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Message: <blockquote data-quote="InkTide" data-source="post: 9542590" data-attributes="member: 7048463">The stocky design is less of a problem for me (it's one of the reasons I like the old and new silver dragons so much - that and the frill mohawk, I love the frill mohawk), though I feel it somewhat overlaps with the domain of the silver design (i.e. super stocky cold breath dragon). The primary issue I have with it is the head.[ATTACH=full]390469[/ATTACH]This goofus was the early concept one closer to the old - I actually like the sunken eyes, as it gives a sort of "ice vulture" vibe to the white dragon, which is very much in keeping with their lore. The frill is finally given some emphasis, the body is bulkier (whether through muscle or hollow scale insulation - I wasn't kidding when I said I thought that was a cool idea). Yes, the snout is probably too thin, especially at the tip, but converging to some kind of beak-like tip was one of my favorite parts of the white dragon. It looks too skinny in the old art, probably (though this is speculation) because it is basically a bird without feathers; when you look at a bird, generally way less of the bird's volume that you think you're seeing is actual bird and not just feathers. Especially in the neck area, birds have much longer and thinner necks than you'd expect most of the time.Contrast this goofus:[ATTACH=full]390470[/ATTACH]Not only is the beak totally overridden by the way the weird split-chin, lip-tooth underbite covers it up, the frill is too far forward (it being further back helped break those converging lines and emphasized the snout taper, while also providing a counterbalance to the dewlap; now the whole upper head in profile is a homogeneous mass, made worse by the "mane"), too vertically short, and not even really a frill anymore - it's wide and shield-like, more like nose/forehead ridges. Even the old dewlap throat that I liked has been hidden by distracting, impractical downward-facing spine scales.There are two big reasons these structures in animals are rarely downward-facing: one, they're display structures, meant to be seen, and two... how does this poor thing lie down without stabbing itself in the throat? Even if it can fold the scales down, they're still inflexible scales unlike the fur manes they're meant to be referencing, so any backwards movement of the head still shoves them forward into the dragon's throat if it's lying down. The front upper section also appears to flare out in front of the eyes, blocking forward vision in what is supposed to be an incredible hunter dragon... which might be part of why they had to widen the face so much in art where it's facing forward.All the bird theming is basically gone, except for a now-out-of-place beak-like curve at the tip of the the upper jaw. The face doesn't even taper like an ice-dwelling mammal snout (even polar bears aren't this flat-faced). All the effort to push face bulk forward has flattened it into a weird snapping turtle shape that doesn't jive with the ice theme at all IMO (and I've even seen an image where the white dragon's face looks flatter than a snapping turtle, though that one's not in the art book AFAICT).This redesign gives a lot of the adult dragons underbites or huge chins for some reason (it's not quite an underbite, but the super-pointed chin of the new bronze adult dragon is probably the only thing I slightly dislike about it - could easily be a dimorphism thing, though), but this one is by far the most egregious. Actual turtles, including snapping turtles, have overbites. No living thing I'm aware of has a weird split-chin, lip-toothed underbite.Sorry, I just cannot stand what they've done to its face, especially its jaw. I'm also very passionate about creature design in general and dragon design in particular... as one can probably tell.</blockquote>

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