fantasy-anatomy-analyst

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

アカウント作り直したので過去絵中心にボチボチ更新していきます。

I have re-created my account.

My creator name is Nishiki Suzumori.

I will update mainly illustrations I have drawn in the past.

All illustrations may not be reproduced without permission.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

hello! just coming here to forward a cool channel that ive found that seems up the alley of you & this blogs following - The Skullywag Lab! very skull focused cahnnel as you might guess but its very interesting

awesome!

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

speaking of how to train your dragon and creature design, the shift from the really naturalistic art direction and character animation for the first movie's toothless- the face getting flatter, the eyes bigger and closer together, getting rid of the little realistic details like the dust collecting between the scales, the pink splotching where the scales end at the nostrils, the muted markings, the animation making a shift from largely realistic animal behavior to much more anthropomorphic- is such a huge downgrade to me, made worse because it's subtle in such a way that you will sound insane if you mention it

(huge L for the "the audience's capacity to find a creature cute and empathetic and expressive is directly proportional to how much it looks like a human baby" principle of character design because the first one is so so much cuter)

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Something I’ve been wondering about is how a species culture would be influenced if it had a specific mating season or time? My own species has this (summer-fall) and I was wondering how it would influence what their culture would view as sexual or romantic and when?

Plus I was thinking how weird it is that humans don’t seem to have a specific mating season compared to other animals

I have been playing around with this in my own worldbuilding for my novels! one of my protagonists is a quetzalin (bird dude) and they have a mating season that aligns mostly with the spring-summer season. their hormones cause a full body molt through the early spring, so they only have new feathers during the mating season, and testosterone causes them to grow extra feathers as courting plumage.

it totally changes their behavior for the season, increasing the libido, causing ovulation, and generally making people a little hyper. and then they have an end of season hormone shift that causes a partial molt and it kind of gives the whole population seasonal depression, while also making everyone very broody over the eggs that were laid during the courting season.

they tend to have short term flings during the courting season and then spend the rest of the year building more stable committed relationships. polyamory is also very common for them. during the courting season, they take different roles based on their preferred courtship style and alter their pronouns to reflect this (though it does not align with more typical ideas of gender). but outside of courting season they all use a standard adult pronoun, becoming functionally genderless and also asexual as their libido takes a massive nose dive and they no longer feel such obvious sexual attraction. their romantic feelings do stick around all year, which is how they work out those long term relationships.

not all animals with a mating season will go through big physical changes like growing courting plumage, but it is fun to work with in fiction. the hormonal changes that come with a mating season would have a big impact on how people behave, probably causing a spike in impulsivity, aggression, and recklessness. it would also create physical sensations that may be uncomfortable, such as just being horny all the time, maybe feeling overheated faster, etc. itchiness from growing things like antlers or courting plumage if they have that kind of anatomy.

culturally, the mating season should also affect people's schedules and social expectations, probably coming with a lot of festivities to help blow off steam. organized competitions for those who fight to gain a mate, dance arenas for courtship performances, etc. they may have more calorie dense foods to replenish their energy around this time of year. they may tend to wear more simple clothes outside the mating season and then dress fancy and flashy through the mating season, or perhaps they dress more skimpy.

I also think sex work would be easily accessible and a very common and respected job, because when the entire adult population is just horny all day every day for roughly half the year, and not all of them are going to be successful in finding mates, they'll want an easy outlet for those sexual urges.

ultimately, there are a lot of fascinating ways to explore this concept! go have fun with it!

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Question: are your goblins inspired by the spiderwick chronicles goblins?

They are! At least in part. I loved Spiderwick so much as a kid, those books were even the whole reason I decided to join a fencing class when I was like 12. And the froggy goblins stuck with me through the years, so when I decided to make my own goblins, I ended up making them more and more froggy with every redesign lol.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

it's worth noting that "hearing" the way a spider does is quite different from human hearing, in that it's more of a physical feeling through their hairs, so combining it with the decreased human hearing would not mask the fact that this boy is hard of hearing, even to his own senses.

this article is a simplified look at how spiders "hear".

and obviously it's impossible to know exactly how spiders perceive sound because we're not spider mind readers. it could be that they do perceive it similarly to us, but it could also be that they perceive it more as very detailed physical sensations.

