Vii/thrall concept doodles

[Jerelyn]

Prior to page 13, Kael and I sat down and talked more about how the physiology of Vii (and thrall in general) works.  Nothing revolutionary, but just a more solid sense for how the tail fits together with the legs.  Kael has always been really enthusiastic about the idea that the torso and tail are the "real" body of a thrall, and the legs are just an add-on (rather than the tail being an add-on).

Anyhoo, I thought folks might enjoy the drawings that came out of that.

Not everything here is etched in stone. There are some ideas that we may chuck. And the head is crap-inaccura-tastic.

[Anker Steadfast]

Looking good, as far as I know anything about basic anatomy.
I think the human body might actually have had a prober tail once, so adding one to a humanish body isn't so hard.

However, the thrall tails are rather on the heavy side, so a thrall would probably have to move the torso forward most of the time, in order to achieve balance between torso and tail.

That aside, I think the biggest "problem" might be if the tails grows too wide at the base, then it would chafe the thighs of her legs. So I could imagine that a grown up thrall could have a tail that would be slightly less wide compaired to the hips, than a teenage thrall would, or perhaps it would adapt it's shape a bit ... I think, based on the fact the skin of most things becomes a little less elastic as they grow older. But since Vii is a teen, her body hasn't encountered such problems yet. Heck, I don't even know if we'll ever see a grown up Vii.

Ack .. I'm rambling ...
Better stop.

 





On a completely unrelated sidenote :
A word balloon Tails and Joins creation guide.
http://www.balloontales.com/tips/tails_joins/index.html

[anubis_the_dog]

yup......we still have a tail bone..........leftovers of what was once a tail.....a weird growth.....a protrusion

so i guess you could start from there, and i do agree with anker about the width of the tail, it would look rather odd if it was too wide

[Zyrusticae]

Hmm, neat. Reminds me strongly of the Iksar (the female ones, in this instance). Very close, anatomy-wise. The Iksar in-game have fairly wide tails (perhaps a bit short) and don't seem to suffer any problems, though they tend to have their tails stick out towards the back (actually alot like the way it's sketched out here, even), so their tail usually isn't touching their legs at all.

Anyways... I'd like to see more Thrall stuff. Have yet to see anything besides Vii (and the one female on the Thrall race description page). 

[Obi-Rak Kaeliri]

Actually, in the very beginning, before it even had a proper name, this comic used to be an Everquest 2 comic and Vii was an iksar. Very early on, at around page 3 (or was it even page 2), we chose to distance ourselves from Everquest and to instead create something uniquely ours. With the lazy bastards that we are though, we didn't want to re-do those early pages. Fortunately for us those few pages were generic enough that  they could be re-purposed for the new story: the way it went was so that once we decided it wasn't going to be an EQ comic we first created and fleshed out the world, existing pages be damned, and then the story bubbled up to the surface.

Appearance-wise the thrall aren't a huge departure from the iksar-style reptile-people, mostly because of the head. The body is fairly dissimilar because the iksar never had fully fleshed out the idea of the tail-and-torso being one continuous unit. I think that a uni-trunk is a bit more consistent with how real-world reptiles are put together, with obvious provisions for having evolved into an upright species. The head... well, it's neither clearly EQ1 nor EQ2, but the influence is there. It's pretty generic as reptile-heads go, but we may tweak its design at some point.

Beyond the appearance, though, iksar and thrall have absolutely nothing in common. We wish we could tell you all about what we've come up with, but the species is unique enough that you just have to see it for yourself as the story unfolds.

[Jerelyn]

Beyond the appearance, though, iksar and thrall have absolutely nothing in common.

Oh, I dunno...I think both species can appreciate a succulent elf steak.

[Jerelyn]

[Tuftear]

I think the trik is to look at jesus lizzafrds (basilisk) running upright  (mostly done on water!)
what are they doing with their tails?  what is the tail with to torso like?
just a tought it wyou at to look at earthbound  bipedl  lizar locmotion

[Anker Steadfast]

.... almost look like an alien without the overdimensioned head and stuff.

[Sierra]

I think its the partially sketched eyes. The hands might be in a different place naturally I think. But I'm not sure.

[Jerelyn]

Itsa bump!

I call this one "Tail's still there!"

Just some doodly practice, trying to improve my anatomy and perspective

[EmerauldDrathmir]

Cute.  Like shes unsure of herself. 

Perhaps they shed scales for growth like amphibians/reptiles/herpetiles?

It's an interesting side bit of information I'm intrigued with.

[Obi-Rak Kaeliri]

Yeah, they do shed their skin. It doesn't come off completely all at once, of course, but flakes off in patches. Lizard style.

[Jerelyn]

G'nuh, all this time doing concepts of Vii and I still struggle with her. Had a real hard time with her in his latest page, what with the angle and perspective.

Before (and this is one of the better versions of the many times I started over) & After

[Jamie]

That coloring on her scales is fantastic ... she almost glows on the page in a luminescenty kind of way .... is she getting ready to zap the Bad Guys?    Like the way the alien space ships in Independence Day get all bright and shiny at the bottom right before they fire their Death Ray?

[Jerelyn]

Hahahahaha, I like that.   

[Obi-Rak Kaeliri]

She's starting to live a little more up to her name...

[Icebird]

I really liked that page. As mentioned, she's all glowy. I love that. ^^

[EmerauldDrathmir]

Reminds me of my friends scaly pal.  The iridescent colouring is so much like that.  Very soft looking.