Eggshelled (Beta Name)

The as-of-yet-unnamed first character of the Sburb story I'm going to be posting on Domination shortly (IE hopefully sometime within the next couple of weeks), tentatively entitled "Eggshelled". Taking this as an opportunity to work on my drawing ability as well as teach myself Flash, and tell a story in the process. Her name will be decided by the spectators (with, given some of the people on DDFF, the requisite "Zoosmell Pooplord"-esque silly answers alongside).

Before anyone asks... yes, she's supposed to be a reptilian creature, mostly. No, I didn't screw up on drawing her figure. (I did, however, somehow miss out on drawing half the buttons on her shirt...) Her species, which I've tentatively named "Rilskarn", are - like most things on their world - somewhere between Bird, Reptile, and Mammal as far as our classifications go. This is a world where a creature like the Duckbilled Platypus would be considered normal, and most of our fauna would be the oddities.

Age-wise she and her seven companions are various shades of their equivalent to 15; 16 (4x4) is an important number in their world, due to the four moons they have (one red, one blue, one white, and one black) and the length of their solar span (4 Earth years, split into 4 year-long seasons). 4 spans is also the age of maturity for most Rilskarn. If it's not painfully obvious enough that I've done too much thinking about this....

Oh hey, that could be pretty sweet! If you don't mind me asking, what sort of things do you expect to do with Flash, and get out of its use?

Also the more you do stuff like this the more I'll ask super specific questions about your worldbuilding, since I love knowing what little details people come up with.
Here's always a fun one I ask myself and people with created races:

Why do they or don't they wear clothes? Where does the design stem from, and what are the reasons for covering the regions that are covered?

I mean, there are things like ok so why is it bipedal now and what does their physiology have to do with their living conditions and culture but I like asking about clothes because it's generally something less thought about critically. :D

Also I read the moon colours and what is this, Mirrodin? :P

Why clothes and why the design: Depending on the location they reside in, more or less clothing simply for the purpose of protection against the elements is a necessity. I'm still wavering back and forth between them being warm-blooded or cold-blooded, but clothing for the sake of defense would be required in either case; their technology is advanced enough that even as a cold-blooded species they would have found ways to survive in less-hospitable climates. (Something that may not be transferred to The Incipisphere, creating yet another problem for them to deal with.)

Their physical design as well as the portions of the body used for reproduction and the like are similar to most humanoids as well, and covered (though more loosely, they tend to be extremely open-minded given their lack of heavy regulations, being a semi-anarchic culture) by similar taboos.

The design of the clothing varies from location to location, mostly designed for a purpose in mind. The character above, for example, resides on a ranch; thus, she's dressed rather simply and practically. Another character lives in a lighthouse and dresses more for looks and comfort, so her clothes are more flashy. A third is a village dweller who builds for a living, and most of his clothes have extra pockets, hooks, loops, and other useful things like that.

Flash: Mainly I plan to follow suit much like Hussie did - start out simple, with little animated scenes and such, and work my way up to full videos. I don't have any plans for heavily-interactive stuff (a la Alterniabound) in this story, but I do have some planned for Angel of Acheron; would like to use this project to get my head into the program a bit before jumping into the more heavy-duty stuff.

Moons: Didn't know what Mirrodin was until you explained so it's not that :P I just came up with the idea somewhere along the line. Was originally thinking 3, but liked the idea of everything revolving around 4s better.

That wasn't quiiiite what I mean about clothes. I mean how does their evolution play into that. We humans started wearing clothes and continue wearing clothes for various reasons: warmth, protection from the sun (note that these two also include making our clothing breathable!), protection from things like small scratches and stuff, and to cover up body parts used for reproduction and waste removal.

As scaled creatures, small scratches and the like shouldn't be a problem, so their clothing wouldn't likely be made with that in mind, though it would also mean that even more 'delicate' clothing among them is likelier to be tougher due to the fact that they'd be less against brushing up against scratchy surfaces.

Covering up sexual and waste removal organs is the most obvious cultural constant that you don't have to explain, really. Just as long as the way it covers them up makes sense. For example, reptiles don't have external sexual organs, so something like a loincloth seems far more acceptable in their cultures to me.

