That Blue Dragon?

[The Time Traveller]

The following images are ambiguous, they doesn't appear to be neither blue or green, but rather teal.

I'd say they're Cyan.... SUPER CYAN!

[SonGoku86]

Thanks for all the responses. It seems to me that, by what you all are saying, Shenlong's color is changed by Toriyama a lot whenever he feels like it. It still doesn't explain why he has googly eyes in the logos, and not anywhere else. Also, does anyone notice a "roar" sound after the dbz logo fades in CHA-LA-HEAD-CHA-LA?

[Saimaroimaru]

Thanks for all the responses. It seems to me that, by what you all are saying, Shenlong's color is changed by Toriyama a lot whenever he feels like it. It still doesn't explain why he has googly eyes in the logos, and not anywhere else. Also, does anyone notice a "roar" sound after the dbz logo fades in CHA-LA-HEAD-CHA-LA?

The eyes is just something to play around with, the logo really is a chibi version of him so he gets the silly eyes to enhance that fact.

[Ashura]

While my best guess is most of these are either actually meant to be Shen-Long and not just random dragons (or were retconned into being Shen-Long later on), I personally don't care that much. What I do think should be noted, though, is the difference in color in all of these -- even the ones that are 100% identifiable as Shen-Long -- is all artistic license.

I mean, not to get all art nerdy, but: If you look at Toriyama's older stuff, he used a lighter more pastel palette most of the time. Whereas later on when he started using markers, the colors got more bold and dark, and the strokes and shading were more intense... most likely so he could even out the tonality of the coloring. Then when he first goes digital, his linework and coloring both suffer in terms of line variance and coloring (it sort of becomes badly airbrushed a lot of the time.) He seems to be getting a better handle on it at this point, but it's still not the same as his hand done stuff.

Trying to 'set' what the colors and what type of eyes these drawings have would be like trying to use art progression as canon elements in the show. In that world, Cell's arrival marked the time when Goku and gang trained to power up their shadows and highlights, and it's a known fact that Dr. Gero's DNA collection caused people's chins to get genetically pointier as time progressed.

In terms of the pictures which were drawn in the same era, when you color a picture, you consider all the colors in the scene, and not just the set colors of the object. In a lot of these, if he had colored the dragon a bright green, it wouldn't have fit the composition he was going for.

It's one of those things where, like when people ask 'what color do you use for skin color?' The answer is a lot of colors, depending on the scene; is it light outside? Dark outside? Full moon? Bright blue sky? Dark cloudy day? The environment affects the colors within it.

The dark and stormy night when Oolong makes his wish for panties? It makes sense -- even in the limited palette -- that he might appear dark and grey. The foreboding palette contrasts the comedy of the wish. Whereas Goku and friends flying in the bright blue sky, they would have a lighter palette and the dragon might appear teal due to the sky. Either that, or it's what he felt good in using with the lighter tones he had picked for Goku's gi, etc.

It's not my favorite Pixar movie, but if you want a big lesson in color theory, watch the scenes in Cars where Lightning McQueen is driving out in the canyons, and notice how the normally stark red canyons are tinted blue in some cases. Study the color in shadows in anything, though. Take a white object out into the bright blue sky... the shadow probably isn't black; it's tinged blue. The shadows on yellow things often appear orange, not murky brown, etc.

Also, I would like to point out that using the eyes as an identifier is not the smartest idea, since they're caricatures. Obviously in the story proper, he's going to want Shen-Long to look menacing. Whereas in cute chibis he's less likely (who knows, he may) to draw Shen-Long with menacing red eyes if he's /supposed/ to be cute. That's not to say these aren't just random dragons as people have said, but, using the actual artbook's description of the pictures is probably a better way to tell what they're intended to be other than arbitrary elements like color and the thing's eyes.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

In Dragon Ball Online, which uses the manga colors, he is green with red eyes.