As I peruse Ye Olde Interwebs in search of inspiration, artwork, cat videos, etc. I often come across images of that most celebrated of mythical beasts, the dragon. They come in all colors and sizes, they breathe fire, they fly. It’s that last topic that captures my attention. Specifically the wings.
Dragons are generally depicted with wings far too small to support their massive bulk in flight. Why? The wings are perhaps the most dramatic, flashy part of the dragon, and an easy way to make them look larger and more intimidating without getting in trouble with the square cube rule (for all us lay people, if you make something too big it will become unable to support its own weight and will collapse). And yet they are undersized.
Now, to be fair wing-sizing can be confusing if you’re basing proportions off of birds. Birds, having hollow bones (and being much, much, much smaller than most dragons), are able to be supported by proportionally smaller wings than say, a human might need. The average adult male would require a 6.7 meter wingspan to fly (that’s about 7 YARDS for all us Americans), so imagine scaling that up to a full-sized DRAGON. I’d do that math for you, but dragon size and density are too variable. And I’m not good at numbers.
But putting those aside, I do also find it curious that dragon wings (and indeed entire dragons) are usually so…plain. Humans are not notorious for hoarding treasure, yet almost every culture bedecks themselves with *something*. Why not dragons? Presumably each has a hoard; perhaps bedecking would be a method of showing off. Wings offer an enormous expanse of flesh (…I don’t like that phrase, I apologize) to be decorated.
I can see the desire to keep wings from getting too heavy with gold, jewels, etc., but that still leaves the entire rest of the dragon! Necklaces, armbands, rings; depending on how advanced the dragon culture is there could be dragon jewelers. Though if I had only claws and no opposable thumbs, I might find jewelry tiresome too.
So in conclusion, go forth into the wide world of dragons, art, and the internet, and draw big wings. And maybe make them shiny.
Be free,
Nah
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Is this about different kinds of tea? Be it that today is Halloween, I put on my Star Trek: The Next Generation shirt. Anyhow, in the series the Captain is named Jean-Luc Picard. One of the aspects of the show is that whenever he settles down a bit he asks the computer to create a cup of EARL GREY TEA-HOT.
It is instead a site for my random rants, the tea imagery references the phrase “spill the tea”, which means to share gossip.
Live long and prosper
Ah I understand the tea reference now thanks for the clarification. Also thanks for bringing this project to a pulse!
The dragon’s which I have spent the most time with were the ones in the original Atari game “Adventure”. In that game there were three dragons which corresponding with 3 castles. The Red dragon was the fastest. Either way, they always kept up the pace in such a classic game!
Hey I just noticed you said “Live Long & Prosper”….are you a Star Trek fan by chance at all?
There is a tiny Trekkie inside of me; I grew up on a lot of the same shows as my dad so I know TOS more than TNG or any of the other series, but I like them more for the nostalgia than for what they are
I understand. I think many things move along like that. I still think the concept of a bunch of folks exploring space is relevant somehow….