#one of her motifs is an owl so thats something we could work with

[clavicuss-vile]

need to figure out what aurelie's wicked eyes wicked hearts mask would be. i know Atlas' is a winding tree design, are'veia's is based on halla with emphasis on very sharp features (eyes, teeth, horns). what would aurelie's beeeeeeee

[amesliu]

Since you said it’s fun here’s my art of Percy and Annabeth as dragons. Dragons are what I’m most confident drawing but I’ve been working on my people. Feel free to give some constructive criticism.

Percy does have wings of course I just thought the full thing would get in the way.

Wow okay so first of all very interesting concept. Creature design is it's whole field so definitely don't downplay your abilities in that. There are people who's entire careers is just designing dragons and mythical monsters.

What I'd love to see is more of the actual abilities, environments, and the lives of these dragons integrated into the design. Creature designs are usually pulled from the adaptations of real animals.

For Annabeth, it seems like she's based off an owl and you say she can turn her head 180 degrees. Well what anatomy in the owl allows that? Well if you look it up google says "Unlike a human whose arteries tend to get smaller and smaller as they branch out, the owl's blood vessels at the base of the head get larger and larger so that blood reservoirs form. This allows the owl to “meet the energy needs of their large brains and eyes, while they rotate their heads" and also "Owls are more flexible than humans because a bird's head is only connected by one socket pivot." Well from there I would start taking a look at owl skeletons and anatomy and study that and find a way to translate it into my designs. I'd love to see even more of the owl motif in the dragon, for example, maybe the feet are more talon-y and the face is shorter and rounder. Maybe she has more of a short neck that extends situation. Maybe instead of spines on the back she's more feathery. I'd also ask what other animals could you pull from? You say she can turn invisible so what if you pulled in inspiration from an octopus? Since they're very good at camouflage. What environment does she live in? If she lives in somewhere that has a lot of tall grassland the stripes would make a lot of sense like a tiger. Is she an ambush predator? Is she more of a chaser (haha)? Etc. Maybe she's a bit of both like an owl.

Here's an unbelievably quick sketch where I basically just pulled the shape of an owl skeleton and threw on some skin and feathers.

if you like dragons you probably already know but HTTYD has incredible dragon designs (except the light fury, god i hate her design so bad). cloudjumper is an excellent example of an owl-based dragon design.

For Percy I would basically apply a similar logic. I can tell that you're already thinking about to some extent because of the different spines you gave him. I think you should push it even further though. Overall I think you should break out of the basic dragon body plan.

I don't know how aquatic you intend for him to be but I think it would be beneficial to go with very aquatic. How would a giant, lizard-y, aquatic animal look like. Well we have a lot of reference for that both prehistoric (mosasaurs, spinosaurs etc.) and also current (marine iguanas, well this would mostly be for if you're looking for something thats not fully aquatic). What adaptations helped those species adapt to their environment? Adapt to their niche? How is he controlling water (is it telekinetic, does he have to move at all etc.)? I just found this while looking for examples for aquatic lizards, but did you know Anolis can make a bubble on their head to breathe underwater? Maybe take something from that? If he spends a lot of time in water he probably has flatter, webbed feet with limbs that aren't as mammalian as you have it right now. He probably has less horns and flourishes to keep him streamlined. Maybe he has countershading? If he's a glowing sea green does this mean he spends a lot of time in darker waters/at night where bioluminescence could be helpful?

I know sometimes it might sound absurd to entertain the practicalities of fantasy creatures and certainly not all aspects of a creature design needs to be completely plausible but it's one of the things that makes fantasy incredible and believable and easier to suspend disbelief. Taking the things that are real and tangible and understandable from our world and turning into something fantastical and mythical.

Plus I think it's just a lot of fun to think about small things like that.