desnik-fr - Tumblr blog

[desnik-fr]

Draw bogsneaks like this

[img id] Digital artwork of a Bogsneak dragon, which looks like a monitor lizard standing upright. It is drawn with thin black lineart. A bogsneak has a long neck, a long tail, relatively stubby lizard limbs, and a short wingspan. Twin frills line its neck. This dragon is mostly tan along the body, with reddish brown wings and mineralized dark brown splotches on all the wing and fin membranes. It sports exotic turquoise marks, including a 'mask' around the eyes and contour lines down its belly and across its limbs. Its tail is vibrantly stripy with deep brown and turquoise stripes.

If someone hates this dragon's anatomy or tells me I've "ruined" my own artwork, I will eat them [/id]

[desnik-fr]

Bogsneak reference

[img id] Photograph taken on a beach of what I believe to be a monitor lizard (?) standing fully upright on two legs with its forearms at its sides, like it's a ding dang human being. The lizard's belly is very long and flat, with white scales. Speckles that form dark gray stripes decorate its belly and coalesce into a stripy, spotted dark gray pattern on the back and around the tail. The lizard wears a gentle red harness with a leash attached to it. This leash reminds me of the harnesses that one puts on a wandering toddler. The scene takes place on either a beach, a playground, or some other area with soft yellow sand. Partially visible, but cropped by the photo, is a child wearing blue swim trunks with a sun design on the side. If the monitor lizard wanted to, it could hook its hand into the child's hand, and they could mosey through the sand together, both fully upright as they walk, as equals and as friends. [/img]

Saw this baby on Facebook & they deserve to be shared

[desnik-fr]

It's for sale! R1 sold out but I am taking reprints for a couple of weeks.

Earth Spirited

(shrugs)

I guess you can have a little bogsneak

as a treat

Dragon base copyright Stormlight Studios

[img id] Digital art of a grayscale, monitor-lizard like Bogsneak dragon with fur, curly horns, and an ominous mask added on. The dragon is very long with a belly that's low to the ground. It has two moderate-sized wings and twin fins running down its head and neck. The digital art additions by me are: An eyeless white mask with Earthen symbols on it over the face, an onyx horn curling down from the back of the dragon's head to the middle of its long neck, a cute little goat ear where you'd expect a goat ear to be, and fur that alternates between being fur and smoke along the neck. The golden fur sprouts down the dragon's back, as a fluffy beard around its chin, and on the dragon's elbows and heels. There are also little sparkles because Dragon Law dictates that there must be sparkles on dragons at all times. [/id]

[desnik-fr]

That's weird! Normally when I dress up a dragon like a familiar it's a shoo-in, but there were definitely tons of good entries and good job to the bog m that actually won.

Yeah I guess I'll print this. Since I am Tired I have pre-emptively darkened the lines, to avoid being declined because if that happened I'd literally just give up printing this at all, but otherwise this is how it's going:

I guess I don't really know what I'm doing in contests after all, lol, but if you're still interested in this design I have an onsite pinglist set up for it:

(Apologies for accidentally reblogging from someone who was not me, I didn't mean to ping you)

Earth Spirited

(shrugs)

I guess you can have a little bogsneak

as a treat

Dragon base copyright Stormlight Studios

[img id] Digital art of a grayscale, monitor-lizard like Bogsneak dragon with fur, curly horns, and an ominous mask added on. The dragon is very long with a belly that's low to the ground. It has two moderate-sized wings and twin fins running down its head and neck. The digital art additions by me are: An eyeless white mask with Earthen symbols on it over the face, an onyx horn curling down from the back of the dragon's head to the middle of its long neck, a cute little goat ear where you'd expect a goat ear to be, and fur that alternates between being fur and smoke along the neck. The golden fur sprouts down the dragon's back, as a fluffy beard around its chin, and on the dragon's elbows and heels. There are also little sparkles because Dragon Law dictates that there must be sparkles on dragons at all times. [/id]

[desnik-fr]

This is the new nature ancient, sorry for the leak

[img id] A completely super legitimate dragon art, probably drawn by Undel because it’s so professional and looks even cooler than Sandsurges! It looks like a doodle of a dragon head on a flower stem. The dragon is weirdly detailed like it's an anime character. The flower stem and leaves are just scribbled. Is this where Flight Rising’s style guide is headed? If so the future looks bright! [/id]

[desnik-fr]

Pinglist Widget

I understand they don't do ~everything~ yet but the pinglists are good

So far I'm seeing waaaay more people sign up in a shorter span of time than my Google pinglist, lots of new names, and they're adding themselves even if I don't log into the site

