Despite only being vulnerable, I felt as though the Snake's Head Fritillary would be a good fit for our game. I don't think that the fact that the flower is only vulnerable is too much of a hurdle, as there is still a message of giving representation to flowers that are in need within that. As well as this, there were only a few endangered flowers in the UK, especially when I limited it down to flowers that would fit our fantasy theme well, so I widened the scope a bit more to further flowers in need. The third explanation for this lies in the fact that we needed a variety of plant population statuses. You can only really put focus on endangered plants by having a less endangered plant as a comparative, so as I went on in this project, I started to pick from more common UK flowers, as these would add a staging level of rarity to our game. It would work well if all the flowers you had to grow were near impossible to come across.

Going on to the appearance of the flower, the main reason for the name is due to the chequered petals of the flower. It is likely that people think that the pattern of these petals resembles snake skin, hence the name of it being in relation to a snake head, as the petals of the plant would surely be the head of a snake. Another key element to the flower is its long thin leaves, as these are an identifier of the plant.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons

As I was illustrating these flowers based on their names, I knew this flower was going to take inspiration from snake appearances. Due to the main reason for the name of the flower was due to the chequered petals resembling snake skin, so I decided for my design I would make the petals have the pattern of snake scales. I drew out some snake skin first that I would be able to apply to the petals, when I made them, as a mask.

I then drew out my design for the flower, and put the snake skin pattern I had made onto the petals, as well as adding some darker lines at the top of the petal as was seen on the original flower. After doing this, I went onto trying to add more features to the plant to make it be recognisable as a snake. I knew that, due it being called the Snake's Head Fritillary, that the petals of the plant were the head of the snake, so I added some eyes to the flower to personify the flower further, and tried to make them the slitted eyes that are seen in common media, despite most snakes not looking like this. I also added a forked tongue that people commonly associate with snakes, and tried to input it onto the flower as if it were an extension of one of the petals toward the front.
Despite adding all these features to highlight the snake factor of the plant, I still felt as though you couldn't immediately identify it as a snake. Another thing I felt looking at the design was it was a bit clunky, and didn't really flow together well, so I pondered over some ideas on how to make it more snake-like.

To try and make my design resemble a snake more, I tried looking at actual snakes and how I could use their attributes within my design. Most would say that the key element of a snake is the long body without any limbs, something that, with the leaves on the plant, my design was lacking. One thing that is very much associated with snakes, is the specific way they lay their body, as shown by the photo.

After looking at more at snakes, I decided one way I could alter the design to be more snake-like would be to change the stem so it was shaped a bit more like the body of a snake. When changing the stem design, I did, unfortunately, have to remove the leaves that the flower partially identified by. Though I do think this decision is slightly controversial, overall I do think the design looks a lot better with the snake body, and though I did consider putting the leaves onto the snake stem, when I did it didn't read as well as a snake body due to one of the key features of a snake being that it does not have limbs.

I decided that the previous design looked a little unnerving for our cute kids game, so I tried to make the face of the snake a little friendlier. I think the main issue with the appearance was the eyes, so I made them so they were no longer angled in a way that represented anger, as well as moving the pupils so they were no longer staring dead ahead. I also felt that on the previous design, the forked tongue didn't really make sense as an extension of the petal, and looked a little strange, so I instead changed it so that it was the anthers. Though I know that in the actual flower that the stamen don't reach nearly this far down, I think that the idea of the snake tongue being in the middle of the petals works better than it being attached to one specific one. Due to adding the yellow into the colour scheme of the plant with the pollen, I also added it to the eyes as many snakes with slits have a yellow iris. As a whole I feel as though the yellow as an accent colour to the design works really well.
Another element I added to the design was the implication that the bottom of the snake's tail had actually been in the ground when growing. This would suggest that the stem had curled up like this after being taken out of the ground, which adds a lot more context to how it would grow, and adds the fact that, when growing, the stem looks like a normal plant.

I did, however, run into an issue when trying strengthen this idea of the tail growing in the ground. I attempted the design shown first, but this just looked mostly like twigs sticking out of the tail. I then tried making the roots a bit thicker so they could split better into thinner roots, but this looked just a bit like when potatoes go off and the roots start growing in them. I even tried putting the two designs together, but nothing quite looked right.

I considered what was making my roots look so strange, and realised that, originally, I had thought that since roots grew downwards, with the tail being pointed up, the roots would also point up. I now realise that roots aren't that rigid, and so are affected by gravity. This meant that when I pointed the roots downward, they looked a lot better.
I then added plenty more roots to the design so it looked good, added some lighting to the eyes as they looked a little plain, and the design was done.