Tired Of Bad Fantasy Wing Design

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

ivy-is-fine asked:

I’m wondering if you could give me some critique on this, your blog is really neat and I’d like to improve some more.

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(image description: in the ask, there is a detailed drawing of an anthropomorphic dragon with many intricate tattoos.

the next image in the main post is this same drawing but now with a red shape between the shoulder and the wrist of the wing, with an arrow pointing to it with the note “add a propatagium.” There is also a red circle and arrow pointing out a bone strut on the wing elbow, with the note “this bit isn’t needed.”

the last image is a labeled photo of a bat wing, pointing out the different digits of the wing hand and the various parts of the wing membrane, which is called the patagium. end description)

those are the only critiques I have, honestly! sorry it took so long to get to it. the extra membrane between the shoulder and wrist helps the wing move more efficiently, as it contains important connective structures. and the bone strut on the elbow is a common enough design element that I don’t hate it, but so far as I’m aware it just doesn’t exist in any real animals with a membranous wing, including extinct ones. So it just doesn’t need to be there, the wing membrane can just connect to the torso.

this design is super cool, by the way, i love it. tattoos on scaly skin must require some pretty unique tools!

dragon membranous wings

Anonymous asked:

hello, would you have any suggestions about dwarven body proportions? I wanna design a dwarf character with gigantism and I’d like some help in how that would be like?

sorry for the delay! I’m trying to empty my inbox now.

dwarf proportions are not a universally defined thing, so it very much depends on how you choose to draw them! here are a few varieties of dwarf for reference:

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(image description: three examples of fantasy dwarf designs. the first image shows a labeled comparison between a neanderthal and a homo sapien, with half their skeletons exposed and the differences between them all pointed out. a handwritten note at the bottom says “my dwarves are based on neanderthals”. the second image is the same as the first, but now I’ve drawn a very simple sketch of a dwarf between the human and neanderthal to show the similarities.

the second image shows two screenshots of art from other sources. at the top, Ryoko Kui’s depictions of a fat human, a dwarf, and an orc show their skeletal differences to display how their anatomy and proportions work. at the bottom, official art of dwarves from the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons shows both a woman and a man of the dwarf race from the game. this one also has a handwritten note that says “DnD 3.5 e has the best designs for player races, fight me.” end description.)

all these designs have their own differences. the DnD dwarves here have very long arms relative to their bodies, and very squat squarish head shapes. Ryoko Kui’s dwarves are very broad and stout but most of their shortness comes from the length of their legs. My dwarves are basically just neanderthals but a little more short and chunky.

Despite this, there are some clear details that most dwarf designs take their cues from. fantasy dwarves are short and stout, having broader and more muscular bodies than standard humans. They tend to look a bit square compared to other humanoids.

gigantism is not something I’m super well educated on. frankly, neither is dwarfism, a very real condition that should not be conflated with fantasy dwarves and which has its own unique effects on the human body. but I assume if you’re asking, you’ve already done some of your own research on the matter.

essentially, gigantism (and a similar condition, acromegaly,) is a condition where the body overproduces growth hormones. From what Ive been able to find in my quick searches on the matter, it doesn’t affect the body proportions too much? mostly just makes everything bigger, but since it affects the entire body it probably won’t make your dwarf with gigantism look too different from other dwarves. just bigger.

that said, it can also come with things like chronic pain, joint problems, and other health concerns, especially depending on whether or not your fantasy world has healthcare capable of treating the root cause of gigantism, which is typically a growth or other problem in the pituitary gland.

hopefully that gives you a good jumping-off point to figure out their design! anyone who has more experience and knowledge on gigantism is welcome to add their thoughts!

dwarves gigantism disability in fantasy
miss-m-winks
miss-m-winks

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(image description: two colorful nude portraits of male characters with fat bodies. Image one is a drow in shades of orange, pink, and purple, standing in an empty space. Image two is an orc in shades of green, blue, and yellow, sitting halfway on a tree stump with a simple forest background. end description)

I pulled these poses from posespace.com, it's a very useful resource.

The orc is K'arik, one of my favorite ocs. He's deaf and also a celibate aroace. He breaks so many hearts, because he's got the body of a warrior god and zero interest in romance or sex. But he does have a very close platonic bond with my two main protagonists.

The drow is a new and mostly unimportant oc, he's only relevant for a couple of scenes in a new side story I'm writing. But he is important in those few moments! So I needed to flesh him out and get a sense of his looks and personality. His name is Biscuit.

There are two types of male drow: those who only have the instinct to travel far enough to find another colony and bond with a Matriarch, and those who are driven to wander outside and occasionally visit drow colonies to mate with a Matriarch and then leave. Though they've evolved past mere instinct as fully sapient people, many amab drow still go off wandering, and they are built to carry large amounts of fat to sustain them as wanderers. They've developed their own nomadic culture as well. One of their traditions is picking a new name when they leave the caverns, typically based on a new favorite thing they've found in the outside world. Sometimes it's an animal, a landscape feature, or a weather event. Sometimes it's a food, like Biscuit here.