So speaking as someone who once had a Google pinglist over 1000 entries strong before I trimmed it,

I really really like these new FR-specific forum pinglists,,, they are much better, can't wait to see how they grow

...Now if only I enjoyed manually typing hundreds of weirdly-spelled usernames in order to send out my skins and accents!! Then I would be having a lot of fun

[desnik-fr]

Earth Spirited

(shrugs)

I guess you can have a little bogsneak

as a treat

Dragon base copyright Stormlight Studios

[img id] Digital art of a grayscale, monitor-lizard like Bogsneak dragon with fur, curly horns, and an ominous mask added on. The dragon is very long with a belly that's low to the ground. It has two moderate-sized wings and twin fins running down its head and neck. The digital art additions by me are: An eyeless white mask with Earthen symbols on it over the face, an onyx horn curling down from the back of the dragon's head to the middle of its long neck, a cute little goat ear where you'd expect a goat ear to be, and fur that alternates between being fur and smoke along the neck. The golden fur sprouts down the dragon's back, as a fluffy beard around its chin, and on the dragon's elbows and heels. There are also little sparkles because Dragon Law dictates that there must be sparkles on dragons at all times. [/id]

[desnik-fr]

Thank you for dressing up this skin so well. she’s gorgeous!!!

*insert montage of me throwing random things at her until she’s just layered and layered in clothes* done

[desnik-fr]

Hello, fellow dragon-enjoyers!

Maybe you weren't aware but I made this webcomic about A Very Large Magic Doom Eel, and...I would really love to find some more readers. (Index fingers pressed gently together)

It has already launched and all 48 pages are available. It's more of a proof of concept than a self-contained story, so obvs I'm looking for feedback if you'd like me to continue it with a bigger story.

Happy reading!

Oh gosh!! My webcomic, Amphiox, launches this Friday on the 16th! It is about magic doom eels.

It will update one page per day until the story is complete. Each page includes a full text transcript so everyone can read along.

[img id] Image depicted is the cover to the webcomic, Amphiox. It's a black cover with criss-crossing blue serpent coils taking up most of the background. The coils writhe around each other with faint glimmers of scales highlighted, before vanishing into darkness. This is a teaser for the beast that will be encountered and explained within the webcomic.

Layered over the writhing coils of the Amphiox is its tail, oddly centered and still compared to the rest of its body. An amphiox's tail ends in a fin with rounded tips. The fin's color is a bright, bioluminescent gradient composed of yellow fading into bright skyblue, before tapering into a darker cerulean. The tail has vibrating red highlights. It casts a rainbow of highlights onto its own scales. Attached to this tail are two more, lesser pectoral and dorsal fins, in cerulean blue. The pectoral fin pokes out near the tail, and the dorsal fin is further up, and larger. Layered onto the tail is a vertically-aligned title text: AMPHIOX. Beneath that is 'H. McGill' and 'http://amphiox.hmcgill.art' in white. [/id]

[desnik-fr]

You'd draw skydancers like this too, if you weren't a coward

[img id] Digital art of a purple Skydancer dragon from Flight rising. Her name is Osana. Skydancers are typically very elegant, birdlike dragons that are bestowed with all the pretty skins and apparel items. However I've opted for the more muppety aspects of Osana's avian ancestry, making her gangly with big lanky limbs and oversized feet/hands. Osana is a dragon who has piebald/paint genes, resulting in cute splotches of purple all over her body. She has the Glimmer underbelly gene which turns the underside of her neck and belly into a softly glittery royal purple feathers. Rainbows reflect from her wingfeathers. She looks really gawky and silly, with one leg raised. This pose was specifically inspired by the way a cat sits after it's finished licking its own butthole. [/id]

[desnik-fr]

Thanks for this, Mythical-Viper! I loved the detailed analysis. I don’t have as much time to do as detailed a breakdown as this but I wanted to share some things I observed too. I am not staff but here are my guesses as to what they like.

-Matching flight familiars is a very safe bet. Every time I referenced a familiar, I won. If you are just getting into these contests or art in general, I highly recommend studying Flight familiars and applying their design elements to dragons. Players enjoy matching familiars to dragons, so I imagine that makes skins like these a good pick. It’s a good way to pick up FR’s art tricks and avoid overworking your design.

-Staff likes punny names, I think. ‘Noodlebranch’ for my nudibranch-themed Spiral skin, ‘Wild Sprite’ instead of ‘Wind Sprite’, ‘Nice View’ on a skin about having too many eyeballs. Make their game fun for them, and you’ll probably make their game fun for other players, too. More serious names of mine didn’t even get honorable mentions.