I think it would be neat if you explored various ways to describe how this spider boy feels when sound interacts with his senses, and focused more on the unique nature of his "hearing" and how it changes the way he reacts to things, rather than trying to supplement his reduced human hearing in a way that would just put him back to a more typical human level of hearing.

there's a lot to explore here! the article even mentions spiders using their webs like finely tuned instruments to "hear" better, which is just super cool. I also wonder if you intend to have any of his other senses affected by being part spider, like his sight, smell, or sense of touch, especially since touch and sound will now be very connected for him! it could even be considered like a form of synesthesia, honestly.

maybe he could even have specialized clothing that works better with his new touch-hearing spider anatomy situation, perhaps based on the way spiderwebs can enhance that sense? big bell shaped skirts, is what i'm thinking. little silly, maybe, but it sure would be like a whole sound disc for his legs. just spitballing some fun new ideas here, up to you! most importantly, have fun with your spider boy! it's a really cool concept!

Hi! I'm working on a character who has had his DNA spliced with a spider's, and I've been trying to find interesting ways to combine their biology. Spiders don't have ears/eardrums, but hear through thousands of tiny hairs on their legs that detect vibrations. Scientists were able to determine this in part by putting drops of water on their legs and measuring less brain activity in response to noises relative to when the spiders are dry, meaning the water "muffled" their hearing.

I'm considering implementing that into this character by having him be HoH (not fully deaf) in his human ears and have the "ear" hairs on his arms and legs supplement his hearing. He doesn't realize this is the case, so when he is (forced) to wear pants/long sleeves, his hearing is reduced because the clothes block the vibrations.

He is a kid, and was raised in a very dehumanizing way, so he was never able to tell the scientists that he was having issues with hearing because complaining would go poorly and he wouldn't be given proper accommodations anyway. In my story, he ends up being rescued by other superheroes and given a much better life, which would include learning how to navigate the world with his disabilities. Would it be reasonable to give him hearing aids at some point once they discover he's HoH? I know they aren't a solution for everyone, but I thought that since he only has partial hearing loss, it could be helpful for him.

Would it be a version of a "magical cure" if his full range is enhanced relative to a regular human (this is a superhero setting)? Is it a "magical cure" that his powers, when allowed to work properly, make him have a standard level of hearing at all?

(I know I've already sent a couple asks recently but I this came to me while doing other research. Thank you for everything you do on this blog!)

Followup to the HoH spider ask: if it makes a difference, he has trouble thermoregulating (and lives in a climate where it gets cold in the winter) so he would have to wear long clothes a lot to keep warm, which would interfere with the (potentially supernatural level) spider hearing

Hi!

I think the idea of a HoH spider is really cool! However I do think some of this veers into cure or erasure territory.

Quick note about hearing aids: they don't help everyone who is hard of hearing either; it's really dependent on the person, their level of hearing loss, their degree of auditory processing disorder, and their sound sensitivity. They might help him but maybe the sound feels overwhelming since he was born HoH and is not used to it.

On that note, maybe his spider hearing works similarly. Even once he discovers he can hear better with the hairs uncovered, sound could be disorienting and overwhelming. He might have trouble locating and recognizing sounds, as well as being easily tired by listening.

Having his "super hearing" make him essentially hearing, even if he doesn't use it frequently, is still a magical cure. Spider hearing can certainly be an aid, but making it equivalent to a hearing person's hearing is erasure.

Mod Rock

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Way back when you first posted your cool weird DnD dragons, I think you mentioned something about them maybe being eusocial with kobolds and maybe dragonborn acting as different biological casts and I honestly think about that idea a lot. When you wrote that, were you imagining these kobolds being just as anatomically weird as the dragons whose colony they were a part of?

I’ve actually drawn kobolds before, but I’ve changed some things about their designs and lore since then.

They have a few different castes, not all of which are present in every dragon, and certain castes can change into others. For example, most kobolds are born as quadrupedal Carriers, which act as couriers and assistants to Manuals, which are the bipedal worker caste and second phase of development. A favorite kobold may also be metamorphosed by its parent into a winged drone, which grows significantly taller and acts as scout, messenger, and lover to other dragons. The appearance and unusual sociality of drones has led many layfolk to mistake them for half-dragons, which are almost unheard of in chromatic lineages. Metallics, which are more prone to interacting directly with nondragons are far more likely to produce hybrid offspring. Some species also develop larger “warrior” caste kobolds (swolbolds)

The illustration depicts blue dragon kobolds, which possess a hornlike antenna for locating conspecifics, calling for help, and finding their way home. Brass dragons, which wander the same habitats, will occasionally steal blue kobolds for service by mimicking their Queen’s psychic signal.