Biscuit may not have a large role in my writing, but he is very good for figure drawing practice, so I think I'll keep him around.

scootin this over from my main blog
cripplecharacters

liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiily asked:

Hi there!

I'm working on a character for a story I'm writing, where all the people have wings. The main character is a burn survivor, and it rendered her left wing useless when it came to flying. However, I wanted to have her get a kind of reconstruction surgery or a wing prosthetic to help her fly again. I've read a number of your posts, so I'm considering reworking this, but I wanted to know your perspective on it.

Also, if you can, do you have any resources on burn survivors and daily burn scar care?

Thanks!

cripplecharacters answered:

Hi!

I think that you have a couple options when it comes to making her fly again!

Making her able to fly the same as before could be disability erasure somewhat, so I would warn against that. But that doesn’t mean she can’t fly at all!

If you decide to make her fly again;

  • It will take time. She shouldn’t be able to relearn mobility in a week. Show it as a slow, time-consuming process. Depending on the exact injury it could be months or years.
  • Include physical therapy! Potentially other types as well, like occupational therapy. If it’s a society where everyone has wings, I’m sure there would be specialists for this kind of stuff like we have for legs.
  • Recovery takes a lot of effort. It shouldn’t come to her too easily. A lot of it is pain and fatigue and taking breaks to recover from recovering.
  • She might not be able to fly the exact same as before, even if you go with the above. You can have her fly shorter distances, have pain while doing it, or be fully unable to do it on some days.
  • When she does start to fly again, she could end up damaging her other wing via an overuse injury (her damaged wing wouldn’t be able to keep up for at least a while). Recovery is a very non-linear process, and she could be coming back to physical therapy for new problems even after she relearns flying. That is a part of life for a lot of disabled people, for example manual wheelchair users having to do PT for shoulder strain injuries caused by pushing the wheelchair.

This way you can show the recovery process without erasing her disability at the end! Some disabled people do get better, but the point is to not make it a Magic Surgery that just fixes everything because that’s not how it works most of the time. Sometimes it even opens up the doors to new problems - remember that both prosthetics and especially surgeries have very real complications.

For burn care, I recommend this post I made!

I hope this helps!

mod Sasza

fantasy-anatomy-analyst

If the wings are feathered, you can consider something akin to feather imping as part of the prosthetic process.

An Introduction to Imping, the Ancient Art of Feather-Mending
The practice has been described by kings, mentioned in Shakespeare, and is regularly performed at rehabilitation clinics everywhere.
Audubon

Long flight feathers attach deep in the wing, not just to the skin, so it’s possible the roots of the feathers are still present under the burned flesh, and can be worked with.

If it’s more like bat wings, then braces and cloth like the type used for boat sails might be used to mimic the membrane of the wing and support/extend the remaining digits of the wing.

disability mobility aids winged humanoids
namelessokami

centaurself asked:

do you have a post on your taur anatomy ideas, id love to see that

dyad-of-fate answered:

We have MANY thoughts on anatomy for taurs and you just gave us a perfect reason to ramble xD

Our skinless friend here is an elk, but in general taurs all share one common ancestor which split first into Carnivora (all carnivores) and Euungulata (hooved herbivores)*. There are differences in anatomy based on species and size but GENERALLY speaking they have a fair amount of similarities.

(Small note: this is a recent change, which will ALSO have it’s own post)

image of an elk centaur skeleton with notes which are discussed belowALT

Starting with the skeleton. If you can’t read my chicken scratch;

1) “For horned/antlered taurs, head is slightly extended”. This has a to do with the weight of the antlers and horns, mostly for strutctural integrity of the skull.

text reads: prominent brow. And Areas of much thicker boneALT

2) The ear holes are located higher than a humans, which is what the blue writing “(also higher) Ears rotate! Limited movement”

3) “Longer necks with thicker bones” is in general for all taurs.

4) Not written, but the ribcage is wider and longer than a humans, to house VERY big lungs and a heart. In a previous post we talked about taurs on Ithiir having long long lungs…

5) “Very soft cartilage ribs” and plates are for extra protection of the esophagus and arteries that flow here. As well as the ends of the freakistly long lungs.

6) “fake belly button!” Has to do with the above point: the cartilage ribs end, causing a divot for most body types (not all). The umbilical cord connects on the lower half of the taurs.

7) “Thick sternum for extra muscle connections”

8) “All muscles and Tendons” pointing to the back of the spine on the upper torso is mostly a note for me. There aren’t any organs here, and these tendons work like a draw bridge that is defaulted to remain upright instead of down. It’s a big complex system of pullies and ropes basically.