The trickiest part is that you don't know if they're warm- or cold-blooded yet. Because that, and their region, would really change their clothing styles. Deserts are perfect examples for illustrating this: A cold-blooded creature wants as little clothing on their body as possible, so they can warm up their blood and move around. A warm-blooded creature wants as much surface area of clothing as possible to keep them out of the sun's rays while still being extremely breathable to prevent heat stroke.

So as a cultural thing, clothing would really depend on where they crawled out of the primordial soup, and how their limbs evolved. Something with a tail would not wear pants like humans made them, since it's fairly impractical. Pockets and waistbands for them could be in entirely different places based on their proportions and how they carry themselves while walking! Buttons and zippers might not have been invented or anything similar to our modern clothing if they would be too difficult to manage without a human's stumpy digits.

So basically I just get way way WAY too into worldbuilding and speciesbuilding, and love the teeniest attentions to detail. Even if I end up with a massive misconception about something and how/why something happened with humans and how that would apply to a different species. I'm not well-versed at all in things like clothing styles but I can think about it forever anyways. >__>


also the mirrodin thing was a joke bro

Yeah, they wouldn't much make use of delicate materials like silk and such. Most of their clothing would be made of heavier weaves, things like denim and burlap - stuff humans might not wear all the time because of the irritation, but wouldn't bother a reptile.

The loincloth idea is a good one, and one I'd considered a little bit. There are a couple (at least) of characters who live in that kind of locale, so keeping that in mind for when I get to designing them.

I like the idea of them being cold-blooded, to be honest. The ranch girl (the one I've drawn) lives in a fairly temperate area, so her simple "pants and shirt" outfit makes sense. I'd consider her the "average" in pretty much all variables; seeing how the others' homes deviate from her climate and thus their appearances from hers.

I'm on the fence about tails. On the one hand I could see them having them, on the other I could see it being unnecessary. They're humanoid in design for the most part, that and I'm having difficulty mentally keying out the way the addition of a tail would affect balance, posture, etc. And that's before even getting to "how do I redesign pants to deal with tails?" and similar questions.

The Rilskarn are still very much in the design phase, so this feedback is great for fleshing them and their world out. :)

Well them being cold-blooded has a lot of opportunity for fine detail that would differentiate them from another humanoid race if you're willing to put thought into it! :D

The thing about a temperate area, though, is that there's the same problem always for cold-blooded things: they really really do need sunlight. For a cold-blooded creature of their size, it would take quite a bit of sunlight to get them started, since their surface-area-to-mass ratio is playing against them. They have a lot of blood to warm up with relatively little space for the blood to hang around at the surface of their skin. So if their generations are relatively short and if they have lived in those temperate areas for centuries, then perhaps you can mark the difference with things like less protective scales to make their skin thinner, delicate webbing that's engorged with blood in the mornings so they can warm up adequately in the poorer conditions, and clothing made to be an incredible insulator that they'd wear all day after starting up.

Also, what would their diet be like? How would that play into their physical traits, and especially how their jaws develop? Obviously that would affect how they communicate, and if they don't chew anything (which seems likely to me), their tongues wouldn't be nearly as versatile as a human's, so that would play into their language, and probably have to be compensated for by body language (if they have effective vision), and taste/smell.

If you're wondering about tails, well, why would they need tails while evolving? Why wouldn't they? How realistic would it be for them to lose their tail through evolution, and why would it happen? This also ties into their diet because a tail would play a huge part in motion, which is obviously a huge thing in getting food.

@Insulations: I like all those ideas. I have the feeling that there are minor differences between them in different climates - those in cooler areas have darker scales, for example, allowing them to absorb heat better, things like that.

I'd also imagine they devoted a lot of time to developing materials that carry heat well. That way they could be functional even on cloudy days, during the cold months (given the lengths I've extended their years to, their winters would be long and in some cases extreme), and at night. They'd also probably have strong investment in home-heating technology - heaters and sunlamps, for example.

