fantasy-anatomy-analyst

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

What’s the proper tail to wing size ratio? How big do the tail feathers have to be to match the size of the wings?

it's a very good question! but in reality, i'm not sure it has a straightforward answer! if you look at real birds of all shapes, you'll find that sometimes their tails look weirdly small compared to the rest of them. a prime example are the long legged water birds, like herons. you'd think, with their legs so long that they just kinda hang there in flight, that these birds would benefit from having a larger tail to provide more lift around their legs. but no, they have very short broad tails instead.

(image description: a heron in flight. its long legs are held out straight behind it as it soars. its wings are large and broad, and its tail is short and wide. end description.)

and then you have birds like the scissor tailed flycatcher, with a V shaped tail that's very short in the center and long on the corners.

(image description: two photos of scissor tailed flycatchers. one has more dull grey coloration while the other is brighter orange and white with black accents. they both have shorter, narrower wings compared to the heron, and their tails are V-shaped, with the center very short and the corners having feathers that seem to be the same length or longer than their primary flight feathers. the brighter colored one has extra long tail feathers that are basically the length of a whole wing. end description.)

the main difference between these bird species and why their wings and tail shapes are so differently shaped and sized is because of how they fly. herons do more long distance soaring than fancy aerobatic maneuvers, and flycatchers are high speed fliers that need to make sharp turns.

from what I can tell on research, the grey one here is either a juvenile or a female and the orange one is most likely a male. male birds of many species tend to have flashier feathers than the females, which is why the tail is extra long.

and then you have birds like parrots, where the tail is quite long compared to that of other birds.

(image description: a blue and yellow macaw in flight, flaring it's long tail feathers in a fan shape. the tail feathers are equal to or longer than its primary flight feathers and spread so far they barely overlap when fanned out. end description.)

in fact, parrots tend to keep their tails folded when they're soaring and spread them only when they want to slow down, like for a landing. so the tail doesn't do much lifting on a long distance flight, but it can be used for tighter maneuvers, which makes sense for a bird that lives in dense forests. their tails are a very effective flight brake.

so really, if you want a realistic wing:tail ratio for any creature or people design you're making, it's probably best to figure out how they fly and then research what real birds meet that description to give you inspiration.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Anyway, I've decided I will no longer answer questions that are just "hey what about this media over here, how about its designs?" Because I do not have the time, energy, or motivation to explore media I don't already know beyond whatever I can find in a quick internet search/wiki skim, which means I cannot truly go in depth on any of it.

My commentary on that post about good guy creature design vs bad guy creature design has gotten under the skin of some wings of fire fans it seems and I'm just gonna say: I do not care. I don't. I'm sure I would have loved this series when I was 12-18, but I'm not anymore and I have no interest in it. The designs of the dragons are not bad, they just use some cliche visual tropes. When the wiki shows me that one particular type of design looks more animalistic and permanently angry than all the others and says they're slavers who tried a genocide, I think that's evidence enough that regardless of how the story plays out and how many individuals of that species have more nuanced arcs, the intention of the design is to make a reader say "ah these dragons are Bad", perhaps even with the intention of surprising you by then having some of them be not bad, in a very standard subversion of expectation. It's fine. Enjoy it if you love it, I'm not trying to drag your beloved dragon series through the mud. I'm just an adult on the internet running a blog about fantasy design and there is a lot of media i will never interact with outside of people telling me to critique it.

So now I'm just not going to do that anymore. I kinda get tired of seeing a pile of "what about this media!" asks in my inbox anyway, and the more my posts get noticed outside my followers, the more likely it is that fans of the media I'm asked to critique will decide to be mad at me for my opinions on the purely visual aspects of their favorite thing.

