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Meet the voles - a DnD-based, but fan-made predator. The client commissioned me for anatomy sketches, which include a side view with muscles, a front view with muscles, and a headshot with an open mouth and legs in movement. They also provided a lot of background information I put onto the sheets to put the sketches into context.
**But what are voles?**
Voles are agile predators in DnD medium size and they are the mixture of a sheep, wolf and rooster - and after talking with the client about the voles characteristics we agreed on some greyhound features as well. I've got some loose sketches from the client of how voles are supposed to look like and then my work began: to put together their whole anatomy map. And boy, I loved it!
Honestly, I was most worried about the rooster legs. Merge the wolf and greyhound is not a challenge, because they are both canines. Merging the sheep with the canines is also the easier end because they are both four-legged creatures. But how the hell I am supposed to put a chicken leg on a mammal?
I started at the base: the skeleton. I know canines are walking on their toes: their wrist is high above the paws and then comes the section that builds up our palms: the bones of the hand and then the fingers are the next. Kinda the same happens in their hind legs: ankle, then feet bones and finally the toes and they walk on their toes, not on their whole feet. Chickens have a similar concept thankfully and putting the rooster leggos on the hind doggo legs was kinda easy-peasy. Things got a bit trickier when I had to deal with a wrist, which is way more flexible than an ankle. I have decided to keep the wrist - obvi - then keep the metacarpus as well and then bye doggo toes, hello chimken toes!
Another anatomical challenge was the headshot with an open mouth. First and foremost I needed to decide how big this creature can open its mouth. On the client's sketches, I saw these predators have huge mouth that runs right into the cheek. There you can find muscles and I couldn't get rid of the muscles, because they are must-haves for a working jaw. So I kept the mouth as it is only an opening in the skin and the mouth's main job is to let the jaw open at a spectacular angle. If only we would know an animal that was able to do that, right? Thylacines, you are my guy! I started to go after archive footage of thylacine yawning and they were base for the open mouth anatomy. Also kept the canine cheekbones, because, for a jaw like this, I needed muscle power and those muscles needed the bone structure to be attached. This slightly changes the sheep's head silhouette, because sheep don't have that prominent cheekbone - even though they also have jaw muscles because as herbivores they chew a lot, but eating grass requires less force than catching live prey, killing it then tearing raw meat off of the bones and/or snap bones in half. But keeping the main sheep features was also required, so I skipped the typical canine angle that happens on the skull as the top of the head slowly goes into the nose bridge and kept the original sheep nose and eyes structure. This means voles' eyes sitting on the side, not on the front - which is not favourable for a predator, but the client's request means evolution is not perfect.
Teeth. Voles have both herbivores' and carnivores' teeth, so I used the logic we humans have: the front section is for meat eating, the back section is for the harder, more chewy food. I know herbivore teeth are not exactly our teeth, but this creature is based on animals, not humans, so I went with herbivore teeth.
The skeleton part wasn't in the request, but it helped my work and if I drew it anyway I added it to the sheet. On the client's sketches, I noticed voles have massive withers - the reason behind that usually is to give more space to the big muscles to attach, so this means voles also have a massive, but short neck and a heavy head. Also means voles head going forward, not upward. They can raise their heads if they want to, but their basic head position is going forward. I gave voles big spine spikes to let all those muscles comfortably attach and build up and a nice, but short neck.
And ever since voles are agile and fast predators, they got long legs and a big chest with big shoulders. Big lungs and ribcage mean more oxygen and a bigger heart, long legs mean speed, and massive shoulder means more pulling force when they run. Their hindquarters are also muscular, they can push their bodies forward effectively. And their claws can dig into the ground: these guys won't slip when sprinting. Their tail - which kept its wolf features - can help them in turns, but they won't go spectacularly well in sharp turns - for that they'd need a bigger tail.
**But what are voles?**
Voles are agile predators in DnD medium size and they are the mixture of a sheep, wolf and rooster - and after talking with the client about the voles characteristics we agreed on some greyhound features as well. I've got some loose sketches from the client of how voles are supposed to look like and then my work began: to put together their whole anatomy map. And boy, I loved it!
Honestly, I was most worried about the rooster legs. Merge the wolf and greyhound is not a challenge, because they are both canines. Merging the sheep with the canines is also the easier end because they are both four-legged creatures. But how the hell I am supposed to put a chicken leg on a mammal?
I started at the base: the skeleton. I know canines are walking on their toes: their wrist is high above the paws and then comes the section that builds up our palms: the bones of the hand and then the fingers are the next. Kinda the same happens in their hind legs: ankle, then feet bones and finally the toes and they walk on their toes, not on their whole feet. Chickens have a similar concept thankfully and putting the rooster leggos on the hind doggo legs was kinda easy-peasy. Things got a bit trickier when I had to deal with a wrist, which is way more flexible than an ankle. I have decided to keep the wrist - obvi - then keep the metacarpus as well and then bye doggo toes, hello chimken toes!
Another anatomical challenge was the headshot with an open mouth. First and foremost I needed to decide how big this creature can open its mouth. On the client's sketches, I saw these predators have huge mouth that runs right into the cheek. There you can find muscles and I couldn't get rid of the muscles, because they are must-haves for a working jaw. So I kept the mouth as it is only an opening in the skin and the mouth's main job is to let the jaw open at a spectacular angle. If only we would know an animal that was able to do that, right? Thylacines, you are my guy! I started to go after archive footage of thylacine yawning and they were base for the open mouth anatomy. Also kept the canine cheekbones, because, for a jaw like this, I needed muscle power and those muscles needed the bone structure to be attached. This slightly changes the sheep's head silhouette, because sheep don't have that prominent cheekbone - even though they also have jaw muscles because as herbivores they chew a lot, but eating grass requires less force than catching live prey, killing it then tearing raw meat off of the bones and/or snap bones in half. But keeping the main sheep features was also required, so I skipped the typical canine angle that happens on the skull as the top of the head slowly goes into the nose bridge and kept the original sheep nose and eyes structure. This means voles' eyes sitting on the side, not on the front - which is not favourable for a predator, but the client's request means evolution is not perfect.
