This morning I felt like doing an experiment with realistically drawn Kayoss crossed with a touch of cartoon style and painted fur. This was my first time playing around with the 'opacity' option on my brush (no, not lowering the opacity of the brush's paint - I do that all the time - the sensitivity of the brush). taught me how to do this when I met her and I felt like trying it. Yet another experiment trying to figure out how I'm gonna paint my cover. I actually like this better than most of my realism attempts, if you believe it. I donno... it just looks more expressive. More there and I can't seem to get realism anyway. Maybe my covers would be more appealing if they were painted like this. I can do this much easier than I can realism and who is to say this isn't nessacarily realistic?

All in all, I really like my little experiment here. I love Kayoss's eyes especially, because they actually look their proper colour for once - turquoise, not blue - and his manic expression is so... Kayoss! He's my boy. I think this is sort of part of the artistic experiments I've been doing lately. It might not make sense, but I'm 'studying' falcolfs. (Yeah I know, that probably makes no sense at all; I mean, this is a mythical beast that I made up - how the heck does that even work?!) But no, it does.

I've found, in studying falcolfs, some interesting things. This study of mine was largely inspired by a conversation I had with when she asked me what the anatomy of a falcolf was like. This got me thinking. I mean, I really didn't know very many details about them, except for their society and various abilities. I mean, how can other people draw them if I can't do it properly myself? Here's some stuff I figured out, which I shall try to illustrate in the coming months.

-First of all, one must always remember that falcolfs can't feel heat and that it doesn't effect them. This factors into every part of their anatomy. Because of this, falcolfs don't nessacarily need long fur like a wolf might.
-Wolves have have evolved to have short ears and long fur to keep out the cold during frigid winters. Falcolfs however, do not need to stay warm, so they have shorter fur and larger ears. Having larger ears allows them greater hearing abilities, though it can be a set back in a scrap (more to grab).
-Falcolfs might not have to have fur for heat retention, but they do need it for protection. Think of it as armour. The most vulnerable areas on a falcolf are their neck and belly, so the fur here is very thick, long stuff. It's fairly easy to hurt a falcolf very badly by messing with their necks (because of their concealed gills) so this is why the long fur is needed here. It's like a throat guard of fluff.
-Because falcolfs often hunt by sight, being aerial as well as terrestrial predators, they have larger eyes than an ordinary canine might. Falcolfs can see just as well by day as night and can spot prey from several kilometres, much in the manner of a bird of prey.
-Another area of high fur density is a falcolf's tail. This is because it is used along with the hindquarters during flight as a counterweight, allowing change in direction.
-While falcolfs do not need to be particularly fast to catch their prey, having numerous strategies and their quick brains at their disposal, as well as usually buddies (since they hunt in pack-like hunting parties), they still need to have powerful limbs to aid them in the kill, as well as achieving flight. Falcolfs can jump extremely high, a feat that is needed for gaining lift and thus have very strong, well muscled hindquarters. In this sense, falcolfs are stronger rather than fast and have high amounts of endurance.
-Falcolfs have large, webbed paws. This is for aiding in weight distribution upon landing as well as acting like snow shoes, not to mention swimming. In the winter the fur on a falcolf's paws grows longer to insulate the falcolf's body heat from the snow, so that their body heat doesn't melt it.
-Falcolfs have a very strong bite. I'm not talking about venom here; I'm talking about their ability to rip your arm off if they really wanted to. If they don't want to let go, they won't.
-Because they need to be light to fly, falcolfs have to be quite lean like a bird, their internal organs are fairly compact. However, they also need organs that can support their athletic needs, so falcolfs have deep lungs and large hearts. Because they can't overheat, they also have an advantage over most predators in that they don't need to cool off.

Well, I'm still dreaming of things to factor into their anatomy (even more so then I've already done) so I'll probably be ranting about that in works to come. For now, kudos to those who just read that. It's just a sample of the thought I put into my world.

I need to get to my errands now, so I hope everyone has a nice day. It's a lovely day here in Vancouver and I'm particularly happy because I have a bus pass again. Yay! No more wasting tickets!

Once the scanner at the university opens up again, I'll be uploading some new pen sketches I've done. I'll be trying to chose one for the inside cover illustration of Ashes of Hope.

Funny fact: I retype this copyright warning thing over every single time. I've memorized it lol.

(c)Rosanna P. Brost do NOT copy, trace, alter, reuse or redistribute.