I will continue to answer requests for advice in design creation, reblogging other people's advice, and answering questions about broader topics like worldbuilding and stuff. But I'm deleting any questions asking me to critique designs from any fandom. Sorry.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

(Image description: sketchbook page depicting 11 different fantasy people species, mostly as simple bust portraits. From left to right and top to bottom they are:

Centaur, based on chalicotheres. Ogre, based on giant sloths. Pixie, just a very large relative of bees and wasps. Orc and gnome, based on wild boars and pigs. Goblin, based on frogs with the addition of large ears and facial whiskers. Elf, stroi, and drow, based on monkeys. Dwarf, based on Neanderthals. Quetzalin, a humanoid with bird like features such as a beak tooth and feathers in place of hair.

End description)

Thought I'd go ahead and doodle the land dwelling people of my world. There are also merfolk, based on pinnipeds.

I've had a writing group of friends get a bit confused on the different people species I'm writing, even forgetting the species of some of my characters, including the protagonists. So maybe doodles like these will help keep things clear lol

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

#actually. there isnt really any evil dragons????#ive read wof and. like#the icewings are spikier to mimic icicles i think#and yes in the graphic novels the evil ones are more noticably#physically evil looking#but. not??? all of them??????#genuinely kinda confused:<#<- read wof as a kid; it might be bc or nastolgia but none of the dragons are particularly evil?

Like I said, I haven't read em because I only heard about them in the last year and I'm almost 30 years old, so I'm pretty far beyond the target demographic. but I'm talking about the whole hivewing vs silkwing/leafwing situation. someone asked me about my opinion on their designs and they're the absolute epitome of "evil dragons look like spiky animalistic anger creatures" and "good dragons are so soft and human-eyed and gentle looking"

(image description: screenshots from the wings of fire wiki. the first image is the hivewing dragon, which looks very muscular and sharp with wasp-like wings, reptilian eyes, and big jaws. they're described primarily as having enslaved the silkwing dragons and nearly killing off the leafwing dragons. second is the leafwing dragon, which has big curved leaf shaped wings, a lithe body, and much smaller curly horns and spikes, with more humanoid eyes. third is the silkwing, which has somewhat butterfly-shaped wings, a very slender body, and long delicate curled horns. it also has humanoid eyes. both the leafwing and silkwing are primarily described by where they live and how they're connected to the larger narrative. end description)

there are a decent variety of dragon designs on this wiki, and I'm not saying that media aimed at a younger audience should just abandon shape language altogether to illustrate their characters by making it visibly clear which ones are good and which ones are bad. but personally I am still just going to be tired and vaguely annoyed at this particular design trope.

it's not really a problem with any one piece of media and it's not a universal problem either. the actual root problem here is "gee, kinda weird that we keep using more animalistic and grotesque design features as shorthand for evil, huh?"

not naming names but i hate this character design trope

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

(image description: drawings of a fantasy creature that somewhat resembles an angler fish combined with a dragon, drawn in three different styles. the first is "evil fantasy creature" drawn in detail with a lot of texture and animalistic features, making it look more toothy and vicious. the second is "non threatening side character from the same species" which is drawn in less detail and looks more like a weird muppet. the third is "the one the hero is friends with" which looks very cute and round, having lost all the animalistic detail and sharp teeth in favor of a chibi design. end description)

I know, I know, shape language is important, it's good to have designs that convey information quickly, etc etc, yes. this trope is more obvious and common in media with a younger audience, but there has got to be a better way to say "this one is evil and this one is nice", right? and adult targeted media and live action cgi creatures and puppetry are not exempt!! if a more realistic cgi dragon has softer features and more humanoid eyes? that's the nice dragon! the evil dragons always have more reptilian eyes and extra spiky bodies.

doesn't even have to be the same species, really. I complained about this a little when people were asking me to critique the Wings of Fire dragon designs, a series I haven't read. but with just a glance at the wiki, I didn't even need to read the descriptions to tell which dragon groups were supposed to be the evil ones.