Teeth. Voles have both herbivores' and carnivores' teeth, so I used the logic we humans have: the front section is for meat eating, the back section is for the harder, more chewy food. I know herbivore teeth are not exactly our teeth, but this creature is based on animals, not humans, so I went with herbivore teeth.
The skeleton part wasn't in the request, but it helped my work and if I drew it anyway I added it to the sheet. On the client's sketches, I noticed voles have massive withers - the reason behind that usually is to give more space to the big muscles to attach, so this means voles also have a massive, but short neck and a heavy head. Also means voles head going forward, not upward. They can raise their heads if they want to, but their basic head position is going forward. I gave voles big spine spikes to let all those muscles comfortably attach and build up and a nice, but short neck.
And ever since voles are agile and fast predators, they got long legs and a big chest with big shoulders. Big lungs and ribcage mean more oxygen and a bigger heart, long legs mean speed, and massive shoulder means more pulling force when they run. Their hindquarters are also muscular, they can push their bodies forward effectively. And their claws can dig into the ground: these guys won't slip when sprinting. Their tail - which kept its wolf features - can help them in turns, but they won't go spectacularly well in sharp turns - for that they'd need a bigger tail.
Meet the voles - a DnD-based, but fan-made predator. The client commissioned me for anatomy sketches, which include a side view with muscles, a front view with muscles, and a headshot with an open mouth and legs in movement. They also provided a lot of background information I put onto the sheets to put the sketches into context.
**But what are voles?**
Voles are agile predators in DnD medium size and they are the mixture of a sheep, wolf and rooster - and after talking with the client about the voles characteristics we agreed on some greyhound features as well. I've got some loose sketches from the client of how voles are supposed to look like and then my work began: to put together their whole anatomy map. And boy, I loved it!
Honestly, I was most worried about the rooster legs. Merge the wolf and greyhound is not a challenge, because they are both canines. Merging the sheep with the canines is also the easier end because they are both four-legged creatures. But how the hell I am supposed to put a chicken leg on a mammal?
I started at the base: the skeleton. I know canines are walking on their toes: their wrist is high above the paws and then comes the section that builds up our palms: the bones of the hand and then the fingers are the next. Kinda the same happens in their hind legs: ankle, then feet bones and finally the toes and they walk on their toes, not on their whole feet. Chickens have a similar concept thankfully and putting the rooster leggos on the hind doggo legs was kinda easy-peasy. Things got a bit trickier when I had to deal with a wrist, which is way more flexible than an ankle. I have decided to keep the wrist - obvi - then keep the metacarpus as well and then bye doggo toes, hello chimken toes!
Another anatomical challenge was the headshot with an open mouth. First and foremost I needed to decide how big this creature can open its mouth. On the client's sketches, I saw these predators have huge mouth that runs right into the cheek. There you can find muscles and I couldn't get rid of the muscles, because they are must-haves for a working jaw. So I kept the mouth as it is only an opening in the skin and the mouth's main job is to let the jaw open at a spectacular angle. If only we would know an animal that was able to do that, right? Thylacines, you are my guy! I started to go after archive footage of thylacine yawning and they were base for the open mouth anatomy. Also kept the canine cheekbones, because, for a jaw like this, I needed muscle power and those muscles needed the bone structure to be attached. This slightly changes the sheep's head silhouette, because sheep don't have that prominent cheekbone - even though they also have jaw muscles because as herbivores they chew a lot, but eating grass requires less force than catching live prey, killing it then tearing raw meat off of the bones and/or snap bones in half. But keeping the main sheep features was also required, so I skipped the typical canine angle that happens on the skull as the top of the head slowly goes into the nose bridge and kept the original sheep nose and eyes structure. This means voles' eyes sitting on the side, not on the front - which is not favourable for a predator, but the client's request means evolution is not perfect.
Teeth. Voles have both herbivores' and carnivores' teeth, so I used the logic we humans have: the front section is for meat eating, the back section is for the harder, more chewy food. I know herbivore teeth are not exactly our teeth, but this creature is based on animals, not humans, so I went with herbivore teeth.
The skeleton part wasn't in the request, but it helped my work and if I drew it anyway I added it to the sheet. On the client's sketches, I noticed voles have massive withers - the reason behind that usually is to give more space to the big muscles to attach, so this means voles also have a massive, but short neck and a heavy head. Also means voles head going forward, not upward. They can raise their heads if they want to, but their basic head position is going forward. I gave voles big spine spikes to let all those muscles comfortably attach and build up and a nice, but short neck.
And ever since voles are agile and fast predators, they got long legs and a big chest with big shoulders. Big lungs and ribcage mean more oxygen and a bigger heart, long legs mean speed, and massive shoulder means more pulling force when they run. Their hindquarters are also muscular, they can push their bodies forward effectively. And their claws can dig into the ground: these guys won't slip when sprinting. Their tail - which kept its wolf features - can help them in turns, but they won't go spectacularly well in sharp turns - for that they'd need a bigger tail.
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