Vermithrax Pejorative - Tumblr Posts

One thing that’s always confused me is that its almost always the specific quadrupedal bat stanced wyvern bodyplan that Vermithrax originated.  Which is odd considering bats are A. tiny by comparison and don’t need to support a lot of weight, and B. aren’t particularly good at walking around anyway.  You’d think if they were really concerned with realism they’d go with a design that was better suited to handle weight and locomotion, like the more upright quadrupedal stances seen in Pterosaurs or the bipedal stance seen in birds as well as some wyverns in Japanese media.  I kind of wonder if part of its constant use may be down to it being less time consuming in CGI to use the same basic animation rigs that have been present since the controls for Vermithrax’s Go Motion model.

A Thought About Pop Culture Dragons

When I was a kid, in the ‘90s, I remember dragons were always depicted one of two ways:  either as a standard European Dragon (you know, four legs and two wings, breathes fire, etc.) or as a standard serpent-like Asian Dragon.  While Asian Dragons still pop up from time to time, at what point did the traditional European Dragon drop off and get replaced with Wyverns (two legs, two wings)?

Like, it definitely predates Game of Thrones becoming a popular TV show though I think it definitely has helped solidify it (I remember they changed the design for Smaug in the Hobbit films to a Wyvern to try and cash in), but it was already a trend in the years leading up to it.

I don’t remember Wyverns being a thing at all in media prior to, say, Reign of Fire.  Like, I know there were Wyverns in movies before that, but it’s like that movie serves as some sort of border - prior to that Wyverns were rare, after they seem to be the most common.  Why?  It couldn’t have been THAT movie, of all things, to do it, could it?

I suspect @tyrantisterror might know, being the resident dragon expert.  :p