Crufts

At the moment, I'm in the process of researching anatomy and figuring out how my dragon will move. A few weeks ago I took some reference videos of a small terrier dog as it had similar proportions to my dragon (short legs, smaller body) this will help me figure out the movements and how to go about translating them to my dragon. Crufts has just taken place and I've been watching some of the contests, in particular the agility contests. The video below shows the Championship Final for agility and through watching it I've gained a better knowledge of how a dog runs and jumps. As the dog jumps it stretches out, whilst the spine seems to dip down slightly in order for the dog to stretch out more. My dragon will be jumping/trying to jump a long distance so watching these videos has made me understand how I should animate it, but also that I will need a good versatile rig not only for the spine but throughout my dragon.

Even though my dragon is stylised and I want it to have some sense of cartoon like animation about it, I want to make sure that there is validity in the movements, the core of the movements are based off how a real animal would walk or jump. Dragons are not real creatures, however the movements need to be believable if realism cannot be achieved. I will be doing more research into other videos and specifically into anatomy, and how the locomotions of different animals differ.

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