And I'm sure a lot of people think that's a great thing! the designs are doing their job! of course you should be able to tell just by looking which characters are the villains! that's the whole point, right? but it bothers me anyway. can't quite put it to words. I'm just squinting at it suspiciously and feeling disappointed.

not naming names but i hate this character design trope

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

I've got a small pile of unanswered asks, sorry for the wait! got myself busy again with other projects, like a christmas themed kids book I need to get done by thanksgiving.

I've been noticing that when my uncle has the books printed, they come out very dark and muddy, which is not great! I tried to research rgb to cmyk conversion and ran into all sorts of different advice on which profiles to use, found that most of the instructions rely on very specific art software, only to ultimately learn that many places used for printing art will just apply their own cmyk profile anyways. which can actually make the colors worse if you already converted the file yourself.

and furthermore, the problem is extra bad with these books because my uncle has been going through Amazon and they use a variety of third party printers! based on the results with the books, I'd say they're cutting costs with low quality cheap printers >:/ which means there's nothing I can actually do on my end to ensure that the illustrations accurately print with the colors I'm using.

However. I don't give up so easy. I've seen artists make all sorts of color choices just so the end results looks a specific way under specific circumstances. Like using negative colors so the image only looks "normal" when it's been inverted. or using blue and red so the image looks different based on whether it's under a red lens or a blue lens. making color illusions like that blue/black vs white/gold dress or the illusion of grey strawberries looking red when they're surrounded by cyan. I did a final project in college on the topic of color illusion, making my own example paintings.

(image description: three photos of small paintings. the first two images are solid yellow and green respectively, with neutral grey abstract shapes painted over them. because of the solid color backgrounds, however, the neutral greys appear to be slightly tinged with the compliment color of their backgrounds; blue tinged on the yellow and pink tinged on the green. the third painting shows a side by side comparison of the same pair of yellow scissor handles. on one side, they are painted bright yellow on a plain white background. on the other side, a dark purple background and more dramatic lighting still give it the appearance of being yellow scissors, but in actuality the handles are painted in shades of green and orange, blended together in some places and darkened or lightened with other colors. they simply look more yellow because of the purple background and the warm shading. end description.)

So I know a thing or two about color strategy. and I am not losing a war against low quality cheap printers, not today. I spent a while looking for cmyk color charts and palettes, testing images through an online cmyk converter, and I have finally achieved my goal. the final test will come when the book is done and sent to print. essentially, I just ran a cmyk color chart through a converter to see how it might look after being printed, then set the original and the converted version next to each other on my file. I can now use the brighter original colors but base the colors I pick on how they'll look in the printed result rather than how they look on my screen. this means the version on my screen is far more pastel than I would normally go for! but the test results so far prove the method, and I think this book will print just fine.

(image description: screenshot of the rgb and cmyk versions of the same painting, which look very small and compressed because they're thumbnail images. the rgb version looks very light and uses a lot of pastel colors and soft shading, while the cmyk version looks much darker and has more distinct shading. it depicts a family out caroling around Christmas, standing at the porch of another family who look very happy to hear the song. end description.)

by golly I am not going to let Amazon keep turning my hard work into muddied disasters. I get paid for these illustrations and I'll make them look good in print by any means available to me.

here's the colors btw if anyone else needs to use this trick:

(image description: two color charts. one is very bright and rainbow, the other is much lower contrast and dark. the colors that are the most affected are the blues and greens, while the reds and yellows are somewhat more intact. the greys have also become more brown in the second version. end description.)

just figure out what the end result needs to look like and pick the brighter color accordingly. should make the low quality print jobs look at least passingly decent! sometimes you really have to plan ahead to make things look the way you want.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

I'm just gonna point my followers over to your blog if they want more opinions on monster hunter designs haha. The exploration of fantasy ecology is truly a fascinating subject

Ok, I’m a big Monster Hunter fan, and so I’d like to ask…what do you think of how they go about their mosnters’ wings? Especially given they’ve done some redesigns to them (compare Yian Garuga’s old design)s wings to the new design’s to see what I mean).

oh gosh, there are so many creatures in the monster hunter series and I only know things via my best friend who enjoys playing the game and rambling to me about the worldbuilding and fantasy ecology lol.

