Hi everyone!
The water dragon is the first dragon you meet in Dragon Shelter, and the first one we ever built. Here's the road he took from a rough sketch to the little guy watering your garden beds.
Every dragon starts from his element, and the element sets the silhouette, the palette and the personality all at once. For water that meant soft rounded shapes, fins and a lot of blue.
We drew a lot of options before picking a direction. At this stage we're only looking at the shape, so everything stays rough and quick.
Once a few sketches felt right, we refined them and tested the color and the details. Shapes, wave markings, the pearly glow on his scales, all of it got a few passes. Then we locked the final design and drew him from every side, so the 3D artist has everything he needs.
We also drew cute expressions.
Next the concept becomes a 3D model. The main job here is keeping the shape readable from the game camera, since you'll mostly see him from above and at a distance. Dragon Shelter is hand-painted 3D, so the textures are painted rather than photo-based. That's what keeps the dragon looking like the concept art once it’s in the engine.
A dragon's design isn't really finished until he's animated. A shape can look great as a drawing and then feel completely wrong the moment it walks, and that happened to us more than once.
Then comes the biggest pile of animation. Watering, digging, seeding, carrying, chopping, repairing, stirring a pot. Every job he can do needs its own animation.
First meeting with the water dragon.
And here's what he ends up doing on the farm once you've earned his trust.
Watering your crops.
He learns to work with an axe, a pickaxe and a hammer, so he can chop, mine and repair with you.
Taking care of livestock
Assisting in the kitchen
Playing with surrounding items
We hope you enjoyed the look behind the scenes! Next time, we will show you more of the fire dragon. 🔥
Until then, join our community on Discord, and follow us on Bluesky, X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
And if you haven't already, wishlist Dragon Shelter and follow our Steam page to stay up to date with future announcements. It really is one of the best ways to support our team. 💚
Wild Forest Studio & Curve Games