9) “Like a ball joint” and top view of connecting spinal, small nubs, not wide club shape" refer to the seven extra vertebrae of the torso. They work like an animal’s neck combined with a human lower back. They are EXTREMELY flexible, since all taurs are about as flexible as a human rather than their animal counterparts (excluding cats and such, they are exactly that flexible). We just call this area “the mid back”.

10) “Real belly button =)” like it says, lol

There are… SO many more thoughts than this, we will probably reblog this with a part 2 for organ placement. :)

dyad-of-fate

Okay organ post may be it's own thing since we want to include a few other taurs... so, here is our skinless helper with a clean look at the skeleton :)

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skeletal anatomy centaurs outside sources
fantasy-anatomy-analyst
fantasy-anatomy-analyst

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Fantasy pronouns updated! i just keep running into Problems when I try to use the pronouns for a few paragraphs and then realize they actually sound awful. so i have been wrestling with them! it does not help that i made so many, and there's only so many ways to make decent pronouns before you run out of unique letter combos.

half the problem is just that I'm trying to make them all fit into english sentences, since that's the language my stories are written in. but i figured it would be so much cooler to write all my characters actually using the pronouns they'd be used to in their own languages, even if i don't get around to pulling a full Tolkein and writing every language out.

these pronouns will be especially useful in the side story I'm working on with a drow protagonist, since drow don't have gendered pronouns. and it adds so much more depth to my main story, when the bird dude protagonist, who was raised primarily by elves for Plot Reasons, embraces the bird people culture and changes pronouns to reflect this. if all of my characters were using regular human pronouns, and then suddenly the bird dude is using fantasy pronouns, it just feels awkward. but if everyone is already using fantasy pronouns, it's way more clear that this pronoun change is part of a bigger narrative of cultural identity.

anyway, as stated when i previously posted the fantasy pronouns chart, please feel free to use any of the pronouns here if you feel inspired to do so. i hope they function alright.

fantasy-anatomy-analyst

Whoops, I forgot to explain the quetzalin seasonal prefixes. These are the tropical bird folk, they have a courting season. During the courting season, all adults who participate in the public courtship displays take on a specific role. Dancer, watcher, or those who do both. The prefixes show which role applies to the person in question.

xel/xos, adult pronoun all year round.

a-xel/a-xos, dancer pronoun

i-xel/i-xos, multi-tasker pronoun

u-xel/u-xos, watcher pronoun.

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Fantasy pronouns updated! i just keep running into Problems when I try to use the pronouns for a few paragraphs and then realize they actually sound awful. so i have been wrestling with them! it does not help that i made so many, and there’s only so many ways to make decent pronouns before you run out of unique letter combos.

half the problem is just that I’m trying to make them all fit into english sentences, since that’s the language my stories are written in. but i figured it would be so much cooler to write all my characters actually using the pronouns they’d be used to in their own languages, even if i don’t get around to pulling a full Tolkein and writing every language out.

these pronouns will be especially useful in the side story I’m working on with a drow protagonist, since drow don’t have gendered pronouns. and it adds so much more depth to my main story, when the bird dude protagonist, who was raised primarily by elves for Plot Reasons, embraces the bird people culture and changes pronouns to reflect this. if all of my characters were using regular human pronouns, and then suddenly the bird dude is using fantasy pronouns, it just feels awkward. but if everyone is already using fantasy pronouns, it’s way more clear that this pronoun change is part of a bigger narrative of cultural identity.

anyway, as stated when i previously posted the fantasy pronouns chart, please feel free to use any of the pronouns here if you feel inspired to do so. i hope they function alright.

worldbuilding fantasy cultures pronouns neopronouns fantasy pronouns

Anonymous asked:

I'm currently writing a book (mostly as a coping skill but also because I'm a creative writing major) and I was wondering if using your ideas would be okay and if so how I would properly credit you? (part of the senior year is publishing a book so just in case, ya know?)

You can use them as inspiration, yes! I don’t really think it’s possible to fully own any idea or concept.

There are a lot of ideas on this blog that I just offer up as advice, so they’re free game. If it’s something like the orc, drow, and goblin posts that I made to show the ideas I have for my own fantasy worldbuilding, I would ask that you don’t copy them directly since I am using them to write stories I also hope to publish. But those posts are a bit outdated right now anyway haha, I’ve already altered or changed my mind on several details. So really, it’s not that big a deal.

As for credit, the name I use for most important things is Miss M Winks, which is also my main tumblr blog. I’ve been considering a pseudonym for some of my book ideas (lord help me if my grandma decides to buy my books and finds the more sexual romance ones, no thanks) but Miss M Winks is what I use for like, Artstation and LinkedIn and whatever else. So it works for citaton, I hope.

But if you’re looking to specifically cited this blog, I suppose you’d just use whatever the standard format is for citing a webpage. Good luck in your writing!!