The BEST Spyro the Dragon Character Design?

Channel:

The Artist Mark Flynn

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Published on December 8, 2019 10:29:55 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qUCIYxlubw

Game:

Spyro the Dragon (1998)

Duration: 22:05

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1,503

#SpyroThe Dragon #TheArtistMarkFlynn #BestSpyroDesign

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After I did the episode on Crash Bandicoot it seemed fitting to cover Spyro next!

Music and Game Footage © Toys for Bob & Vivendi Universal
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Spyro the Dragon, Spyro Remastered, Spyro Reignited, Spyro Skylanders
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Spyro the Dragon is another one of those characters that I adored as a child, but for some reason never ended up spending much time with. It was one of those games I’d watch a friend play rather than playing through myself, young me really enjoyed a live action let's play.

But regardless, the Spyro games always stood out to me and the character definitely burned a memorable hole in my heart. As I aged and went through game shops over the years I’d always make sure to look at the characters games to see what was occurring, never paying too much attention, but always noticing slight differences if they did arise.

Like all other good 3D Platformers, Spyros main strength was that of his strong character design, and this was carefully developed. However, initial sketches of the character were not what I expected, they were much more fitting of what you might expect from a cartoon inspired traditional dragon. Many of these designs were bulkier and frankly, uglier than what the finished concept would end up as. Spyro was intended to be as a mascot that would appeal to all with a bratty character to boot but these traditional dragons that stood on two legs didn’t emphasise these traits quite enough at this early stage.

At one point the character was a green Dragon named Pete, how original. Disney says hello, here is my cease and desist. Can you imagine if this had happened? Disney would have come after them quicker than they took down gifs of Baby Yoda.

Thankfully the team saw sense and developed a character that was visually more appealing and far more unique.

Purple scales were decided upon as many of the locales would be lush and green. As similarly mentioned with Crash Bandicoot, it was essential that this character was visible against the games environments. Speaking of Crash, him and Spyro do seem to share quite a lot of similar traits and historical moments, they both tried to establish themselves as the PlayStation mascot, they both struggled after they left the platform and they both have had triumphant hoorahs in the modern day. Given their history, I may bring up Crash a few times in this video too, it just feels right. Is that a good enough excuse to reuse this clip again?

Also, just like the last episode, I’ve got another Tubbz figurine to give away! Thanks to all who entered for the Crash Bandicoot duck last time around, but this time I have a Spyro up for grabs. Yet again, a big thanks to Numskull designs for providing this figurine, which is layered with little details that make this feel like a very authentic recreation of the little Dragon. If you’d like to enter, head on over to my twitter for full details.

As always, we’ll go through a ton of designs today, so let me know what you think in the comments section below.

I’m the Artist Mark Flynn and let’s find out which Spyro design I think truly is best.

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