I think the wing designs vary in quality. a lot of them, like the yian garuga you mentioned, have oddly chunky wing fingers and are missing a patagium. there are cases where i think the patagium can be ignored, like how modern day flying lizards and squirrels don't have a membrane on the upper side of their forelimbs, but when you're going for that batwing shape on a dragon creature, I just feel like it helps the design look more practical.

The more badass a creature is meant to be, the more chunky it tends to get as well, which only makes them look heavy and impractical in my opinion. from what I understand though, the new games have been getting better with their creature designs and leaning in more with the worldbuilding which is real cool! I appreciate the lore that treats them like actual living animals in an interconnected environment.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

And more info from people who actually know the show! Good! See I never watched GoT and I haven't watched HotD because it is all too dark and gritty for me. I only know the dragons by searching "game of thrones dragons" and let me tell you, the screencaps and gifs and all sure don't give me the full concept! I just know they tend to look like very standard "more spiky is more badass" dark fantasy dragons. So I'm glad to see more detailed opinions!

I can’t find the post but I remember you stating your disappointment with the game of thrones dragon designs. Odd teeth and spoon shaped wings are the main criticisms I remember. House of the dragon for the most part follows these design trends…but there is one who doesn’t. For whatever reason, the designers decided to give Syrax some more love in the anatomy department. Am I complaining? Absolutely not! Your thoughts on this dragon the really deserves more screen time than she actually gets? (Two shots on the right are from the show and the bottom two are figures. The artist that made the top piece is siosin. Go check him out, very talented!)

oh look! a patagium and a wing membrane that extends past the hips! and somewhat less greebled spiky scales!

I mean, irl there are lizards that are incredibly spiky, but somehow I feel like when I see dragons and other monster designs all covered in spikes, it just looks like they've got literal stalagmites/stalactites growing on their skin. ends up looking more like stone and metal than living tissue, so it fees Heavy and that's not really a good look on things that can fly?

but yes, this design does look better than the other dragons I've seen from this franchise! my guess is they're trying to make the main dragons look cooler by making them overly designed and this less prominent dragon therefore gets the smoother design.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Someone who knows the series better than me! Thank you

Ok, I’m a big Monster Hunter fan, and so I’d like to ask…what do you think of how they go about their mosnters’ wings? Especially given they’ve done some redesigns to them (compare Yian Garuga’s old design)s wings to the new design’s to see what I mean).

oh gosh, there are so many creatures in the monster hunter series and I only know things via my best friend who enjoys playing the game and rambling to me about the worldbuilding and fantasy ecology lol.

I think the wing designs vary in quality. a lot of them, like the yian garuga you mentioned, have oddly chunky wing fingers and are missing a patagium. there are cases where i think the patagium can be ignored, like how modern day flying lizards and squirrels don't have a membrane on the upper side of their forelimbs, but when you're going for that batwing shape on a dragon creature, I just feel like it helps the design look more practical.

The more badass a creature is meant to be, the more chunky it tends to get as well, which only makes them look heavy and impractical in my opinion. from what I understand though, the new games have been getting better with their creature designs and leaning in more with the worldbuilding which is real cool! I appreciate the lore that treats them like actual living animals in an interconnected environment.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

I can’t find the post but I remember you stating your disappointment with the game of thrones dragon designs. Odd teeth and spoon shaped wings are the main criticisms I remember. House of the dragon for the most part follows these design trends…but there is one who doesn’t. For whatever reason, the designers decided to give Syrax some more love in the anatomy department. Am I complaining? Absolutely not! Your thoughts on this dragon the really deserves more screen time than she actually gets? (Two shots on the right are from the show and the bottom two are figures. The artist that made the top piece is siosin. Go check him out, very talented!)

oh look! a patagium and a wing membrane that extends past the hips! and somewhat less greebled spiky scales!

