2020-05-21 - Dragon Cave's 14th Birthday!

[Miraku]

Absolutely loveeeeeee the adult sprites! Great job done guys! 

 

My personal favorite is the sapo dragon sprite. Something about the colours and the sprite just touched my heart. How the little tadpole looking hatchie evolved into this beauty!!  Definitely aiming to hoard these heh. 

 

Again, great job done!!!! 

[Moonlightelf]

11 hours ago, Nakase said:

Sapo, latin for Soap. Not very creative there =P

axolotl similarities and betta fish similarities

I love their smiles, whiskers and gradient.

I enjoyed the concept of the fins becoming more vibrant as they aged.

Oh yeah, these dragons are THICC. Think seals

 

colors + single pose = trans

( I noticed this similarity as I was picking out my colors, and the fact that if it only had one pose, then it would continue the thought into a sentence. We are all precious.)

image is the painting in progress~

 

Did Mizutsune from Monster Hunter series play any role as an inspiration? ^^ Just asking since they are kinda similar, both being soapy dergs ❤️

 

[smokeytripod]

Got 2 of each apart from the pygmy ones ( I can't seem to find any), no problem though as I'm not a huge fan of pygmies....don't get me though wrong the art is awesome as it is with all the new ones, the Jesters are my natural favorite though as I have a fondness for the 2 headed dragons >.<

[DarkellaLord]

The whole theme of care package is so sweet.Thank you=)

[jumpsnake]

What a lovely lovey theme, love and hugs back to all of you who make DC possible!! ❤️❤️🙌🏼

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by jumpsnake

[Chaosdawn]

12 hours ago, cbussiere said:

Still want to know why Alcedines are all female

 

They aren't, my first Alcedine egg precogged and gendered male.

[Nakase]

2 hours ago, Moonlightelf said:

Did Mizutsune from Monster Hunter series play any role as an inspiration? ^^ Just asking since they are kinda similar, both being soapy dergs ❤️

 

 

Nope. I don't play that game, and don't know anything about that critter.

[saltywench]

2 hours ago, Chaosdawn said:

 

They aren't, my first Alcedine egg precogged and gendered male.

I'm so glad! I was wondering if it was just a typo on TJ's part, because two different female sprites was weird with no males to go with them. So the males are blue? Or are there two sets of Alcedine that use the same sprite for male and female?

Edited May 25, 2020 by saltywench

[Kith]

There are two colors that each use the same sprites for males and females.

[ValidEmotions]

12 minutes ago, saltywench said:

I'm so glad! I was wondering if it was just a typo on TJ's part, because two different female sprites was weird with no males to go with them. So the males are blue? Or are there two sets of Alcedine that use the same sprite for male and female?

It's an alt; there's no gender dimorphism. The color that hatches is entirely random.

 

Edit: lol ninja'd by that much.

Edited May 25, 2020 by ValidEmotions

[Ruby Eyes]

18 hours ago, purplehaze said:

I wonder if they will breed true?

I hope that there's at least a *chance* at them breeding the other colours, too

[Syiren]

For the Alcedines, has the reason been confirmed yet as to how to get each color? A friend traded me a blue for a pink/red as both of mine hatched pink/red. 

[Kith]

The coloration has been confirmed to be random. Any egg could hatch into either color.

[Syiren]

Awesome! Thanks, @Kith

 

[pinkgothic]

Oh my gosh, I absolutely adore the Labradorites, the females especially. ❤️ 😍 They are staggeringly eerie, I love it. I'm so going to have to pair them with Arsanis. Not even a contest.

[purplehaze]

Are the blue Alcedines more common? I seem to be seeing more of those in hatcheries and trades and both of my hatchies so far are blue/

[Fuzzbucket]

As I understand it, they were all blue at first - so those who caught theirs early will all be blue. Like mine are  Then reds fell a lot to catch up....

[Quinney]

Guess I'm lucky to have one of each right now.  Got two more eggs today - we'll see.

[Seriva Senkalora]

30 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

As I understand it, they were all blue at first - so those who caught theirs early will all be blue. Like mine are  Then reds fell a lot to catch up....

No release date reds for us.

[Quinney]

16 minutes ago, Seriva Senkalora said:

No release date reds for us.

My blue isn't the release date. I only got the red one.