Diet wise, I imagine them to be omnivorous, but primarily carnivorous. Likely they have always been hunters, but given their humanoid frames and lack of large natural weapons (I imagine them with claws, but fairly small ones; they have long and dextrous digits for careful manipulation and the claws are useful as small tools - good for grip, small cutting actions, etc.) required them to develop handmade tools to do most of the work.

The comment as to their jaws/speech capabilities makes sense, though it'll likely not come up much as their speech'll be translated into English text for readers' convenience. I imagine their vision and scent senses being quite good, but comparatively their hearing is probably a bit on the poor side.

Having the tail helps with balance and motion, which would make sense with them having started as a hunter-based culture, and likely still heavily relying on that even as a more "civilized" race.

For how they deal with cold... Hmmm, that would probably need some research done on how winters affect reptiles, especially ones that we're borrowing more traits from. How active they are will have a huge impact on their cultures, especially if you compare one near the equator to one nearer to a pole.

Them being omnivorous would mean that their teeth would resemble something closer to a mammal than a reptile, but they would have less molars and less effective incisors if they live primarily on meat. What sort of foods do you really consider with being omnivorous, though? I can't see them eating leafy things or fruits nearly to the degree of meat and insects.

As creatures who live on the latter, though, being bipedal would mean that you should borrow more from bipedal dinosaurs (because if I'm not mistaken lizards that use bipedal locomotion will only run like that for very short periods of time) than primates for their build. That being that they'll not stand quite so erect as they evolved to chase down prey, not climb. This also means that a tail would be more of a necessity, (also, not prehensile, since that's not the point,) and they would have to have very heavy lower bodies if they expect to have good toolworking arms and enough skull for large brains. (Though thankfully nothing quite so ridiculous like a tyrannosaurus because they won't need MASSIVE jaws, just big heads for brains.)

And I mean obviously you'll do a 'translate to English for everyone' because I mean if they communicate by releasing clouds of pheromones then how would you expect a reader to understand that. >_>

Oh! Another cool thing to think about: how does the climate play into the sex demographic of the population, and how does that work with their culture? There's this one really cool thing about reptiles in that they can be male or female depending on chromosomes, or the temperature of their incubation! Here's a nice concise run-down I just grabbed. It's a neat concept you should read about and maybe think about too. :D

I imagine actually that their expansion to colder regions is, relatively, a more recent thing - their species rarely spread that far on its own, but as technology advanced and ways to compensate for cold temperatures/lack of sunlight were developed the "range of habitability" for their kind expanded. Those who could access such technology or develop it themselves could travel to colder territories and reside where previously it would have been a poor or lethal decision.

By being omnivorous, I more mean that they are capable of eating both; some species simply cannot process meat or vegetables without getting ill at best - which at times is intentional and beneficial (such as dogs eating grass when sick). I more imagine them being primarily carnivorous, but capable of surviving on greens, fruits, and berries when prey is scarce, at least for a (relatively) short time.

Frame: Maybe redraw them a little more like a humanoid version of a Deinonychus (what Jurassic Park calls a Velociraptor) rather than a straight-up reptilian humanoid? Not sure how I feel about that, I kind of like the design I have now.... I'll have to tinker with it.

The idea of temperature affecting gender does seem interesting. I'll keep it in mind. :)

(This is also kind of amusing that we're putting all this effort into creating this species and its origins when the first thing I'm gonna do in the story is have Sburb blow it all up. :P )

The Lighthouse Dweller. First attempt at the slightly forward-leaning posture and the addition of the tail. My brain wants there to be more to the sashes and such.

I'm sorry, but this was honestly my first reaction.

Why do the reptilian lizardfolk have mammal boobs?

See, this is what happens when I spend all day around high schoolers.

No worries, that explanation was a page ago and got buried by Messi's and my walls of text. 8) I figured the question would come up but didn't expect a page and a half of worldbuilding discussion to swamp it under ;)

Okay, just for the design since that's what you're going for in the drawing now:

The tail's going to have to be bigger. Just saying. Lean forward even as little as she is for a couple hours and you'll start to see why. :P

Like I've mentioned, the tail's for balance, so it's gotta be heavy, but since they're runners who need minute adjustments to balance, it's gotta be long enough so that it's thin enough to twitch and barely affect balance. Its mass will increase as they lean forward farther, too, so there's that.

