Concept art: Playing dressup
I developed a little headcannon that changelings aren’t born with that coloured armouring on their back. If you look at what Chrysalis is wearing, it looks like something that has to be wrapped around her, like clothes. Similary, the helmets and back covering of the soldiers look like they’re made of the same material.
My personal belief is that the changelings can remove those back covers like clothes whenever they want to.
The poison joke effect is just a pair of gigantic wings. Amazing as it may seem, they’re actually very heavy and uncomfortable.
I dropped the idea of colours in the wings; too jarring. And yet I like the patterns… so the patterns can stay. Like the patterns of a dragonfly.