Knightmare.com

He looks undeniably blue to me in Series 5 but I see no reference about this on the site or in any articles. I am sure someone (I think it's Elita) says he's a green dragon "That's the best kind" or something like that, but I'm not sure if that was in Series 5 or 6.

Why did he change colour? (Looking for both reasons behind the scenes in production, and also reasons in-story that you could come up with).

He certainly does appear to be blue in Series 5, and his creator Mark Cordory has described him as blue on Twitter. I don't think his colour is mentioned in the show until Lord Fear and Elita both call him a green dragon in Series 6; Romahna and Treguard then specifically identify him as a 'Great Crested Green' in Series 7 and 8. No idea why they seem to have changed his colour - something to do with the chromakey, perhaps? - and the only "in-universe" explanation I can think of is that Great Crested Greens are born blue and become more green with age, or turn green in the mating season like sand lizards!

I hadn't noticed this before, but now I look at it, the more apparent it becomes!

My best guess is that it was something to do with the chromakey. Maybe a possible explanation is that, if the puppet was blue, it would have disappeared entirely (or at least mostly) during the keying-out process, so something needed to be done to its colour...!

There's an article somewhere on Knightmare.com about the development of Smirky behind the scenes, but I can't find it. I remember reading it, though.

Smirky was also (intentionally) recoloured to appear as Red Death in series 6. That is to say, I'm assuming it's the same puppet, as Red Death also has the saddle on his back! I wonder how that was done - maybe it was a lighting change, maybe CGI trickery, or maybe something else cleverly done with chromakey.

Pooka wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017, 15:07 There's an article somewhere on Knightmare.com about the development of Smirky behind the scenes, but I can't find it. I remember reading it, though.

It's here, and perhaps this actually answers the question:

You may not know that there were actually two Smirkenorff models. The first (original) was a full-body used for the long-shots of Smirkenorff whilst in flight from Series 5 (1991).

For the next series of Knightmare, Tim Child wanted a more detailed, expressive head section for the talking scenes, which required a more complex jaw movement and therefore another model.

[...]

(As this version was commissioned over a year after the full body original, Mark only had a few pictures as reference so the close-up head ended up a bit greener than the first).

So the change in colour seems to have been somewhat accidental!

Interesting about the two Smirky's being made!

But I also like the 'in universe' theory of him changing in to another colour as the passing of time between seasons went on.

Gives him a more 'mythical' aspect to his character.

Canadanne wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017, 17:45

Pooka wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017, 15:07 There's an article somewhere on Knightmare.com about the development of Smirky behind the scenes, but I can't find it. I remember reading it, though.

It's here, and perhaps this actually answers the question:

You may not know that there were actually two Smirkenorff models. The first (original) was a full-body used for the long-shots of Smirkenorff whilst in flight from Series 5 (1991).

For the next series of Knightmare, Tim Child wanted a more detailed, expressive head section for the talking scenes, which required a more complex jaw movement and therefore another model.

[...]

(As this version was commissioned over a year after the full body original, Mark only had a few pictures as reference so the close-up head ended up a bit greener than the first).

So the change in colour seems to have been somewhat accidental!

that info is very interesting...... i love the dragon.

Canadanne wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017, 17:45 (As this version was commissioned over a year after the full body original, Mark only had a few pictures as reference so the close-up head ended up a bit greener than the first).

So the change in colour seems to have been somewhat accidental!

This may explain why we don't see any full body shots of Smirky flying after season 5... just the close-up of the dungeoneer on the back.

I had noticed he changed from blue to green, but put it down to the usual colour changes between series (series 4 being purple, series 6 being orange, and series 7 being natural colours).