#i try so hard not to spam the actual corrin tag with my dragon garbage but i mean??

[fraidycat-art]

Can you help me understand Corrin’s dragon form? If Corrin took off their armor, would the armor not appear on the dragon as well? How the hell do the arms work?? Are they bent like a horse?? Or just straight up backwards human elbows like it looks?? And the face? An egg with Horns and movable lower jaw?? How do you bite? I mean maybe this is just a partial dragon form? Because they get jaws in their half-state during crits (from their arms)

Can you help me understand Corrin’s dragon form?

yes but we’re gonna need this.

If Corrin took off their armor, would the armor not appear on the dragon as well? 

I mean, from how I understand, its a very real possibility. Proceed with warning because every dragon!corrin model is different i cannot make that distinction loudly enough, their differences are mostly skin-deep but on the sm4sh corrin model, there is a clear difference between flesh and scales - all in places that aren’t easily analogous. This makes it easy to group them when drawing, though!

The long neck, the tail, and the upper thigh/hips are particularly noteworthy for your idea. They are clearly muscled. You can also see it partially on the wings, but the torso plates stretch to it. Its particularly possible if you want to explore that area! I think that armor-swap versions of the dragon would be rad as hell.

How the hell do the arms work?? Are they bent like a horse?? Or just straight up backwards human elbows like it looks??

WELCOME TO MY SPECIAL HELL. This keeps me up at night! This very question has ruined me. That’s been the question every single time that I’ve drawn dragon!corrin (hence why I’ve drawn so many lately) but I think I’m finally settling on an anatomy that lets me rest. They are bent like a horse, and Corrin tries to move like a horse, it is not horse anatomy, but he is not structured like one. I’ll explain.

First off, let’s look at corrin with human-ish anatomy. Two arms, two legs. Normal stuff.

I use this most of the time, it allows for the front legs to twist enough to meet what Corrin does in cutscenes. The elbow is possible in theory, I try not to think too hard with this - its a simple re-arrangement at the elbow so that the radius lifts upwards. Up until rececntly, I really liked using this - its easy to remember and put my fucking soul to rest. Its really good, without collarbones the shoulder can be twisted any which way - the beauty of a girdle! I figured this was as close to what the actual inspiration was… until I really, really started thinking about why everybody thinks about horses first, and why human arms just… didn’t work. So come with me down this garden path, and look at this corrin with horse legs.

Horse legs are beautiful. They are nice and straight, they bear weight, and they have many points of articulation perfect for motion. Corrin does not have that, Corrin has one major joint and a wrist. See that horizontal bone under the scapula? that’s the radius, together with the scapula that makes the shoulder and the armpit.

However… corrin does not have a visible shoulder. Corrin also does not have an armpit. There is ribcage and then there is leg. That keeps me up at night. I had no explanation! Everything above the tibia and fibia do not exist in corrin. Every animal has that, but It just doesn’t fit! But… it works. When you look at corrin, you see a leg, and you see something along the lines of a horse. Here’s the kicker: there’s a reason you think of horses - despite everything.

for context: Here’s Spirit, an animated horse and source of my artistic inspiration! Dreamworks put a lot of time, effort, and money in order to animate Spirit as anatomically correct as possible. As you can see, it has the correct knee bend for Corrin, but it has a definite shoulder and armpit. So… why are we all thinking about horses when we see Corrin?!? He doesn’t have those!! He also doesn’t have hooves, or even a pastern! This was the first thing that ever struck me about Corrin - I’ve seen those legs on horses before. I’ve seen those legs a lot and I screamed every time I saw them. So why? Why are we thinking about horses when we look at Corrin?

Horses in anime are animated while extremely simplified. It saves on budget, but this means that it trickles down into manga - and eventually into regular art as well. Now take a look at Corrin again…

… I know… I know. Some dude in the design chair saw a huge quadrupedal animal, thought about horses, and drew the anime budget horse leg. Its actually a really prevalent trope! Corrin’s weird legs have been incorrect horse legs this entire time, right under our noses. I know dude - it flies in the face of all comparative anatomy, its wrong, no animal has hind legs for front legs. So the more you think anatomy for Corrin, the more misguided you become. So with this in mind, I personally threw anatomy away - yet it came back and hit me in the face again. Yeah you could get away with human arms for front legs, but… if we’re going for what the inspiration was…. if we’re cutting to the bone…

The front leg is a human leg with the toe bones re-arranged and stretched into a hand. It works better than human arms, in my opinion, as the extremely stout palm on the hand suddenly makes sense. The heel bone gives something for the thumb to anchor to. There is a tibia and fibia for rotation. There is a KNEE. A god-forsaken real knee. There is no scapula. There is no radius. There is, however, a brand new ball-in-socket joint in Corrin’s ribcage, which will wake me in a cold sweat once a month - but by god - THERE IS AN ANSWER.