[spatio]

14 hours ago, Shokomon said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

- This is so sweet. Thank you all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- A collection of all the things said so far about the dragons!

All the art is so lovely!

 

I didn't see anything for the Labradorite dragons though. (Or I just missed it.)

Oops, I guess I should have posted this!  My original sketch for the labradorites.  Doha spiced up the head design with horns when we were working on the sprites.  My headcanon for size is that they're sorta like goldfish - the bigger the cave, the bigger the Labby (plus those in mana-rich caves would grow faster than others).  I'd imagine most of them aren't overly enormous, but the occasional cryptid inhabiting a mammoth cave system may be scary large.  But still friendly little buggers.  Probably the type to pop out of a hole suddenly and scare someone because they've been waiting so long for someone to get close enough that they can share their eerily intuitive/specific life advice or WIP script for this amazing play they've written and oh my gosh you're just gonna love this character! Wait, why are you running away?

[HeatherMarie]

*snort-laughs at spatio's description of Labradorite's personality* Oh goodness now I love them even more, I now have a perfect mental image of an excited Labradorite head popping out of a hole suddenly wanting to chat with the human.

[pinkgothic]

16 minutes ago, spatio said:

My original sketch for the labradorites.

AaaaaaAAAaaaaaaah I love them and I want a hundred. (Wait, I can have a hundred. *_* Nothing is stopping me! Nothing! Bwahahahaha!)

 

They're so xenomorphy, but with much less maiming and much more enthusiastic friendliness. I am deffo smooshing them together with Arsanis.

 

(Also I can so relate to these guys. I usually go by "Dread" on my home IRC network. It takes people a while to notice it's not descriptive of me. )

[Shokomon]

Spoiler

 

On 5/24/2020 at 8:35 AM, Infinis said:

Yeee adult time ~ Alcedines are based on kingfishers! Common kingfisher and south Philippine dwarf kingfisher. 🙂

 

Quote

For everyone wondering if there was any theme method to our madness, this release was intended as a care package.  A big thank-you from all of us for being an awesome community; we're right there with you and together we're gonna get through this.  I hope you all enjoy the release!

 

- This is so sweet. Thank you all!

 

On 5/24/2020 at 9:25 AM, SkyWolf25 said:

Adults!!

Here's the sketch I did for the Cloudplume, with a few edits made to accurately represent the final sprite:

Squishy toe beans. Yes.

 

Some tidbits:

-They'd love plushies. Hatchlings especially would absolutely adore them. I guess it'd be a stuffed doll in canon DC setting?

 

-The tail plumes and the two pairs of large feathers on their backs faintly shimmer with iridescence when the dragon is full of mana. It's a sort of surplus magic. I wonder if you can see a hint of it on the sprite?

 

-Their actual body is not really fat or bulky; the thick feather coat and air magic provides enough warmth, so they don't have much need for extra body fat.

 

-Always happy to provide snuggles for their friends. They love snuggles.

 

-This is what I imagine their size to be. It's a size chart for all of my released breeds.(pls excuse the doodle-ness)

(all sizes can be changed in the future depending on changes to average DC dragon sizes or if I change my mind)

They're big enough to bury your hands in the feathers, or bury yourself in their floofiness. 

 

Finally, here's a portrait, in three different versions since floof shading is haard and I wasn't too happy with the result x'D

(large images warning)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Feel free to ask me questions regarding the Cloudplumes! I love opportunities for more lore. :3

 

On 5/24/2020 at 10:19 AM, hazeh said:

WHOOOOOOOO!!!! 

Happy Birthday DragCave and well wishes for everyone during this time! 

I haven't quite finished their official artwork yet, but have a birthday card in the meantime!! 😁 (And yes, Amalthean is definitely a heavy reference to Lady Amalthea from the Last Unicorn-- but also the name Amalthea in general means "noble goddess" and is the name of the she-goat that nursed the god Zeus when he was an infant )

 

On 5/24/2020 at 12:12 PM, TCA said:

Hi guys, glad to see you are all enjoying the dragons! The Jesters were a fun design I came up with by trying to combine the Bauta's 'mask' aesthetic with the black and white color scheme of the Blancblacks, around the same time we decided to do a care package theme, so they fit right in as a representative for finding ways to occupy your mind and relieve stress via consuming entertainment. Wishing you all the best!!

