#I spent 1 week working on this

[space-pegasus]

Hi Would You Like To Talk To Me About Flying? Let’s overanalyze the biomechanics of each type of flight and how they put limits to how big you can get. To start off it is unlikely that any animal weighing 500kg could fly given everything we know about gravity and biomechanics. So what is the maximum weight you can achieve and still be a flying animal?

With animals that fly like birds the limbs that are not used for flying are going to be far more robust than the limbs used for flying, requiring a huge pelvic girdle to sufficiently launch into the air. As such the legs used to power the launch are dead weight when flying severely limiting how big you can get, with estimates placing the maximum weight at 70kg. You’d also need to give your flying creature the same weight saving adaptations birds have pneumatized bones, air sacs for unidirectional air flow. So if you were to create a flying animal that flies like a bird you most likely would not be able to get bigger than Argentavis which weighed 70 kilos, had a 7 meter wingspan, and probably flew at speeds of 60 km/h. Though, there are some unpublished estimates stating it could reach around 100 kilos. To become airborne an animal that heavy could achieve this through running a downhill slope with sufficient wind or possibly just opening its wings in a particularly windy area. Important to note that weight limits for animals that fly like albatrosses are different, their long narrow wings mean they max at an estimated 41kg with 7m wings as they likely would not be able to sustain themselves without sufficient wind.

What if it flies like a bat? First off bats fly very differently from birds, their wings attach to their ankle meaning the hind legs are part of the wing and can be used in flight, and they quad launch meaning they take off with their forelimbs and can put both flight and launching muscles in the same place. Bats are also slightly more agile than birds since they can control every part of their wing in flight and there is evidence the tiny hairs on their wings can sense barometric pressure and wind speed allowing fine micro adjustments. However, the largest bats max out at almost 2 kilos and 2 meter wingspans. Major limits on their size are their cave/arboreal lifestyle, sprawled limbs when on the ground, lack of pneumatized bones, lack of an efficient breathing system, and birds already fill the large flying animal niches. So without any special adaptations they likely cannot exceed around 4kg with a 3 meter wingspan. If bats did evolve an upright limb posture, pneumatized skeleton, efficient lungs, and birds disappeared then they could probably reach sizes similar to Pteranodon of 50-80 kilos with a 3-7 meter wingspan. Interestingly bats are the most likely candidates for a scientifically grounded pegasus, though they would be a tetrapod not a hexapod, as unlike birds you wouldn't need to jump through as many hoops to make them superficially resemble a horse.

How about a pegasus that flies like a pterosaur? Again your pegasus would need to be a tetrapod rather than a hexapod which would allow all the limbs to be used in flight. So how large could you get? Pterosaurs unlike birds and bats had the best combination of features to allow giant sizes with air sacs for efficient breathing, pneumatized bones, wing membranes that attach to the hind limbs, and quad launching. Though this would mean your pegasus wouldn’t have powerful hind legs as pterosaurs had gracile pelvic girdles as all the powerful muscles were in the pectoral region. Currently the largest flying animal that ever existed was the azhdarchid Quetzalcoatlus, the largest published estimates placed them at maximum 250kg with a wingspan of 11-13 meters and a flight speed of 80-90km/h. There are more recent unpublished estimates that placed them at 360kg, which is actually reasonable if they had the bone and muscle density of a real animal.

Moving on from vertebrate wings what about an insect winged pegasus? Not going to happen, it is simply far too improbable for mammal ever evolve insect like wings. You could however have an insect that converges to to look superficially similar to a horse, still unlikely but not as unlikely. Another thing to note is that unlike other arthropods winged insects do not molt once they gain their wings. This is a major limitation to their size as they can no longer heal injuries once they are flighted. Meganisopterans were most likely as big flying insects can get so your pegabug would max 150 grams with a 75cm wingspan.

Most importantly your flying creature would need proper attachment sites for the flight muscles. Most depictions of hexapodal pegasus, griffons, hippogriffs, dragons etc just attach the wings to the shoulder. This configuration would not work as the pectoral muscles are already being used for the forelimbs leaving no room for flight muscles to attach. You would need another set of pectoral muscles separate from the forelimbs, importantly one with a keel for those muscles to attach to. Flight muscles on flying vertebrates also tend to be around 1/5 or more of their overall body mass, and no flying vertebrates fly slower than 30km/h, with most typically flying at a 50km/h minimum.

Finally, and most importantly it is worth noting that giant azhdarchids are huge outliers in terms of giant flying animals, most tended to range around Argentavis/Pteranodon sized at 50-80kg with 5-7 meter wingspans. With all this said, if we were to apply earth physics to a hexapodal pegasus then it would reach sizes no larger than 100kg with 7m wings. Or if it has albatross like wings then a max of 41kg with 7m wings. With the ideal habitat being foothills of giant mountain ranges or particularly windy grasslands. For a flying animal that hovers the largest birds that can maintain hovering flight are just slightly smaller than 25g with 25cm wings.

Sorry if you've been asked this many times, but would you do a tutorial on how to draw winged horses? I really really love your art.

Hi there!

I've got a couple of resources:

Tips for Drawing Horses

Tips for Drawing Wings

And here's a little page of notes on how I attach wings to horses :)

~ Larn

[helsensm]

farm boys Valentine's Days 💗

+ close up on the last one

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Okay challenge mode. You are a therapist and Eridan Ampora from Homestuck has just walked right out of his intro page into your office. How do you fix him?

put him and karkat in a room with a pile of stuff and tell them they can't leave until they've jumped into it and talked about their feelings

[airborneice]

“What’s this one supposed to mean?”

