Grym’s redesign and concepts (Patreon)

I know! This is quite unexpected, but I felt it was time to show Hopper’s father some love and revisit his concept. He looks totally different from his original design now, save from the eyeburner colors. And unfortunately he lost his magnificent whiskers! I did try to include them, but the neon-swirling lines ended up clashing with the design more than they added. I miss them a little, but I can always design more dragons with the concept. Could give Swordfish’s parents a magnificent pair of whiskers, they’re sea dragons after all. But I’m getting sidetracked here!

So, why redesign Grym in the first place? Well, I started thinking: would two slinky, thin, Eastern dragon-like wyrms really produce a pudgy hatchling like Hopper? Basically, Grym here looked too similar to Avoryx. And although I love my slinky eel-like dragons, I also like my cast to have unique silhouettes! Grym was sorta lacking in that regard, but not anymore - he’s a proud, round, puffy wyrm now. Sure, he’s got the traditional draconic spikes, forked tail and a toothy, evil grin, but he stands out with the rest of his design whereas before the only notable thing about him was his obnoxious coloration.

His lore remains the same: he starts off looking like a regular dragon but crashes into a wizard’s potion shipment and turns into a circus monster. The design here is his pre-crash look:

Still pretty handsome!

 Also, he breathes rainbow fire, just because regular fire isn’t extra enough. This is why Avoryx is so partial to him: he’s literally a glowing, colorful, magical trinket - a very valuable addition to the hoard!

And here are some first concepts of him:

But now that I’m genuinely happy with Grym’s look he’s finally ready to appear in comics! From a vague headworld character to a real “cast member”! My characters develop their personalities piece-by-piece with the stories I write and draw for them, so I’m excited to see how exactly he ends up behaving.