Saphira the Dragon

Saphira is a dragon partner of the main character in The Inheritance Cycle, a fantasy adventure book series by Christopher Paolini. She hatched from an egg stolen from Galbatorix by Brom and Jeod. She is the last living female dragon in all of Alagaësia, although more dragon eggs are found at the end of the final novel. Saphira is wise, fearless, protective of Eragon, and somewhat vain. She is also skilled at aerial acrobatics. There was also a 2006 fantasy adventure film directed by Stefen Fangmeier and written by Peter Buchman, loosely based on the first book in the series. I tried to base my build on Saphira from the movie and I think it came out good.

I always liked the book series and the film. I was inspired to make this dragon because the film will be already 20 years old by 2026. Also, I got the source dragon of motion for christmas, which, for the end of 2024, was the only dragon set with more than 1500 pieces. After Christmas I started making Saphira. It took me a while to get the right head design, but the body was a breese to make. I couldn't make wings for a while, but then i thought of using technic panels as kind of feathers that form Saphiras' wings and it worked out very good.

This build uses 1931 pieces. The dragon has movable wings that cannot turn forward or backward, but can still show a lot of motion while flying. The front limbs can't move backward because wings get in the way. Back limbs have more motion than front do. The tail has a lot of joints that allow swinging from side to side. The head is pretty detailed and the jaw can open and close.