“Hmm..beauty or strength, sometimes.”

“Perfect.”

@sketchbookweek Day 2 - Wilderness / Witchcraft

going back to my roots of drawing sketchbook being gay in a field

[skitskatdacat63]

Hello guys!!!!! Aforementioned project is finally finished 🫠 It was meant to be just a simple weekend project, and ended up being 30+ hours over the period of like four days. I don't think I'm an actual normal human anymore. This is the project that caused everyone in my life to question my mental and physical wellbeing and health. But I'm super excited to share this all of you!!!! Please enjoy!!!! Even if you don't like vettonso, I hope this is still interesting????

If you make any, please reblog this or tag me in it! I'm excited to see what other people, other than just me suffering alone in my bedroom, make out of this!!! <3

[grison-in-space]

yeah all right I'm at s5e2 of this dumb firefighters show and look I'm sorry I haven't seen anything this intensely but unacknowledgedly gay without feeling the need to either no homo itself or engage with a very special episode subplot since, like... Due South. Or The Sentinel. It keeps using all the same tropes you see between the main love interests in an ensemble piece, just centered on two people who happen to be guys.

I'm weirdly convinced that this is a deliberate choice to probe the genre and play with the writing opportunities afforded by taking these really standard and familiar procedural tropes and storylines, and then mixing the genders willy nilly. After all, this show is... not subtle about making a habit of that throughout: it loooooooves to dig through familiar procedural subplots with gendered expectations and subversions. This is, in fact, the show that kicks its first arc off by exploring the possibilities for character decisions entailed by a loving, supportive marriage divorcing because one partner wants to come out as gay. It's a show that gives all its most traditionally masculine subplots to Athena, the most femme woman on the main cast! It really wouldn't be out of character for the show to move in that direction.

I'm not actually invested in canon Buck/Eddie per se— I've never needed that from my fandom time — but I'm fascinated by the storytelling opportunities afforded to it, and I'm keenly aware that writers rooms almost definitely include people in them now who have spent a significant time in fandom as participants, and who have thought deeply about the ways that gender can shape stories (particularly though the venue of always-a-gender! AUs). I'm also.... hm, how shall I put this...

That relationship is already textually queer. Wills have been modified involving custody and co-parenting agreements, okay, we are firmly in the territory of "immediate family" commitment levels. They could both be 1000% straight and cis and this would still be a relationship that queers normative expectations, particularly on men and especially on young men. I don't actually need it to do anything else to love it.

So I'm not coming from a place of wanting to see anything in particular in that respect, but I gotta say: it really feels to me that this show is playing with the ability to have its cake and eat it too in terms of the "will they/won't they" dynamic of the "main couple" in a television series: you can be as dramatic and iddy as you want, really dial up those emotional stakes, but at the same time your audience isn't huffing and whining that everything is so predictable because just by existing between two men you're subverting audience expectations.

It's really interesting. I'm enjoying myself a lot.

[sharkologydesign]

Finished Miguel’s equally mentally ill wife ♡

[keeps-ache]

look me in the eye; i'm dizzy

[static image below]

[athenasdragon]

Unironic shoutout to Lucanis’s quest line for giving me things to discuss in therapy

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

lil doodle from the animation m’workin on

[clever-blogname]

Theory/potential wishful thinking time now that we have to wait 3 weeks for the finale.

Based on what I know of the books Anin's dad is actually fairly chill and does give her what she wants hence we get a happy ending (which we know we are getting based on production photos).

Given that the car accident in ep 15 was a fake out, I am wondering if the guys taking away Pin from the palace is also a fake out. Like imagine Pin gets told that Anin's dad wants to talk to her after the conversation he had with his daughter. She has no idea what will happen and is obviously terrified - hence dreams that Anin's dad is pissed and has her taken away.

So the next day Pin goes to see Anin's dad. She's obviously worried and scared but per ep 15, she will not allow them to be separated ever again. Anin's dad looks all stern and menacing in his office and Pin can't help but fear for the worst. I imagine it would be more of a "why should I say yes? why do you deserve my daughter?". He's more playing hardball and "testing" Pin than having a Princess Patt finding out reaction. In a way he's "testing" her like he would test any potential suitor for Anin. There is also the added pressure of this not following norms so it feels like the standard is even higher. Pin does not have an equivalent or higher title than Anin, she doesn't have more money. As we've seen her worry about previously, she lacks a lot of the typical markers of an appropriate suitor for Anin. But she argues her case (very politely) and eventually convinces him.

And so Anin's dad yields. He wants his daughter to be happy and doesn't think there's any man good enough for her anyway. Pin is stunned, but obviously grateful. It is yet another thing she is grateful to this family for and feels indebted about. She voices this and the Prince tells her that the greatest act of service she can do for him and his family, to repay the debt, to show her gratitude, is to spend the rest of her days loving Anin and making her happy.

And as we all know, Pin spends the rest of her life doing just that :)

[sysig]

Guess who :3c (Patreon)

[cerromoreno]

Happy @starbula-week!! In honor of these crazy kids, I've done something that I never thought I'd ever do again...write a fanfic! 🎉

✨ Day 1: Firsts / Confessions ✨

[wetslug]

my incredible ability to sleep nearly* an entire 36 hours is the only way i can recoup my spoons for the next week. id love to find another alternative but here we are

[6ebe]

Applying for 50 jobs within 12 months and not getting a single offer is almost an accomplishment woah I’m so talented x

[vynnyal]

Unga bunga these take 3 hrs to make