--- In SkunkworksAMA_at_yahoogroups.com, "inkwell_01" <inkwell_01@...>
wrote:
> So, new style your trying to achieve is animal qualitative
> physical and behavioral values fused to underlying
> humanoid structures. Animal, but not animal; Human, but
> not human.
>
> There are folks who do animal real life drawings, almost
> picture quality. Are you pushing that far into the realism?
I've done real-life animal drawings many times before, but I'm not
going too far into that direction. I realize there has to be a
careful balance here; I don't want to lose the features which make
each character unique and approachable, but I also want to up the
realism to a point just before the "uncanny valley" starts kicking
in. Too much realism would result in greatly modified bodies, barely
redognizeable faces, whatever. So the new style isn't THAT far off
the playing field, but it is definitely a million times better and
more realistic than my old stuff.
> Something you might want to think about as you ponder how
> to render your new characters is the reason upright walking
> humans lost their muzzle; Has to do with balance and head
oscillations.
>
> The problem:
>
> A humanoid body with an animal head walking upright will
> oscillate up and down to the point where the animal would
> not be able to sight focus on any objects it sees in its
> field of vision; also, maintaining physical balance would
> be next to impossible as well. (The critter would fall
> over a lot, making it an easy snack for a predator.)
> This happens because the head is not balanced correctly
> on the spine. To fix this problem, nature removed the
> muzzle from humans, making the head spherical, which is
> easier to balance on a spine with a smaller set of
> muscles in the neck and shoulder.
>
> A real anthro would need the extra sized ligaments/muscles
> to act as a spring and stop any head oscillations from
> occuring.
>
> For illustrators who want to draw furry humanoid
> characters, but wish to maintain a faithful furry animal
> head structure with muzzle, powerful muscles and
> ligaments should be rendered in the drawing, (at least to
> some degree). Very few do though, but it should be
> thought about as folks draw.
Yeah, a lot of the characters have thicker necks (even the older
sketches I posted a few months back of Dinah and Leila demonstrates
this) to compensate for the head construction. I'm making sure to
have characters using their tails for balance, as well as body
language. I even have most digitigrade species stand on the full
flat of the foot, yet walk on the toes. The reason for that would be
that to stand on the legs for long periods of time would likely
require a lot of muscular energy, and it would be more efficient for
the critter to rest on the full foot rather than perch on the toes.
> Keeping the paw digits to 4? Or expand to 5?
No, they're still at four digits, both hands and feet. The only
anthros I draw outside of that norm would be Treska's species,
Onika's species and Khetzel. They all have 3 toes instead of four.
>
> J Hooten wrote:
>
> >A lot depends on whether they can still use them for all
> fours running.
>
> Ah, something else that needs to be pondered. Hooten
> brings up a good point in character design. Somewhere a
> critical decision needs to be made as to how animalistic
> or humanoid they will behave. Did they lose that ability
> to run on all fours for example?
They do not run on all fours (only Treska's species can, and
they're not from the same world/reality as the trio). Everyone else
runs pretty much on two legs.
> It looks as if your putting in a lot of hours of research
> into your new style. Keep plugging away at it.
>
> Btw - Is Des helping in some way?
Nope. This little nightmare is 100% my doing. ;P
--JMH
Received on Sun Sep 28 2008 - 19:26:18 CDT