I do apologise for links, I have forgotten how to insert images so that they work.
I started with the idea what the VM artist copied "
[b]Title : [/b]Liber de plantis. [b]Publication date : [/b]1440-1460", but very badly / incorrectly.
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The foot placement being almost forcibly attached to the plant image, left foot on the right side of the roots drew me to this conclusion
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In attempting to recreate/prove this copy and "mistake" that lead to the "downstairs mixup" (I'm sorry I'm a mightyboosh fan and it was too tempting), I proved myself wrong. At least I believe I did. I would be interested to hear others thoughts. Either, the artist copied the feet first then realised their mistake in composition which made adding a tail cause all sorts of visual issues (initial thought), or they are trying to show one wing behind the other, and a "clubbed" tail. Which I now think is most likely. Either option shows the artist to be an amateur (not understanding which background lines to omit from foreground), and the "dragon" to be a "dragon", Not a dog, armadillo, ant-eater, ...cat(?!) or others that I have seen mentioned. It either has 2 wings and "clubbed tail", or a long tail, and artist messed up the foot then added a quick fix with the foot poking from behind belly, presumably to be rectified later (or they just didn't care), either in my opinion makes this a dragon.. or the most messed up bird..
In the middle line of images I tried to recreate the image best I could with the VM artists thought process in mind when/if copying, obviously this is a destructive process, it was only done to try understand artistic choices/order of working, but ultimately lead me to believe this was not a copy. The need for the left foot of a dragon to be touching the right side of a root.. is quite a unique scenario though (I haven't seen elsewhere) and I would be shocked if that element of the composition wasn't copied / in the mind of artist.
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If the links don't work let me know, and if you could remind me how to embed stuff so it works again Id be v much appreciative