It’s time to get out of this world in the April AtoZ Challenge 2018, courtesy of this awesome Silicon Dragon by Canadian/American deviantartist Heather Romero, posting as hevromero.

She has written a detailed description of this dragon that really blew my mind, so I’ll just let it speak for itself!

[I]nspired by an extraterrestrial book I have which shows/explains what silicon life could look like. Wings are based on snowflake crystals, so it looks like it could be made of ice too.. …

Since it’s basically a living crystal, its ‘skin’ is broken into multiple parts for flexibility. Its eyes are insect like and multi-faceted. The things on his neck are like hoses that spray a strong acid – it’s a lithovore so it has to be able to dissolve rocks and gems sometimes to eat them.

The multiple legs are just for niftiness’ sake, though a silicon dragon would be living somewhere with high gravity/pressures on them. Its wings wouldn’t really allow it to fly since they’re fairly rigid and snowflakes don’t fly, but it could possibly glide with them.

Another thing – since it would breath out silicon dioxide, a solid and not a gas like we breath out, it doesn’t actually exhale. Instead, it mixes with a sticky substance or something and comes out through the skin, coating the dragon with a layer of sand as a means of protection. It’d have to ‘molt’ or shake it off sometimes though.

Although some of these ideas are from that book, a few of the last mentioned ones are [Heather’s] own.

I love it when artists put so much work into their designs, and then share their process with us!

I’ve actually shared one of Heather’s dragons before, kind of… another artist drew her dragon Morithias, and I featured him in a recent Writing Thoughts post.  When I found this dragon in Heather’s gallery, I knew she’d have to be a part of AtoZ!  You can find more of her art at her personal website, and follow her on Twitter and Tumblr.

I’m keeping it simple this year with my theme of “Odds and Ends Dragons” — amazing artwork by artists I’ve come across in past searches, but wasn’t able to find a spot for at the time.  Read more at my Theme Post.

All of these AtoZ posts should appear around 9:05 AM CT (-5 GMT) each day Monday through Saturday — Remember, no post on Sundays!  For even more dragons, check out my 2016 and 2017 posts!

Thanks for reading, take care, and stay creative!

Image credits:
Silicon Dragon by Heather Romero, posting as hevromero