I don’t know why I never figured this out sooner:
Most reptiles have a top-hinged jaw. Dragons, being reptilian in appearance, would (visually) logically fall into this category.
So when the dragon is flying directly at you getting ready to bite or breathe fire at you, how does it see you as it cranks its mouth all the way open? Lately, I’ve been forcing perspective to an extent, and giving my wyrms wonky heads. Looking into it a little more, I slowly came to realize that few people depict them this way, probably because it’s hard.
Take a look at any of the quadrillion “how to draw dragons and stuff” books that seem to be out these days. Not only are there no tips on how to draw the dragon from the front, most, if not all, of the creatures between the pages are drawn at a three-quarter view. Lee J. Ames is spinning in his grave, though I don’t think he did a “Draw 50 Dragons” book.
Anyhow, today, I sat down and thought about it. “Thor’s Thimble” refers to the Dickinsonian model of dragonfire and dragonflight, involving hydrogen ignited by internal electricity from a nodule located at the roof of the mouth:
While the Thimble Theory isn’t necessary, it provides a good place to think from. I ended up deciding, probably more for my own sanity than anything else, that dragons are probably a class of mammal-like reptiles, to carry the taxonomy a step further this evening, and have a bottom-hinged jaw, like so:
I’ll be using this, or a mild variant with slight top-jaw angling, going forward. It’s important, because thinking about my own work, I’ve always been hesitant to draw the full-on poses, because the perspective of the head baffled me, but in all honesty, I just failed to plan for it properly.
Actual dragon sketches tomorrow, today was lots of thinking.