Honorable mention to fairy kobolds, which are the mixed bag of smallfolk varmints that metallics commonly press into service. These creatures readily find their ways into dragon lairs through the same liminal byways used to slip between material space and the faewild. Like the faewild, dragon lairs are high magic environments, and often conveniently close to human dwellings to forage from. But it comes at a cost: fairies are a magic rich snack for a dragon, so they have to adapt fast. Using their innate knack for glamouring to blend into a lair’s unique aesthetic, a fairy will begin working to protect and furnish its home as they would in any other dwelling which ultimately serves the interests of the dragon. If the dragon notices them at that point, it usually tolerates them bumming in its house.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Earth 470 - Manji Design (Take 1)

Got the skull together and tried to do a bit of doodling - the one eye/two eyes looks pretty good honestly but I appreciate the double eyes lmao. Maybe on the skull, the cavity for the secondary eye is sort od connected? I'll look at spiders I suppose.

I'll be trying a more... humanoid/primate style ear next too because all that fluff looks better on my cat-characters honestly. Or I can just shrink the hair, we'll see which version looks better

Lessened the mask around the face a little - I like it better but I might lessen it more though

And here's V2! I moved the eye back and a little down. It kinda makes sense that the additional eyes were originally for a better field of view - like spider eyes being placed all around the head. I forgot the hair again (common mistake of mine) but I think the skull looks decently enough now.

Added the whiskers back in a much thinner method than I did before so they actually look like whiskers rather than antennae.

The sitting pose was an attempt at drawing the pattern before I tried again in a bigger form

V1 of the manji patterns.

See, I'm the kind of person who writes this stuff out before attempting to doodle it lmao. The coloring in general is a white or cream tipped tail and a white or cream bottom with banded legs based on the okapi.

Wasn't looking at my reference for the butt stripes I'll admit, so when I redraw it, hopefully it'll look better.

| | | |

Struggling a bit on how I should break down all the little bits and points I had for them haha

(@fantasy-anatomy-analyst just tagging to show them off!)

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Sliding back not for advice this time - wanted to know if you'd be okay with me @-ing you in posts about the manji? I've doodled them a little recently and was starting to put together a post on the corrections I needed to make

Sure!

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

so was anybody gonna talk about the new ecology paper proposing Ethiopian wolves as potential pollinators of native nectar-rich flower inflorescences positioned on stalks conveniently within wolf enjoying height AND that it includes photos of said wolves doing said unconfirmed alleged pollination (delightful) AND that it has observational evidence suggesting some wolves do like 1 flower and are done and other wolves just get really into it and spend upwards of an hour going between 20 and 30 flowers for up to 4-5 minutes per cluster just utterly going at it, lost in the nectar sauce? because I cannot BELIEVE I haven’t seen something on this webbed site about it yet. it just has everything this site enjoys

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

there could potentially be medieval art academics in my follower list, who knows.

Hey @elodieunderglass, other nerds on this webbed site, et al, can I have a signal boost for a very silly request?

you know the motif of snails in medieval art (snart)

I'm looking for a particular master's thesis on this topic, which was:

- probably written within the last 6 years

- definitely within the last 10 years

- the author is probably a woman and

- probably did the masters in the USA

Given snail art (snart) as a topic, there's a nonzero chance the author is a fellow tumblrina

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

What would cat ears look like on a human/how would a human-cat hybrid work?

I've been intrigued by them recently and started drawing cat people, but the ears always mess me up. Any thoughts?

-🍿

I've reblogged this post before, but tumblr's search system makes it difficult for even me to find things on my own blog lol.

I like the way this post illustrates humanoids with cat ears, having the ear canal in a reasonable location. it's more focused on human-with-cat-features, but the basic structure of the ear placement can be applied to less humanoid designs too.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

How could Mothman fly with such a big dumpy behind him?

he has air sacs in his booty, obviously. how else could his cheeks be so round and perky?

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Hiya, it's me from the painted dog people a while back :3 So I've run into a minor dilemma - as a matter of aesthetics I want the 'maji' to retain a familiar face but I want to keep the secondary breathing system but I don't know what would cause it? My current idea is essentially having two lung systems - where the nose and mouth can operate automatically but the secondary olefactors are manual (kind of like a fusion of standard mammal and cetaceans?) but I haven't been able to decide how that would come about or even how it would affect their appearance.

I considered it having something to do with scent given I decided that (pulling from canids and felids), they're incredibly sensitive to smells but that's about it? Their homeworld is primarily made of savannas and scrublands of different climates (so tropicals, grasslands and taigas) if that helps any

hi! sorry for the delay. I do remember your painted dog folks, they're a lot of fun!

I think having a secondary breath system for scent detection is a cool idea! they probably wouldn't need secondary lungs, but having a secondary windpipe specifically for the olfactory system makes sense. I'm sure you've already had a chance to look up canine and feline olfactory systems, as a useful reference point.

by having a main windpipe for normal breathing and then a narrower one that goes through the olfactory system, the flow of air through the secondary pipe would have a different speed/intensity that could help their sense of smell be stronger? take that with a grain of salt, I'm spitballing lol.

