Creating Your Dragon

If this is your first time creating a dragon design, you might find yourself scratching your head at all the weird traits and genes and mutations and so on. This page should guide you through the process of creating your dragon in a quick and simple way. You can use lineless, lined, or traditional art to make your designs, as long as they follow color/shading rules. Note that traditional designs will still need to be placed on a background--free programs like GIMP are available for anyone to do that. Because traditional designs are difficult to change the further you go, it's recommended to send sketch WIPs using the Submit MYO Design option.

Creating the Body

Even though your dragon is rolled with certain physical traits, you’re allowed to swap them out for base element traits! If your dragon is a Storm/Jungle dragon that was tragically born wingless, you may switch it to either Leather Wings (base physical trait of Storm) or Insect Wings (base physical trait of Jungle). You can even switch a Storm trait (such as Leather Wings) to a Jungle trait (Insect Wings). You can do this as many times as you like, so if your Jungle/Storm egg is 100% batty, you can switch it to 100% fairy dragon. The physical traits that you make recessive will not pass on to offspring. Ocean has two base leg traits to pick from so that your dragon will never end up stranded in the middle of a landmass with no means to walk.

Light: Ungulate Snout, Crowned Crest, Quadrupedal Body, Velvet Scales, Wingless, Ungulate Limbs, Tufted Tail
Fire: Reptilian Snout, Thorned Crest, Quadrupedal Body, Smooth Scales, Leather Wings, Reptilian Limbs, Whip Tail
Jungle: Amphibious Snout, Spined Crest, Quadrupedal Body, Smooth Scales, Insect Wings, Amphibious Limbs, Raptor Tail
Thunder: Artificial Snout, Artificial Crest, Wyrm Body, Artificial Scales, Artificial Wings, Artificial Limbs, Tufted Tail
Earth: Reptilian Snout, Saurian Crest, Bipedal Body, Smooth Scales, Wingless, Reptilian Limbs, Whip Tail
Ocean: Aquatic Snout, Finned Crest, Wyrm Body, Smooth Scales, Wingless, Aquatic Limbs OR Amphibious Limbs, Aquatic Tail
Storm: Fruit Snout, No Crest, Wyvern Body, Velvet Scales, Leather Wings, Fingered Limbs, Rat Tail
Wind: Theropod Snout, Feathered Crest, Wyvern Body, Feathered Scales, Feathered Wings, Reptilian Limbs, Raptor Tail
Dark: Monstrous Snout, No Crest, Monstrous Body, Smooth Scales, Leather Wings, Fingered Limbs, Whip Tail
Metal: Scrounge Snout, Thorned Crest OR Crowned Crest, Bipedal Body, Smooth Scales, Scythe Wings, Fingered Limbs, Segmented Tail

Your dragon can be any visible size--from the size of a beetle to a blue whale! Keep in mind that when drawing odd-sized characters with more typical dragons, they may need to be scaled up or down to make sure everyone is full body.

What Colors do I Use?

Main Body and Markings

For the main color of the dragon, you must use the colors listed on an elemental page. Fire dragons are generally red, metal dragons are generally silver, and so on. For crossbreeds, you can mix and match, but not blend. A Fire/Dark dragon can have black scales as its base, but have all of the markings on top look red! Experiment to see which color combinations you like best. A base will never obscure a trait--for example, if your dragon has a white mark, the base can't be pure white. It should be just a tiny bit off so the mark is still visible.

Some markings require certain colors. Koi can only use colors that appear on koi fish, for example. Read individual marking guides to find out if one of your markings fits this description.

Wings

You may color the base of the wings a solid color or apply a gradient between two colors. Dorsal and ventral wings may have completely different colors. Feathered wings and raptor tails may either use the normal gradient across the whole area or use different solid colors for each layer of feathers (black for the first layer, white for the second layer, etc. within color rules) for up to three different-colored layers. The top and bottom of wings can have different colors. You can even have markings exclusively on the wings, as long as they are readily visible!

Tongue, Flesh, and Skin

The tongue, flesh, and skin areas may display any color allowed in the elemental rules. You may also make a gradient between two allowed colors in these areas. Areas of skin may take on the color rules of Pollen. Not all scale types can have skin showing--make sure to check the individual rules of the scale type you're using.

Horns, Claws, teeth, and Bones

You may use any elemental color, plus black, white, or desaturated browns and tans.

