🌋Where the Sea Meets Fire: Designing the Kīlauea Dragon!

Hello everyone!

SacAnime was a blast! Thank you to all who came by to say hello! We were finally able to bring some of the plush to their very first show. Seeing everyone’s reactions to seeing our chunky dragons was so much fun!

Where the Sea meets Fire

Today we are leaving the California landscapes behind and heading for Hawaii. For this newsletter, we’re looking at the coasts and volcanoes of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park to find inspiration for a brand new Wilderness Dragon.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never had the opportunity to visit Hawaii myself. It’s definitely on the bucket list! The natural features found there are so intriguing. The park is famously home to two massive shield volcanoes. These are volcanoes that gently slope to the surrounding ground, much like a warrior’s shield left resting on the earth.

• Mauna Loa: The largest active shield volcano in the world. It takes up 60 percent of the island!
• Kīlauea: The most active volcano in the world, boasting long eruptions that have lasted up to 35 years. That’s a lot of lava!

The park also protects the oceans around it. Wildlife travels to this sanctuary to seek refuge and raise their young. Honu (green sea turtles) that have been at sea for upwards of 20 years make their way here to lay their eggs, while Koholā (Humpback whales) migrate to the area during winter to enjoy the warmer seas.

The Kīlauea Hawaii Dragon

I wanted to design a creature that seamlessly mixes both the sea and the fire. With Kīlauea and the resilient green turtles in mind, I started to work on the dragon. For flora, I wanted to incorporate Ohi’a Lehua, which grows directly from the barren lava rocks, terraforming the land. They feature brilliant red flowers. Though they are small, they have a huge impact!

Check out the first rough!

And here is the cleaned up sketch! Personally, I love the idea of vents as horns that let it blow off steam.

Wilderness Dragons

Here are all the dragons so far! Right now I’m hoping to have 11 designed for the campaign sized at 2 inches. It’s a rough number though, and could change.

I’m interested in your thoughts on which parks to cover. I’ll be putting out an update soon, so be on the lookout for that!

Be sure to follow the campaign here! Followers will get a pinecone pin when they back the campaign!

Thank you for reading!

Until next time,

Arielle + Ryan