Wings and tails

Wings and tails are the anatomical aspects I really wanted to tackle when I set up this blog. I'll make them more of a focus this year. All too often they are just added as after thoughts rather than being physically useful!

Aesthetics tails and wings that really don't do much!

Eyes

Carnivore eyes, those that are forward facing, are actually quite dissimilar to ours in many ways. I was looking at their shape when sketching and tried some rendering of them over the holidays.

Don't just create, build

Where do you begin? Well you don't have to start with all this detail when designing a character but I wanted something specific for my Troganite horse. It's the parts that make the whole when designing anything, and the saying is true that you can't build on a bad foundation, so even if it's a drawing of a biological structure it starts with a well adapted frame.

Banners

The old anthroanatomica banner is now retired after 1 year of service. Let me know what you think of the new banner style and layout. Many thanks to you all for looking and adding to what is essentially a debate on plausible anatomy! :)

Tails

Something that's puzzled me for quite a while now is how does a tail work on a biped. Lets take for arguments sake that we are retaining this feature even in some vestigial form. The bones that form the caudal vertebrae of any tail are of course that tiny group of coccyx bones in a human. Far from being just a human vestigial tail, the coccyx is the site for attachment for many important pelvic floor muscles including the muscles of the genitals. How then, could we keep both the functionality of the pelvic floor needed in bipeds to help keep everything 'in' as well as functioning as a birth canal, and the aesthetics of an animal tail. Would caudal bones diverge from the sacrum, or could the sacrum be formed to function like that of the coccyx?

A few sketched ideas on how the pelvic floor could exist in a biped with a tail.

Anthro leg structure 3

Following from the previous post... now that I know to turn Google image enhance off so that it stops turning all my images black...

Unguligrade legs on the left and digitigrade on the right.

Another way to think about the tapering limb as it becomes more distal is to think about 'muscular bulk', 'taper' and 'tendon'. We have the main muscle bulk at the origin of the limb, the muscle tapers down towards the tendon and finally terminates as just tendon onto the bone. This can be applied to any individual muscle of a limb (fig. 2) or also to the limb as a whole (fig. 1). Drawing a limb with this in mind ensures it stays in proportion.

The proportions of the limb are indicated by the measuring arrows. The set of legs on the left have a shorter thigh in proportion to the more distal, (further from the body) part of the limb; this limb configuration would offer the character the ability to run faster. As I touched on this in a previous post, a longer distal portion of the limb offers a greater stride distance and holds more elastic strain energy, quickening the limbs movement. The legs of the digitigrade on the right have a proportion of thigh to lower leg almost 1:1, similar to us as plantigrades. This would offer more limb stability rather than speed with the joints being less prone to stresses or twisting.

One thing to note is that the stability and speed configurations can apply to both digitigrades and unguligrades; it would simply be species and character dependent.

Anthro leg structure 2

I was asked a few weeks ago to help with creating a set of satyr legs. The main point I outlined was:

only look at the biggest forms when filling out the wire frame with muscles. Keep the curves flowing; show the largest sweeps of these shapes to keep them dynamic; have them show the force of the muscles not just their outlines. Don’t get too hung up on individual muscles at the start, that detail is for later when you’re shading, make sure you’re drawing the big forms to start with.

Some ideas to consider on an unguiligrade biped leg.

Gesture: Centre top is an idea of the flowing curves for a digitigrade and unguligrade type. I wanted to get an idea of the fundamental shapes the curves make as if the legs were mechanical; they would be made of curves that would give them spring as they moved.

Form: On the left an idea of where the muscular bulk is as opposed to the bone and tendon areas. All limbs follow the principle that they get thinner the more distal (further from the torso) they become. Take the human arm as example, muscular bulk decreases further down the arm and the limb becomes more sinuous until we get down to just tendons controlling the hand and fingers. This decrease in muscular bulk is worth noting when drawing so as to keep the limb in proportion. On the right is this idea now shown as contours in the forms of the leg.

Function: At the bottom of the image is a movement sequence. Those areas shaded represent the major muscles that are contracting. The quadriceps, (Q) extend the knee just before the 'contact'. On the 'down', the limb is slowed by the hamstrings (H) as the limb takes the torso's full weight. The elastic energy in taking this weight is channelled down into to fetlock or toe joint by long flexor tendons. This energy is released in the 'up' with the gluteals (G) powering the knee to full extension and the hamstrings extending the hip. This drives the torso forwards as I've talked about in previous posts. Note that the 'knee' and the 'toe' joints flex and extend by the greatest degree, the 'ankle' joint is kept relativity stiff. If the ankle was allowed to flex too much the limb would collapse under the weight of the torso.