2008 I decided to join this funky lil site called Deviantart and came up with the most random username ''GoldenTigerDragon''.
I would've called myself "BlueCoconut" if it wasn't already taken.
No but I don't regret choosing this current name either. I think I have created the most important character and alter ego out of this name ever.
She keeps growing better and more unique design-wise and to be honest, after 10 years I still haven't seen a too similar critter to her. Ever. Except copies. /snort

Let's break down the timeline a bit over there.. :D


2008

So, after joining and settling to dA I started to wonder how such creature as Golden tiger dragon would look like. I was imagining this big mighty dragon with yellow scales and black stripes, and so I drew a muscular male dragon. I really wanted to simply name him after the word ''gold'' so I just added a little ending to the word ''ey''. Simple and short, Goldey!
It's a name I don't see much around either! Which is surprising actually, maybe I'm blind. I've seen "Goldie" and it's pronounced the same way anyways. LETTERS MATTER ALRIGHT? >:[
He turned out pretty generic, there was nothing very exciting about his look and I remember him having this serious look as his default expression a lot. Edgy motherfucker.
I just splashed in some random colors for the horns and wing membrane, I honestly don't know why I kept puke-colors on Goldey for several years. At least the red wings seems to fit still.


2009

I looked back to the very old 2009 drawings that I have in my storage here and apparently the main reason why I turned Goldey into a female was because I already had so many male characters. :'D
So I chose a little better coloring for the horns and belly plates now but dang, man, she was still so boring to draw for me? Still the generic boring appearance. I also don't know why I limited myself with the stripes for the longest time. She used to have her entire back not covered in any markings which looked dumb as hell, looked like Goldey's back is balding. EXACTLY 3 stripes behind the front legs and EXACTLY 7 stripes on the tail.
I had to draw the stripes so thick because there was such a small amount of them on her body.


~2012

Somewhere around this time I finally managed to get the courage to make the biggest changes to her and boy oh boy was it finally worth it. The very iconic ''cat eyeliner'' look started to grow on her as well.
Drawing Goldey got so much more fun and I'm still loving the big ass ears on her. They're giving her a bit of a fennec fox vibe. :D
Even tho she's a dragon, I removed some very iconic dragon-parts from her such as horns and armor plates. Oh, and instead of scales I gave Goldey a fur coat. Not a traditional kind of dragon at all, and I love it!
I started to move the color spectrum towards orange more and more, making her more golden and less piss yellow.
In the 2012 version she still has some weird lines on her throat and belly to represent some kind of harder material rather than fur? Even I didn't clearly know what I tried to seek with that.


2014

Is not much different, just some smaller adjustments to her design such as lighter yellow color for the belly and god DAMN REMOVED THAT NONSENSE CUTIEMARK FROM HER SHOULDER. GAH, about time.
It didn't mean anything. This random zig zag Z letter just broke the nice flow in the middle of the stripes and stood out too much. Random weird markings or details like this feel so unnecessary in character designs. Like, "Why the heck is it there??? It makes no sense nor has any meaning!!! AND IT LOOKS UGLY"
It doesn't really show here but I also gave her different looking top and bottom wing membranes, the dorsal side is yellow like the rest of her body and the ventral is red. I actually find it a bit painful to color dragons with the same type of membranes on both sides. This just makes more sense to me ya know?? :thinking: And it just looks better!


2018

This is the current state of Goldey and it has taken me 10 fuckin' years to get her to this point. She's a character of mine who has gone the furthest way in development and holds the most special spot in my universe.
I have become more flexible with changing some odd details on her and simply adding more stripes to the empty spaces that she used to have. :D And just to make the markings fit on her better, I added a small brown tone to them. Solid black on yellow looks a bit hazardous now when I think of it.



2019 and onward... It doesn't stop here! It would be a goal to have her in a little video game someday.
Now that I'm even in a 3D sculpting and modeling university (where we also will have video game projects) it will most certainly be a thing!
So a base mesh of her already exists. Whoops did I say that out loud? Dundunnnn.
The early years in dA were totally the best ones as this place just seemed to be more alive. A lot of people left and sometimes when I come across someone's profile that I used to know as a kid it brings me so many memories and nostalgia.
It gives this little ''last man standing'' feel since I'm still just hanging here and like, over the half of the old peeps are gone and moved forward in their lives. :^D

I didn't have any plans how to end this majestic speech.
I just spent 3 hours writing this description.

uh

I gotta go


Art and Goldey ©  GoldenTigerDragon