-Try matching Flight vistas and Flight gods, and be sure to include elements on the dragon’s face. A lot of players look for fest skins that match a fest vista. I imagine staff is trying to select things that players want.

-Matching Flight apparel didn’t work out as well as familiars, for me. Maybe it could work, though. I tried it a couple of times and uh, no acknowledgement whatsoever, lol.

-Flight-appropriate textures that really ‘flow’ with the dragon’s volume, perspective, and lineart are also a good idea. It’s also good practice for gene design if Staff ever opens a position for gene designs. You literally cannot go wrong with gradients, as Viper says here, and I’d also like to add that sparkles and Flight-colored ‘magic goop’ goes with any dragon.

-I had a couple of wildcard wins — Like Snake Eyes for Wildclaw M, an aesthetic that had nothing to do with purple Shadow stuff and was on a popular breed. It was a gambling-themed accent with an eye that changes color depending on the dragon’s secondary. IIRC, it was so off-aesthetic that I was accused of using the fest thread to ‘advertise’ a UMA…which was very interesting... Anyway, I think staff appreciates fun transparency effects every now and then but I wouldn’t bank on it selling the design.

-In my opinion Staff is not realllllly looking for the boundaries of their Flight aesthetic to be expanded/pushed. Sometimes it can still win. My strategy was ‘weird’ entry that pleased me, and ‘safe’ entry that pulled more directly from FR stuff.

-In no way did my high-effort, time-intensive skins ever do better than the ones I knocked out in like a day. It’s not worth destroying your wrists or your sense of well-being for this contest. Use the site’s aesthetic! It’s designed to be implemented quickly and cleanly.

FR Skin Contests and You (and Me)

Let’s talk about festival skin contests.

This post will be 1) about win conditions 2) my breakdown on my wins/losses. Before we start, please know a lot of this is guesswork, and based on my own perspective. Still, I hope this will be useful for some people ^^

***August/888 and I (but August mostly as it’s his idea) will be hosting an event encouraging new artists to join festival contests on 8/8. It will have a lot of tips and references to help get you started, so please keep an eye out! 

-

When it comes to skin contests, people generally enter for one of three reasons: 1) for fun 2) because it’s seen as a milestone of skinmaking, or 3) out of a desire to push yourself to the limit knowing you’ll regret it like a Sunday hangover– but I hope that’s just me.

In my two years of participating in skin contests, I’ve seen a lot of artists join with a lot of excitement, only to give up or drop out because they aren’t winning. Some blame it on skill, others blame it on the staff, and some blame it on fellow competitors. 

Here’s what I will say: like any contest, winning the festival skin contest is based on a combination of luck, knowledge, and skill. Just like any contest, there is a strategy to it and there are win conditions that you have to fulfill if you want a chance at winning. Some artists find these win conditions quickly and are able to adapt and cultivate the skill needed to pull off a win. Some are aware of these win conditions but do not yet have the skill to pull off a win. And some aren’t aware at all. A loss is usually (but not always) a result of not fulfilling those win conditions, or not fulfilling them as much as another artist. 

So, let’s talk about these win conditions.

Keep reading

[desnik-fr]

#when you breed change an Aberration you get two dragons. each of those heads gotta go somewhere YES. YOU GET IT.

For FR's 10th Anniversary...

I want people to reblog this post with their worst, most unhinged Flight Rising takes, no holding back, but also remembering to be kind to each other

[desnik-fr]

#let us have emperor dragons in our lair that are made by mashing multiple imps in our lairs together

#delete all g1 imps except dragon 12

More like these, less like Suggestions Forum, thank you

For FR's 10th Anniversary...

I want people to reblog this post with their worst, most unhinged Flight Rising takes, no holding back, but also remembering to be kind to each other

[desnik-fr]

*whines* I said Unhinged, that means make it funnie,,, omg

For FR's 10th Anniversary...

I want people to reblog this post with their worst, most unhinged Flight Rising takes, no holding back, but also remembering to be kind to each other

[desnik-fr]

For FR's 10th Anniversary...

I want people to reblog this post with their worst, most unhinged Flight Rising takes, no holding back, but also remembering to be kind to each other

[desnik-fr]

I thought this emoji was a got damn CRAB

-

[img id] Screenshot of Aequorin's announcement on flight rising. Aequorin uses an icon that looks like a little mouse with fins and glowy bits on the fins. Text reads: Dragon Share Theme Week: Celebration! Next to a pair of red dragon wing emoji that look like a GOT DAMN CRAB[/id]

[desnik-fr]

Me: Time to not play Flight Rising for a few months, if not ever again

Also me: waaaooo flight rising tumblr is so funny, I have a million bad ideas for shitposts