As well, the human-leg-for-front-leg theory allows for the chest fuckery that the 3d models display. In both Sm4sh and Fates corrin is able to rotate the leg outwardly from the body to a truly startling degree. I briefly played with the idea of a two-hipped dragon. Corrin is a disaster and I love him. 

A note on the hind legs: Its the same mystery, but not one as enthralling as the horse connection. its another artistic trope found in folks who are just starting with animals (particularly cats and dogs) to have the femur and tibia+fibia all curled up like that w. elongated metatarsals - this makes the hind legs INCREDIBLY LONG, however it happens to match what our eyes see in an animal’s sillohuette.

(note: yes, corrin’s thighs are incredibly beefy as a dragon.) This isn’t fully extended in my opinion! with the human arm theory, I couldn’t tip the ribcage upwards due to the scapula, but I’m not joking when I say that Corrin can likely rest his whole body on his chest without losing touch of the ground with any limb. The hind legs are gigantic, but the proportions are too far away from a rabbit’s to be used for hopping. This is why in most cutscenes, animations, ect of Corrin he usually has his hind legs parked behind him or to the side of him. They’re too long! Corrin’s resting state for his hind legs is a crouch.

(pictured: corrin’s beefy dragon thighs. note the wide stance and parking! intsys why… i dont understand… why is the dragon thicc? to be analogous to corrin? is corrin thicc?!?)

TL;DR: Corrin’s legs do not have a comparative anatomy to any one singular creature, mostly due to its complete reliance on artistic tropes instead of actual anatomy. That doesn’t mean we can’t make sense of it with bones, however.

And the face? An egg with Horns and movable lower jaw??

Egg is a strong word for the shape Corrin’s face is. The sm4sh model is generous, face on and left-to-right, the head is so close to being spherical that it might as well be. north-to-south there’s a bit of a hump on the topside due to the exposed spine, it thins out near the nose just a smidge - but its a very, very slight egg shape. My rule of thumb is to just draw a rounded neck, pinch the end just a touch. There’s no notable jawline under the faux-jaw, thought the throat-latch may hang. If anything the base of the ear-tendrils could create one if need be but? for the most part, I really do just… not draw a head. 

if it looks like a ding-dong, you’re doing it right.

(see what i mean about how round it is? bonus: peep those front legs! posed as human legs would be, startled animals are stilt-legged. and the hind legs, as you can see, are struggling to exist.)

The jawbone is layered under the antlers. It hinges where the droptine from the eye meets the jawbone. I made the jaw a little long here, but the tooth area of the jaw never rests against the head. It doesn’t touch the head at all! Well, except for maybe near the jawline - again, just so I can sleep at night.

How do you bite?

Make no mistake - in reality Corrin cannot actually bite anything if he tried! A bite requires a scissoring of teeth, and Corrin doesn’t even have molars/carnassials - if he did, he could at least apply pressure from his head/neck and force it over the teeth but no... If he had an upper jaw, he could use a hatchet-style bite, but as-is the only effective bite would be more like a toothy uppercut. Note: both sm4sh and cutscene corrin detail the outline of teeth! however, heroes and game-model corrin do not.

the top of the ‘eye’ is longer than the bottom of the eye! This is true for every model of corrin. However, the actual size of the ‘eyehole’ is variable. Heroes corrin has a massive eyehole, sm4sh corrin has a very very tiny one. The actual antlers are a story for another day - they’re simpler than they look, but tough to explain.

I’m hopefully going to be making reference sheets for corrin! There needs to be more corrin in the world, and if i gotta pave that road… SO BE IT.

I mean maybe this is just a partial dragon form? Because they get jaws in their half-state during crits (from their arms)

GOD. THIS KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT STILL. I WISH CORRIN HAD ACTUAL JAWS. MAYBE HE DOES? MAYBE HE’S JUST HIDING THEM? LIKE I WANT THIS TO BE REAL SO BADLY. WHERE DOES THAT MOUTH COME FROM CORRIN!?? YOUR WHOLE DRAGON IS BASED ON BEING ENTIRELY UNNATURAL AND WRONG WHERE DID YOU GET THAT MOUTH??