 

On 5/24/2020 at 2:52 PM, hazeh said:

Thank you, I'm really glad you like them!! I have loved unicorns since I was a toddler so I knew I had to jump at the chance to make these guys. I am very proud of them!

 

Since I've seen the question floating around a little, I'll clarify here: the horn is made of both wood and bone. As a hatchling, a piece of the stave from their White parent is removed and bonded to the hatchling as their power comes into being (in the case of Amaltheans with Amalthean parents, it would be a piece broken off from one of the parent's horns). This wood fuses to the dragon's bone and integrates into the neural and magical network of energy in the dragon's body. The wood is still alive, and grows as a tree generally might, thus they have to constantly sharpen and file their horns down on trees or stones in their territory to keep them at manageable lengths. Texture-wise it's a bit harder than natural wood, similar to fossilized wood, because of its fusion to the bone (which acts like antler bone, though the horn itself is never fully shed). 

 

On 5/24/2020 at 3:41 PM, Hawaiianbabidoll said:

Here is some of the concept art for the Pargulus Pygmy.

 

Some trivia:

-They weren't originally going to come in multiple flavors. After testing out some palettes, I was struggling to narrow it down to one. So after asking some opinions, I narrowed it down to 3 instead.

-Their name comes from a combination of the latin words for 'little' and 'gatherer'

-Citrus trees grow well in the desert and the tropics, peaches in volcanic soil and temperate climates, and berry bushes along the coast and in valleys.

 

 

On 5/24/2020 at 6:20 PM, Infinis said:

Here's the concept art for the pink alcedine: https://sta.sh/0cjxgdcg6rg

 

they were originally going to be m/f dimorphic set but the blue ended up appearing so much visually larger that I ended up deciding they'd be alts, so there's no separate concept art for the blue one (just a color mockup on the same base as the pink alcedine's concept art). blues were originally going to have longer, branching antlers but this ended up too complex with the mane texture right there as well owo 

 

On 5/24/2020 at 7:06 PM, Nakase said:

Sapo, latin for Soap. Not very creative there =P

axolotl similarities and betta fish similarities

I love their smiles, whiskers and gradient.

I enjoyed the concept of the fins becoming more vibrant as they aged.

Oh yeah, these dragons are THICC. Think seals

 

colors + single pose = trans

( I noticed this similarity as I was picking out my colors, and the fact that if it only had one pose, then it would continue the thought into a sentence. We are all precious.)

image is the painting in progress~

 

 

On 5/24/2020 at 8:53 PM, hazeh said:

 

I'm not sure where the implication that white dragons grow their own staffs from their body comes from 😅. Their encyclopedia says they take branches off ancient elms and staffs can be passed down through the generations. Amaltheans simply absorb a small piece of that staff and grow that piece for the rest of their lives as part of themselves. 

 

For those who are separated early enough from their parents, they would likely find a branch from a tree they are most fond of and use that as a substitute. I imagine their magic would not be as strong this way, though, since a lot of the potency comes from the magic imbued by white dragons into the wood. 

 

 

16 hours ago, spatio said:

Oops, I guess I should have posted this!  My original sketch for the labradorites.  Doha spiced up the head design with horns when we were working on the sprites.  My headcanon for size is that they're sorta like goldfish - the bigger the cave, the bigger the Labby (plus those in mana-rich caves would grow faster than others).  I'd imagine most of them aren't overly enormous, but the occasional cryptid inhabiting a mammoth cave system may be scary large.  But still friendly little buggers.  Probably the type to pop out of a hole suddenly and scare someone because they've been waiting so long for someone to get close enough that they can share their eerily intuitive/specific life advice or WIP script for this amazing play they've written and oh my gosh you're just gonna love this character! Wait, why are you running away?

 

15 hours ago, spatio said:

They literally were inspired by xenomorphs xD  Horns had to be added and other things tweaked so they weren't so on the nose haha

 

- A collection of all the stuff posted on the Dragons in the spoiler

 

Thank you @spatio! The personality for the Labaradorites make me lol.

 

Though, physically, they remind me of Aliens from Alien (lol).

Edited May 26, 2020 by Shokomon
adding more info

[Kith]

Something about the fluidity of the design puts me in mind of a lot of Allison Theus's work. *rubs chin*