I mean, irl there are lizards that are incredibly spiky, but somehow I feel like when I see dragons and other monster designs all covered in spikes, it just looks like they've got literal stalagmites/stalactites growing on their skin. ends up looking more like stone and metal than living tissue, so it fees Heavy and that's not really a good look on things that can fly?

but yes, this design does look better than the other dragons I've seen from this franchise! my guess is they're trying to make the main dragons look cooler by making them overly designed and this less prominent dragon therefore gets the smoother design.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Ok, I’m a big Monster Hunter fan, and so I’d like to ask…what do you think of how they go about their mosnters’ wings? Especially given they’ve done some redesigns to them (compare Yian Garuga’s old design)s wings to the new design’s to see what I mean).

oh gosh, there are so many creatures in the monster hunter series and I only know things via my best friend who enjoys playing the game and rambling to me about the worldbuilding and fantasy ecology lol.

I think the wing designs vary in quality. a lot of them, like the yian garuga you mentioned, have oddly chunky wing fingers and are missing a patagium. there are cases where i think the patagium can be ignored, like how modern day flying lizards and squirrels don't have a membrane on the upper side of their forelimbs, but when you're going for that batwing shape on a dragon creature, I just feel like it helps the design look more practical.

The more badass a creature is meant to be, the more chunky it tends to get as well, which only makes them look heavy and impractical in my opinion. from what I understand though, the new games have been getting better with their creature designs and leaning in more with the worldbuilding which is real cool! I appreciate the lore that treats them like actual living animals in an interconnected environment.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Ever done any analysis of Devil May Cry stuff? I'd love to hear your thoughts on Sparda's demon form, and the twins' and Nero's, if you're interested.

I have only the barest minimum meme-related knowledge of the Devil May Cry series, lol. just glancing at the demon forms via internet search, they come across to me kinda more like an epic armor effect than a biological creature. I kinda like the way they all look like they're breaking at the seams and leaking power, like the transformation is just totally overwhelming to the mortal body. They could all probably use less detail, tbh, they're suffering from the Greeble effect where the designers just keep adding spiky bits but it obscures the design in a lot of ways. it's a video game series, right? kinda helps things like image resolution and battle mechanics if you can actually parse the visual details of the character and monster designs lol that's just a personal opinion. tone down the textures a little, video game designers, i promise you don't need to over-spike everything to make it look cool.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

I've come to realize my birdfolk, While only laying eggs in a short period during the year, would have a lot of uses for eggs shell & yolk year round. But um. How do I have my birds have pet/livestock birds without it feeling *weird*? For lack of a better word.

Well, a lot of real life birds also prey on other birds in various ways. and many birds are known to consume eggs, their own or others, just for the nutrients. I can't find any information on a bird species that exclusively preys on the eggs of other birds, but there certainly are many species (a lot of song birds, even) that show a preference for snacking on eggs from the nests of specific birds.

so overall, it just isn't that strange for bird people to decide they'd rather eat eggs from livestock birds, in my opinion. Just like it's not weird for merfolk to eat fish and other marine creatures. frankly I think most people consider it more unusual for bird people to eat their own eggs than the eggs of normal birds, even though that's also a pretty normal bird behavior!

so if you just approach it with confidence, I think you can pull it off fine. research the care of livestock birds and use that information to show how your bird folk take care of their livestock. show all the different ways they use the eggs! and maybe the meat too, if they're carnivores.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

your quetzalin lore is absolutely incredible! the amount of thought in every aspect is so impressive and the segment at the end about their god was unexpected but by the end hit so hard

Thank you! I'm very proud of the work I've done with them, and it makes me so happy to see other people enjoying it!

