Océana | Character Design | Lore in Description

Water dragons are to the sea what others are to the sky. Rather than soaring above the clouds through sunset skies, they sweep through the moonlit oceans. On the surface, it may be stunning, full of life and glowing - not many dare to search below, into the murky depths of the unknown. But some dare to search the beyond, explore where no one has explored before.
Océana is a dragon belonging to the aquatic tribe - I'm not sure if she’s a WOF dragon or not. Thriving below, in the rippling currents shimmers dragons in their dozens - a stark contrast to the popular belief of desolate emptiness. Sometimes she forays into the surface territory, which is where she gets most of her jewellery from, scavenging for pearls, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds - mostly lost treasure from the tribe.
Although Océana’s subtribe has evolved to possess esca - which I was inspired to add by angelfish, and phosphorescent scale patterns on wings and vampire-squid-inspired tail spike membrane, they still have little need for eyesight, for their natural lights have a small radius. Instead, Océana elects to cover them with a blindfold made of glimmering coral, retrieved from the sun-kissed waters of the tropics. Adorned with flowers the shade of deepest cerulean, which excrete a toxic venom, yet beautiful, glistening in the vague light of her esca, the blindfold protects her eyes from the dangers of the void, whether it be creatures of the deep or other unknown dangers. When it comes to drawing her for any reason, her blindfold is optional and the same goes for the flowers on her talons, her eyes are the same sapphire shade as the flowers.
For lore, I don’t have too much since I was mostly thinking about the design, but here’s what I have. She belongs to the royal family of the deep sea subtribe, and is in line to become the leader. She would hold the title of ‘Queen of the Abyss’, if she were to become the leading monarch. Her wealth is displayed by her lavish ornaments, varying from diamond embeds below her eyes to the Pearl-and-Jewel strings flowing from her spine and wings. The glowing starbursts lining her wing membrane can be dimmed or enhanced, and she also possesses them along the rest of her body, and akin to seawing stripes, these are also used for communication and signalling, but also to lure in prey. Océana is fierce, with a competitive streak often causing heated arguments - not being known for her diplomatic relationships, although outwardly she is known to be a good negotiator. Inwardly, this is blackmail.
For inspiration, this was actually a Moodboard contest entry for @Hoppycoco, an artist who draws mostly stunning dragons, she should be linked in the corner at the end of the video, and hopefully in the description too so go check her art out. I’m not going to lie, although maybe it would at some point, none of the frames sparked any concepts in me and my ideas veered wildly off the desolate, empty vibes of the moodboard - I would love to use it again at some point whenever it sparks interest in me, but for now I’m going to lay it to rest.. in my photo album. I did manage to garner a few ideas from it, although the way they are presented in the final design is unfortunately rather lacking. The lighthouse frame is what inspired me to add the glowing esca - which is the thing on an angler fish's head, if you didn’t already know. I struggled for a while on how to incorporate it and even now it lacks the colours and overall feeling of the lighthouse. For the image with the whale tail - or at least, I think that’s what it is, I incorporated it by ending her tail with a powerful tail shape, which I like to think would be more iridescent than most of her scales. I originally tried to include pufferfish spikes, though it wouldn’t work with the angle, so just pretend she has them and you can draw her with them if you want. With the frames of splashes and waves, I tried to add them within the patterns of her scales, and for the umberellas, I tied them into the vampire squid membranes attached to her tail. For the life of me I honestly just could not figure out how to include the dog or islands I tried to incorporate the fur colour into the belly scales, before realising it just would not work with the ghostly idea I had in mind.
The funny thing about this video is that it’s 9 minutes and 3 seconds long, and the time it took to draw was 9 hours and 3 minutes. Next Saturday will be a free adopt, so I’ll see you then.
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