And keep in mind for when you draw their feet that they definitely shouldn't be flat-footed now.

Also, if they have mammaries, I hope this means that, unlike CERTAIN CREATURES they do not hatch with a mouthful of teeth.

Bigger tail I can do. The tail fin is part of the blood-warmth system you mentioned, it's basically a thin pocket on the end of their tail.

Feet: Perhaps they should be partially digitigrade? Not the full extent of a bird or dinosaur perhaps, so they still appear to have "normal" knees, but their ankles are extended somewhat? (That's actually why the Lighthouse Keeper doesn't have feet, I wasn't sure how they should be done.)

Yeah digitigrade is that word I wanted to say but I'm constantly forgetting it.

Also note that I moreso meant fins that look less like they're amphibious and more like these dudes:


Since it's not for swimming it's for warming up and stuff so it's gotta be rigid and retractable.

I was figuring each of them would have a different design, like I've been doing for the head crests. Debated the ridges and decided to draw without; easy enough to add in.

I may redesign one or the other of those unique appearances when I decide on their symbols - going to pick appropriate things for each from this website. Much like the Trolls' horns resemble their Zodiac signs.

Also on the feet thing... I imagine that unless they need foot protection (extreme heat in deserts, extreme cold in tundra, etc.) they likely don't wear shoes. The general irritant of rough ground, sharp rocks, etc. is likely not too much trouble due to scales, as you stated before. :)

Well, fins like that should be in a generic location, at least. I mean, it doesn't make sense to have one guy with the fin starting at his head, and another dude with it starting midway down his back, since those are a collection of different bones and different branching blood vessels entirely. After all, you wouldn't expect a stag to have horns growing out of the back of its head, or a person's fingerprints to be on the backs of their hands. So just keep that in mind when designing them.

And for foot protection... I would actually expect them to use it on some level. I mean, in someplace like a desert, it should be expected, but not for heat protection. They'd probably start to wear some for added traction and surface area, especially in a place like a desert or somewhere with moist earth, since they'd start sinking or slipping really easily. After all, their foot would exert a lot more pressure per square unit on the ground than a human foot!

AND something I forgot to mention earlier but will now: Don't forget to draw and conceptualize their backs and tails as being pretty straight. There wouldn't really be much of a need for their tails to be able to move up and down, and they probably wouldn't have an arch in their back, simply because of how they evolved to move! (Actually I'm not entirely sure what the curvature of a human's spine is for but its absence in basically everything else just tells me that it probably wouldn't happen here.)

Yeah, I agree on the "same location" thing; on their tails seems to be the most reasonable place for it.

Good points on the shoes thing. Now I have to design around the unusual shape :P

I seems to recall something about the spine curve being a shock absorber or something like that? Anyway, I'll play with it and see how I can get it to look; it'll probably take a while to get a posture I like that still works with their physique.

Well yeah okay the point is that it's for upright folks like humans and koalas, not for anything like these fellas.

Heh.

It'll take some tweaking to get an appearance I like, I think. I'll try a doodle or two tomorrow, if I can find the time.

So is this going to be just a comic, or something done similar to MsPaint Adventures?

It'll be like Homestuck, yeah. I'll be posting it over at DDFF so I can get more command suggestions.

Oh hey look I drew a guy

I call this fellow (for now) the Mountain Climber. He lives in a fairly warm, rocky climate and resides in a cave-based home, upgraded with the basic necessities of electricity, communication networks, and the like of course.

First full-body sketch of the Rilskarn, and a test for posture and design for feet and tail. And yeah I know his left hand came out a bit on the small side. :/ (His thumb is fine but what happened to his fingers? X_X )

I'm thinking males have more elaborate head crests and come in more vibrant scale colors, but their feather manes tend to be shorter and in duller shades; females are the opposite, with smaller head crests and duller scale shades but longer and more elaborate feathers.