Larval Dragonite

This is my take on Dratini for Poke-fanclub's weekly 'Draw Me a Pokemon' contest. If I win I call Krokorok.

When taking a look at Dratini and Dragonair fan art I saw several step by step evolutions which I thought were very interesting. Those then put me onto a path of polliwogs and salamander larva... External gills, developing legs, changing skin colors and so on.

So what if Dragonite was an amphibian of sorts... the head fins/ feathers on its younger evolutionary stages were gills...

And I ended up with this. The spheres on Dragonair are: neck- a dewlap and tail- the receding tail fin.

The white spot on top of Dratini's head may be an eye spot of some sort. The scale over it fails to shed properly and builds up over time, creating a fragile horn in its Dragonair form. Dragonite grows orange scales that overlap it completely due to the strange growth pattern - directly behind the horn, two layers of scales grow backwards. While most of the scales on a Dragonite are tiny, naturally excluding the creature's ventral scales, The scales directly around the horn are long and thin and completely overlap the original eye spot scale. 

Drawn and painted 9/25/12.