Eyes

Feel free to give your dragon eyes any color, natural pupil shape, or simply skip the pupil entirely. You can use odd eyes if it appears naturally on that snout (such as chameleon eyes on a reptilian snout). You can make your dragon blind at your discretion–eye color will not affect this unless you want it to. Blindness does not affect a dragon's ability to take part in activities. While natural heterochromia is allowed, the eyes should have the same pupil shapes (or lack thereof). Eyes will not glow, show up in odd places, or show up in odd numbers without the corresponding trait.

Picking Your display and Modifier traits

Now that you know how to color, let’s learn how to pick out which markings you want! If you don’t like a display or modifier trait, you can move it to the ‘recessive’ line of your written import form and simply make it invisible. These markings might still pass to offspring even though they don’t show, but they are slightly rarer because they are recessive. Elemental magic buffs also will not apply to them, so think carefully if you want to remove a marking that a dragon’s eggs might appreciate it. Or just toss it out. Especially if it’s Pharaoh, that color scheme, yikes. Markings just don’t work out sometimes, so don’t let them hold you back from creating a cool design!

Free Traits

These are available to any dragons.

Accents | Freckles | Mask | Spikes

Shading

A minimal amount of shading is allowed. Keep in mind that dragons usually have dull/matte scales, similar to snakes and lizards that use camouflauge in the wild. Scales will never look shiny or take on a sheen without the proper trait. Shading on the left would be accepted, shading on the right would not be accepted. Unless the area is light to start with, there should be no white sheen across the body.

example1.pngexample2.jpg

Import Customization

Choose your background and add your gemstones here. Once you have finished your design, selected your background, and grabbed your character’s gemstones, there are still a few more things you can do to customize your dragon.

Halo

First, let’s start with a basic one: adding halos to your dragon and their gemstones! Halos should be on the outside of the dragon. The dragon will never look like it is glowing or glitching out.

Color Filters

You may apply a color filter on top of your background. The color must be evenly distributed (you can’t color a single part of the image). For crossbreeds, you may use a gradient of two elements. This gradient will never affect the colors of your dragon or gemstones! It only applies to the background. The colors need to match the elements as follows:
Light: White
Fire: Red
Jungle: Orange
Thunder: Yellow
Earth: Green
Ocean : Teal or Blue
Storm: Indigo
Wind: Purple or Pink
Dark: Black
Metal: Gray

Custom Borders

Here is the easiest way to make your imports stand out! You can create custom borders unique to you as a player, or your Riders, or even individual dragons! These can be as complex or as simple as you like. You may adjust the placement of the background.

~VERY IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ~

There are a few requirements for doing this, though. Make sure you follow these rules when you customize the edges of your background:

1) The dragon is not cut off. Nothing will cover or obscure the dragon in any situation.
2) The gemstones are still placed on the edge of your image (either on the edge of the background border or the extreme edge as usual).
3) The background is not excessively cropped or covered.

These custom borders are also areas you can place text. "Stable" or "Ranch" names with their logo, custom-styled profile information, and similar things can go here.

Design Checklist

Do you have gemstones and a background with a matching element?
If there is a design, the gemstones need to be on the side of the image, not the center!

For dragon designs, is the whole dragon within the frame?
Riders can use busts, but dragons should be completely visible in their import.

For dragon designs, does it resemble a closed species?
While you can use closed species (with permission) for Riders, dragons cannot resemble closed or copyrighted species.

Is your dragon's mouth visible?
If your dragon is in a pose that hides its mouth, you will need to make an extra reference showing it.

Do your markings have outlines?
Markings will not have outlines without the corresponding traits. If you are doing traditional art, be sure to erase your sketch lines before submitting the finished product!

Submitting

On the sidebar of your MYO, you will see 'SUBMIT MYO DESIGN.' Click this to begin submission! Unless your dragon has the Independent trait, it will need to be submitted with a Rider. If there is no character to link to yet, put this form in your design notes:

Rider Image: (you may use a background + elemental gemstone(s) if you prefer not to illustrate them)
Name:
Element(s):
Three-sentence+ Rider Summary:
Origin: (put Chronoscape, Shérok, or Eredia; click them for more info. Put Chronoscape if unsure. )
Species/Race: (anything other than elemental dragons are allowed)

Note any recessive or legacy marks in this area as well. Legacy marks are available to any genos with an origin on Deviantart.com or ccbestiary.com as well as their direct children.

For old genos, add the traits you see in the geno to the traits page; you may sub out the physical traits if substitutes are available. For new genos, these traits should already be on the dragon.

If the Rider already has 70 bonded dragons, the design will automatically be declined (even Riders have a limit!).

If you have any questions during the design process, feel free to submit your WIPs either on the submission page or on the Discord Design Help channel. When you are ready, make sure every area is saved and submit the MYO design!