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Slowpoke Tails - Shed vs Chopped

Okay, so there's something of a discrepancy between how Slowpoke tails are treated by the Pokémon franchise. Initially, it was understood that these are a tasty, unethical luxury item, starting in Gold/Silver/Crystal and mirrored in Heartgold/Soulsilver:

The whole plot here is that Team Rocket has taken the Slowpoke in the Azalea Slowpoke Well and chopped their tails off to sell on the black market. These run for a whopping 1,000,000 PD a pop ($10k in USD).

But then, in later generations, it's said that Slowpoke tails fall off naturally. In fact, they're a crucial part of both Alolan AND Galarian cuisine:

The curry ingredient even sells for a measly 2,200 PD ($22 USD).

So what gives? Why is it a Million-Poké black market item when you can get a package off your local hiker?

Easy. Sweetness.

Slowpoke use their tails to fish for food. Typically, they do this by dipping their tails into the water, then letting the current catch the sweet sap they give off and bring it to hungry Water-types.

When a Slowpoke sheds its tail, it's because the tail's ability to generate sap has dried up. It's no longer useful as fishing bait, so the Slowpoke has to either get rid of the tail, or starve.

Shed Slowpoke tails, the ones commonly available for cooking, aren't sweet in the slightest—they're more like heavily-marbled tuna steaks, somewhere between beef and fish with a lot of fat dripping from them, and a rich umami flavor.

Chopped Slowpoke tails, the kind you find on the black market, are a completely different experience. The meat is more tender, the flavor a lot more delicate, with a sweetness permeating it that's a lot like the honey glaze on a ham.

Naturally, chopped Slowpoke tail then becomes a novel experience. Because you have to take it from a Slowpoke, you can't just find it lying around.

So why, then, is it illegal enough for Rocket to move in on? Why is Slowpoke farming or hunting for those sweet tails not a thing? They still grow them back afterwards, so what's the deal?

The problem with chopping a Slowpoke's tail off is that, even though it regenerates, its body wasn't ready to do so. This can cause a whole lot of complications for the poor thing.

A tail doesn't regenerate from nothing, for starters: every time you cut a tail off unexpectedly, the Slowpoke's body rushes to make a replacement, using up its body's fat reserves. This causes VERY rapid and dangerous weight loss, and a frankly ridiculous amount of stress.

Incorrect cuts can cause deformities, like a tail growing back too short, not being able to make enough sweetness to bait fish Pokémon, or even Espeon-tail syndrome, where the tail splits into two at the end.

And, perhaps most egregiously of all, a cut too high might mean the Slowpoke never regrows its tail at all. If you cut into anything that's not specifically tail tissue, the body will begin the scarring process over the wound, removing the Pokémon's ability to fish and evolve. And while it can learn to survive by fishing manually, like its evolutionary counterpart is required to, oftentimes, Slowpoke will just sit by the water and starve, not realizing that they aren't getting a bite because there's just nothing to bite.

In short: Shed = ethical, chopped = unethical, possibly lethal.

Slowpoke responsibly, guys.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Behold, an angel

some anatomy musings on winged ppl and also clothing furgonomics

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

i'm trying to do some speculative biology stuff on how dragons could exist: provided i'm thinking of the typical hexapod/six-limbed dragon (four legs and two wings), however, i have to contrive reasons for how the extra set of limbs would arise on a quadruped, and how they'd function (wyvern dragons are much easier to envision, as they're just scarier pterodactyls); i'm also curious as to how dragons would behave given their anatomy. assorted thoughts below...

for one thing, i instantly imagined dragons evolving from dinosairs. i was thinking of some sort of conjoined/parasitic twin mutation common to the dragon species which would add the extra wings, but that idea rested on one twin having the wing-limbs to contribute to the wingless dominant twin, which apparently would be impossible as all conjoined twins are identical (which is pretty obvious now that i think about it). i should still keep the conjoined twins idea in my back pocket, though, so there could be hydras!

