I wanted to create a Land Before Time story that was completely atypical, intriguing, and at times a little bit scary (similar to the first movie) without resorting to the simple devices like magic and time travel which have no place within the universe.
Far Away Home began very similarly to Future Wars, as a small idea that over the course of weeks gradually grew into a larger and more complex one.
The goal was to leave everything from the first 13 movies completely behind, and explore the realms that existed far outside of the places the gang has visited thus far (after all the prehistoric world was still pretty massive). Moving onto the Wingtails... I came to the conclusion that in order for Sky to characterized the way I wanted him to be he needed a 'tool' that was iconic. It is perfectly feasable for one to say that glass existed in some form back then, but it was entirely another to say that it was 'forged' within a universe of dinosaurs.
The most famous of Wingtail glassworks took generations to make, and they are the Occular, the Cordian, the Sonicron, and the Eye of the World.
My main inspiration for including them came from 2 reasons:
1) The Occular (eyeglass) and the Cordian (glass bell) represent visual and verbal perfection that says something important about Wingtails - they are intelligent, enlightened, a bit showy, and very mindful of their past. The Occular is also extremely useful as a plot device, for numerous reasons from distant sight, polarized vision for catching fish, and focusing light.
2) Destruction. In my story I wanted to give the wingtails something of a weapon that they could feasably use to take on someone like Tyron's sharpteeth without violating the 'no magic' rule. The Sonicron represents the extreme end of sound - sonic resonance. If your voice is just the right pitch, it resonates and cracks the earth causing massive earthshakes. As for the Eye of the World... I haven't got to it yet.
I hope this explains it well enough as I tend to wander a bit.
Caustizer