Wyvern

Origin and myth

The wyvern is a child of heraldry rather than of epic poetry. Its name comes from Middle English wyver (14th century), from Anglo-French wivre, itself from the Latin vipera, "viper"; the final -n was added later, and the herald John Guillim wrote "wiverne" in 1610. The earliest documented heraldic wyver appears in the Banneret's Roll of 1312, but in the 14th and 15th centuries dragon, wyrm and wyver were often used interchangeably. The distinction that we rely on today - two legs for a wyvern, four for a dragon - emerged gradually and was codified in English heraldry in the 16th century.

The image itself is older. Winged serpents appear in ancient Near Eastern art and in Greek and Roman writers from Herodotus to Ovid, and medieval bestiaries, which treat dragons as serpents of the air, are possible sources for the type. English local legends of dragons and "worms" that ravage a district until a local hero kills them often feature this kind of two-legged winged serpent in later retellings.

In heraldry the wyvern is a common charge, borne for example by the city of Leicester and later by the Midland Railway. Unlike the fire-breathing dragon of saga, the heraldic wyvern is rarely shown breathing fire, and it is not associated with treasure. Its popular link with the old kingdom of Wessex is a 19th-century antiquarian idea with little historical evidence behind it.

Appearance

The wyvern is a dragon simplified to its most bird-like form. It has only two legs, placed at the hips like a bird's, and its wings replace the forelimbs entirely. The wing bones are elongated fingers spanned by membrane, with a single hooked claw at the wrist that the creature uses to clamber over rocks. In profile the body is roughly S-shaped: a long neck rising from the shoulders, a narrow head with a hooked, beak-like snout, and a heavy tail that balances the forward weight.

The tail is the wyvern's signature. It is long and flexible, and in heraldry it usually ends in a barbed, arrowhead-like point, which modern fantasy often turns into a venomous sting. The hind legs are strong, with three forward toes and one rear toe, all heavily clawed.

Scales are smaller and more uniform than a four-legged dragon's, often described as dull green, grey-brown or slate. Heraldic wyverns come in many tinctures - silver for Leicester, green for the Italian city of Terni, black in some family arms - and a green body with red wings is a popular modern scheme. The head is narrower and more reptilian than a dragon's, with a crest or frill rather than horns, and the teeth are needle-like.

In modern fantasy

Wyverns are the working-class dragon of modern games: numerous, dangerous, but rarely intelligent. They appear as mounts and monsters in tabletop roleplaying games, in monster-hunting video games and in countless tabletop wargames, where they typically occupy a tier below true dragons.

3D printing notes

The wyvern is more print-friendly than a four-legged dragon because its silhouette is simpler and its mass is concentrated in fewer parts. At 28-32 mm, resin is still the right call: the tail barb, teeth and wing membranes are too fine for FDM. Print with the model tilted so that each wing membrane is angled at least 20 degrees from the build plate, and support the wing tips, the wrist claws and the underside of the tail.

At 75 mm, resin gives the cleanest result, but a well-tuned FDM printer with a 0.4 mm nozzle at 0.12 mm layers can handle the body if the wings are printed separately and flat. Model or slice the wings as two parts with a peg at the shoulder.

For a 150 mm centrepiece, split into body, two wings, tail and head. A wyvern perched on a rock with wings half-folded is one of the most stable and least support-hungry poses available. Fully articulated print-in-place wyverns with segmented tails are a popular FDM project and print without supports.

Painting and display

The popular green-and-red scheme - green body, red belly and wing membranes - is instantly recognisable and easy to execute: a dark green base, olive dry-brushing on the scales, a brown wash in the recesses, then bright red on the membranes glazed darker toward the arm bones. For a naturalistic look, choose mottled grey-brown scales with a paler throat and add a yellow-green glaze to the eyes.

Wyverns suit rocky, windswept bases: slate chips, a few tufts of dry grass and perhaps the bones of a sheep. The tail sting can be highlighted with a gloss varnish to suggest venom, and a slight gloss on the teeth helps the head read at a distance.

Related creatures

The four-legged Dragon is the wyvern's larger relative and the model from which heralds distinguished it. The Cockatrice shares its two-legged, winged, venomous design but with a rooster's head, and the Hippogriff is the other great mount of Renaissance romance and modern fantasy.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Wyvern, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern
• Wiktionary, wyvern (etymology), https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wyvern

If you would like a custom wyvern printed at any scale, get in touch with Fantasy Lab 3D through the contact form.