maybe the extra limbs would just be a product of polymelia, specifically notomelia... as it is, though, i'm wondering how the mutant extra limbs would evolve into wings fast enough that the mutation could even persist in the population: the presence of the extra limbs would likely be a hinderance for as long as they aren't actively beneficial, after all. maybe i can look into how pterodactyl and archaeopteryx wings evolved to get a sense of how that occurred: for them, too, any evolutionary stage at the midpoint between leg and wing would likely have not been specialized enough in either direction to be helpful, so the transition must've been quick/direct and therefore a product of a single large mutation with subsequent refinements. for dragons, i could imagine two stages, with a simpler, smaller wing evolving in a quick first pass -- giving the animal more air time when leaping -- and a second stage of the wings enlarging to provide the capacity for real flight. (either way i'd imagine that dragons, like birds and mammals, would initially be very small and only evolve to their maximum size after the extinction of the dinosaurs.) i'd have to look more into the occurrence of notomelia and what causes it (does it even occur in reptiles/dinosaurs?), to see how realistic it would be for it to occur commonly within a species and produce fully-functioning limbs.

i'm picturing dragons as carnivorous, meaning they'd likely evolve from theropods: this would make sense, given theropods' hollow bones, as well as their evolutionary proximity to birds. with that in mind, having the wings as an extra set of limbs would be especially beneficial, as all four of the animal's legs could be maintained: the hindlegs for running, and the forelegs for grasping (these would necessarily not be tiny like a t-rex's). also, the idea of feathered dragons is a very fun one: imagine the vivid colors and patterns they could have!

in terms of size, we tend to picture dragons as very large -- however, i'd have to keep in mind that the larger the animal, the harder it will be to maintain lift and fly efficiently, especially if the animal in question has more than four limbs to carry in addition to its body. there have been some genuinely huge flying reptiles and birds in existence, such as quetzalcoatlus northropi (~35 ft wingspan, 440-550 lbs weight) and pelagornis sandersi (~20 ft wingspan, 48-44 lbs weight) -- and these awesome animals were able to fly, despite being so massive! there are several factors that would contribute to this, including the giant wingspan and hollow bones. because of the weight of the extra limbs, i doubt a hexapod dragon could grow quite as massive as quetzalcoatlus and still be able to fly well, though i still think it would be possible for them to be very large; it's worth mentioning, too, that having four legs to power liftoff would make it more viable for a dragon to take to the skies at all.

in myth, dragons often breathe fire; i don't think i could manage to find a reasonable biological means of that evolving, though perhaps dragons could evolve to spit venom, which would be a more realistic means of delivering a ranged, burning attack. in flight, the dragon could take down its prey by targeting it with venom, then quickly snatch it up with its forelegs to eat without ever alighting. sounds evolutionarily beneficial to me: very efficient, and very awesome.

tying into the trope of a greedy dragon's hoard, perhaps dragons are especially keen to shiny objects, which they can see from afar: with this mid-flight grasping maneuver, they'd snatch them up to add to a bowerbird-like nest decorated with "treasure". to connect more with myth, dragons are often associated with weather, storms in particular; perhaps dragons migrate at high altitudes during rainy seasons, creating that correlation.

it should be noted, too, that the reality in which i'm picturing these dragons is one in which humans also exist. these humans, witnessing the behaviors of these awe-inspiring creatures, would tell stories about them: they breathe fire (they spit venom), and they abduct children (they snatch up their prey in their claws), and they steal treasure from kings (they take shiny things for their nests), and they control the weather (they migrate during the rainy season). perhaps humans aren't their main prey source, causing dragons to be a fear but not a genuine threat to humans (like how we view sharks); or perhaps dragons indeed regularly eat humans, meaning humans have to live out of sight of them. in the latter case, considering how dragons are highly effective predators, they might drive humans towards extinction!

i hope you enjoyed my spec-bio ramble on the evolution, physiology, and behavior of dragons! it's very fun to think about :)