Several years ago I reached to Jared Pullen, the lead concept artist at Krome Studios of The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning and The Eternal Night about Cynder the Dragon and how she came to be:
Jared Pullen wrote:
"Cynder was one of those rare opportunities to create a female villain character that was both unique and fresh design wise, but also felt as if she had been a part of the Spyro mythology for quite some time. She certainly seems to have resonated with so many Spyro fans out there, whether that's from her Gothic design sensibilities or the fact that she has an interesting back story in terms of her origin, I'm not entirely sure.... but whatever the case she definitely is a compelling character within the realm of Spyro, and has pretty much become a mainstay within it.
Nowadays where there's Spyro, there's Cynder it seems.... and it gives no end of satisfaction to have played a part in it, however small that was 😀 The real credit for Cynder's design must go to the very talented Mr Bruno Rime, who was my lead at the time and overall Art Lead on the first Legend Of Spyro title. The story called for 'a powerful and shadowy dark Dragon' to be Spyro's nemesis for the first installment of TLOS trilogy, beyond that no specification was given and the starting point was very loose. It was Bruno who determined that this villain be female and a Black Dragon at that too... as the Dragon villains previously fought in the earlier Spyro titles were generally red coloured. [...]