the ruins, the knight suddenly just a dead corpse, and its body is groving but it´s not strong enough to scape in that first decades. How its anatomy developed and twisted to make the holes and adapt to the prison to make it its home.
It gaves me the chance to make its wings pale, like an insect, all the color washed out from its body after being in the darkness so long, only its decorated head remains with a touch of the coloured palette its scales could have once.
Skull bone shows in some parts of its head, the tail is twisted from being inside the cage too long, the wings had to adapt to being the arms, more muscled, its fingers endured to support the heavy load, for the real arms are still trapped there, between the cage and the armor that hangs, few times can be seen, scratching the metal.
Designing the head with six eyes and with that weird bone and muscle has been a challenge to make it work in form and in the general silhouette.
Sure it ends with some weird care for its deceased owner and caretaker, the knight that still hangs from the cage. And a dragon with some Stockhlom syndrome I think
The dragon keeps the head with the helmet and it has a special place in its nest, now the entrance of the ruins where it has lived all this years. Takes care that nothing touches the rests of its knight and it has always a fire near on.
The gold it founds it keeps inside the armor, maybe has an offering, maybe to always carry the treasure, this nobody knows for sure.
Strange customs of a dragon left alone for too long and still grieving.
The local people knew about it, it is a figure that has been twisted from legends and tales in the night.
Some of them even recall from long years ago, the great figure of the knight, carrying a big jail in his back while asking for the old ruins to never be seen again... Theelders say the dragon still remembers its master and that´s why it still wanders the place, some who defends its intelligence says it knows it must follow the code its master followed while alive.
They respect it and leave it alone, they know well that, while the main body is trapped there, the creature is able to breathe fire and move nimbly with its wings now two strong arms.
Terrifyingly swift for the ones unfortunate enough to try to sneak and steal from its nest.
What they know later it´s that the dragon, in its particular vision of the things, doesn´t attack hunters when it meets them by chance in the forest, doesn´t like to be disturbed when it is devouring a sheep, just walks by the village from time to time to get somewhere and that it protects them when danger is upon the villagers.
After a girl and his brother ran into the ruins fleeing from the attackers a year ago,fearing the blades and raiders more than the chance of meeting the dragon in his nest, the beast had suddenly appeared observing curious the scene behind the falls.
For a few seconds brother and sister stared frozen just doubting what would be their end, now trapped between the two evils. Fortunately the dragon focused on the raiders and had shrieked towards them unleashing its fury.
One of the wings as the girl said later, was in front of them, almost like a shield for the two kids. The smell of burned hair and meat filling their noses in their way back home minutes later, unscathed and still with the fear inside but alive.
So that´s a bit how the story goes, village feels in debt, gives the dragon meat and cleans the entrance and shrine from time to time. The people grows less weary when near the dragon and the mysterious creature seems to let them and observe with curiosity. Maybe a part of it welcomes them and likes the contact that fills the years of solitude
trapped deep in the ruins.
First sketches and ideas:
I start with these seeking a shape that I find interesting to develop
I will post what I choose over the next days and how my champion keeps taking its form!
13 february
I have the head decided, has taken me a bit, because I like to play with weird forms when I can, but I really dig the geometric form it has now in this sketch and the several eyes, because of reasons. It´s agressive and I want to play with the light of the fire that can be seen in the neck tissue.
First palette with colors that I like, I think it´s going to be pale, for it´s background.
I will try more tests if I have some time.
I will add the rest of the body and the background I´m developing this days
Thank you!