I don't recall every detail of your design, but if you wanted some interesting alien respiratory systems for inspiration, go check out @jayrockin 's centaurs!

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

How do you feel about the idea of “Evil species” in fiction in general? I k ow it’s a highly controversial topic in the Fanatsy community about the use of all evil creatures and if they should even exist at all? I’m curious as to your idea on the subject about the existance of evil being and how/ if they can even be used correctly in media?

For me personally I do beliving they have a place in storytelling and can be done well, it’s just most franchises don’t seem to think it through. The best examples of an all evil species I can think of are the demons of freiren and the orks of Warhammer. Both are evil in a sense of “they are actively incompatible with human life” and not the “mindless sadist for no reason”. Both having lore and narrative reasons that make them evil by human definition of the concept.

The demons of freiren are magical apex predators who evolved to mimic humans in-order to prey on us more efficiently. They are cruel and predatory towards humans as we are their food, not because their mustache twirling super villains. The orks of Warhammer are bio-engineered weapons built to wage endless war, however they outlasted their creators and where never programmed with an “off-switch” and run rampant as a result.

I think there are ways to do it right! I mean, my goodness, I've been playing Legend of Zelda since I was a kid and it's still my favorite video game series. I think "all of these creatures are evil because they were literally formed from evil energy and/or were crafted for this purpose and have no true sapient free will" is a reasonable explanation for cannon fodder monsters. "they're natural predators of humans" is also something I think works but I don't consider a type of Evil, per se! wolves can't help that they're the natural predators of deer. nor can they help that chasing down prey and killing it brutally is a torturous way to die. nature is just like that. it may seem to the humans that their natural predator is uniformly evil, but that's just a matter of perspective! and I think stories that explore the nuance in matters like that are fascinating (I'm in that boat myself, with my orcs and centaurs).

but "these creatures are fully sapient people who are just Evil because it's an inherent natural trait, and also they're brutish and ugly" is a lot less acceptable to me. It frequently devolves into tropes and designs that taste of racism if they're not outright racist. and it's mainly the addition of "since they're all evil, we're going to make them Look Evil" and then the designs copy tropes from previous "these people are all evil because we said so" and the trail goes back far enough that oh whoops turns out these design tropes have racist origins! like squinty eyes, certain nose shapes, hair types, skin tones, clothing styles, etc.

and for evil creatures that don't look any sort of humanoid, you end up with that "the more evil they are, the more grotesquely animalistic they look" trope and I also have a problem with that! because I think it does a disservice to the diverse weirdness of real life animals.

I know these tropes remain common now because they've been around for so long, and shape language in design is important and we've been conditioned to view certain design choices as "evil", so those shapes keep getting used!

but I do think there are better ways.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Alright I think my November burnout from that illustration project and a crochet parasol and family time at Thanksgiving is all fading away now, so I will have time and energy to deal with my ask box backlog!

In unrelated notes:

If you're rude to me on my own posts I'm just gonna block. I'm a little less-than-2000-followers niche blog on tumblr and if you think my past "fixes" of mainstream professional creature designs are worse than the originals, you really don't need to tell me that. I don't care if you don't like my versions. This is one more reason I've decided to stop posting critiques and fixes like that. I just don't wanna deal with that type of response.

What I like in a creature design and what you like in a creature design do not have to be the same. My primary critique on the majority of mainstream dragon designs is just that I think we have spent too long giving dragons skimpy wing membranes and I'm trying to push back on that idea and encourage more creativity in how to make dragons "look cool/scary" while also giving them more reasonable looking wings. If you disagree with me, fine. We all have our own tastes.

You don't have to interact with posts or people you disagree with. Bye bye!

My askbox is still open, and currently I don't have any long posts in the works, so I'll try to get through my backlog as quickly as I can and I'll keep on reblogging advice and designs I think are cool. Might be a while before I have any new big posts, I've been trying to focus on writing my rough draft and I've actually gotten pretty far on it! I think this is the first time I've stuck to a writing project for so long. I'm in the double digits of chapters!

You can check out my messy extra rough draft excerpts on my other blog @memento-morianon

Hope you're all having a decent holiday season!

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

What if abilities changed the appearance of a Pokemon?

I love Tropius so much so I had to do a set for the leafy dinosaur as well! To anyone asking about the captions, my brain is run by a bunch of monkeys.

Other Ability Forms posts!

Find me and my art elsewhere!