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Been incredibly stressed out over the last week thanks to family (or lack thereof/attempts to control from a distance like over the phone XP ) and the upcoming Obamacare debacle...
Nakoda here's been courteous as to be my stress chew-toy over the last week as I struggled to get the focus to work on commissions before my trip, so I guess I should give him a proper introduction then!
When I originally designed him at work during one shift 'he' was intended to be a 'she', but his appearance suited male much more so it stuck. Remember back when I mentioned changing my art shop name to 'Radioactive SnakeDreams'? He's kind of the result of that brainthread. The idea for a logo was a snake of either the python or boa family with the last third of its body becoming translucent to reveal skeletal structures within.
Nakoda is a mix of raven, barn owl, and python, and is apparently with a 'scientific name' of Strigicormata for his species as Flaemaru on DA and I were tossing ideas back and forth as far as combination naming for this 'ground basilisk'. While yes he glows like a bleedin night light, he is not truly radioactive as we figured it out - more or less taking on the characteristics of animals like flamingos in the food source they eat, the moss that his species' prey eats on his world has biolume properties, which passes through the food chain to the apex predators and grants them the ability to blend better as a result. The last quarter to third of their tails are rather translucent, revealing bone silhouettes. Predominantly his species is a mix of owl, bird (other species), and snake respectively, as the owl genes give them the rotatable outer digits to grab and manipulate objects.
I still haven't written more in-depth on him and his species, but Nakoda is a harmless giant of a trickster amongst his adopted clan, who's members take after the viper family and are much smaller, with a hobby in wood carving and improvisational tools.
/character info
This piece was a pain in itself because.... SNAKE SKIN FOLDS DARMIT! I know that I went a little too bold in the scale reflections, but that's all in the learning curve right? Though the scanner did loose a lot of the softer detailing and color gradients T_T Used a marker base and then applied the rest of the colors via pencil (and did all the ribs in pencil!) however, the torso feathers ended up going darker than I planned so I couldn't do my shading experiment with it :C Ah well, another character to guinea pig that on! I also darkened the background so it wasn't so glaringly white XP
Likely Nakoda here and a few other oddballs of his kind, who I'm thinking of calling Havii (WHAAAAT?! A simple name?! What is this madness!!!!), will be the only ones in existence, but if you guys are curious in a potential new species for adoption I could slip them into the species list to work on!
Ok, still tired and stressed as all get out, I'm taking meself to bed T_T Zzzzzzzz..... Oh yeah, new written siggy! Likey? I figured I needed a signature with my real initials in the event I change my username XP
Submission Information
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- Rating:
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- Category:
- Visual / Traditional
Comments
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^_^ Thank you! Hopefully I'll be able to produce more pieces like him and his kind!
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Oh. My. Gosh. O:
Amazing! I love it.
Why the 'biped' tag, though? >_>
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^_^ Thanks!
The Biped tag is because some people are stingy on how to class naga-like creatures, as some consider nagas as essentially a 'bipedal snake'.
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But nagas are specifically NON-bipedal. Bi-ped literally means two footed (or two legged, really). 'bi' is two and 'ped' is foot. I'm a stingy person who doesn't like to see anthro, two-legged snakes being called a 'naga'. Moreover, you can have purists who say that nagas are beings with a purely serpentine body (no limbs at all) and the head of a human. Or a many-headed serpent figure. But I digress.. my point was and is that this image here is very much not bipedal. That doesn't take away from how great it is, of course! And honestly, I can't see anyone searching for 'bipedal' in the tags, anyway!
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I am fully aware what bipedal means and the range of forms true nagas come in (and Nakoda isn't a true naga, the biped is because the bird element is in an anthro formation), so I am not sure as to why this has led to a debate post that feels a bit, forceful(?) in impression. I am not at all looking to spark arguments over a tag, but neither am I going to change something because it makes one person uncomfortable if that makes any sense. I appreciate the efforts to enlighten, however it probably would be appreciated to ask first if someone knows something, and that you never know what people look for on the internet!
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I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to argue or be forceful at all. I was just discussing things.
It seems as though you've been saying that Nakoda here is bipedal due to the two limbs and the extremities they possess, which appear in a very arm-like position, giving the impression of said extremities being hands. But I suppose you're referring to them as the source of Nakoda's bipedal nature. And if that's right, that must also be how you meant that nagas in general are "essentially a bipedal snake," which you said in your first reply. I honestly hadn't realized or considered the notion of referring to the arms/hands on any coily/serpentine-bodied naga character to claim they were bipedal, but I suppose you could somewhat say they are forelegs, in a sense, especially if the naga is bestial and slithers as well as crawling its hands/forelegs forward on the ground, not using them in a hand-like way.
There could be a point made about how, even in that case of a feral snakeman, the 'forelegs' aren't really adding to the effort of locomotion (ie: the slithering would be doing all the work/propulsion/movement), so would they really be classed as feet? Perhaps at that point, one would liken them more to 'specialized grasping limbs', akin to a mantid's raptorial limbs (the large scythe-claw-arms they have), in that they wouldn't be for fine manual dexterity, but general slashing/clawing or clumsy grappling. *shrugs*
Oh, and earlier, when I said: "I don't like to see anthro, two-legged snakes being called a 'naga'," I was talking about how I don't think something like this should be called a naga: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/021/6/1/snake\_man\_by\_fangwangllin-d5sb169.jpg Hopefully there was no confusion there. I should have said 'humanoid' or 'two-armed, two-legged' or something.
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Haha, that's one of the problems with internet, you can't really relay the emotion behind what's being written unless you know the habits of the person behind the words.
Partly yes it's to how his upper body is proportioned and arranged, and the other is his species is a variant of basilisk, which are classically a very feral creature where the legs are predominantly weight-bearing.
It's hard to say where the line begins to blur between definite hand or feet, but it's always something to consider when designing a species. I do know what you're referring to via the link and thankfully there wasn't any confusion there ^_^
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This is an incredible character design. You really managed to effectively convey the texture of skin, scale, and feather.
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^^ Thanks! I still need to practice more with traditionals as it's kind of fallen out of habit of late aside from pencils and inking >>
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Link
silverybeast
Gorgeous piece and fantastic design! The details and anatomy are beautiful to look at.