rustedtusks.com

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

*blink* That must make the question of who is supposed to use what public toilet a rather complex issue since the differences between the sexes are not [BROKEN LINK] readily distinguishable [SEE BELOW] just by looking at the body. The more I think about it the more I realize that cross class dating is like picking up someone in a San Francisco night club - you never know what you're gonna' get. It does seem settled that female mammals do retain their swollen breasts year round; most females only have distinguishable breasts during the later stages of pregnancy and during the period immediately following birth to nurture the pups/cubs/kits/calves/lambs/kids/what-have-yous. As an observant man once said, "Its funny the bits we choose to when we create anthropomorphic characters."

EDIT: The broken link was supposed to go to a specific picture in Foxxfire's gallery. Take this . lick on "Gallery," then "I'm there," then "Wuffies," select page "7," and then click on the thumbnail at the middle bottom titled "pity."

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

Just imagine during SLOP's age of segregation how difficult it was sorting out just who uses which bathroom?

It is fun for me to see how each artist chooses to interpret the word "anthropomorphic" as they create their animal/human hybrids..

While reading the posts associated with that picture that Andrick linked to, it struck me that, beyond the concept of "furry vs. anthro", which seems to indicate, to me, "cartoony vs. realistic" as opposed to "degree of natural animalism",...there is the not-so-simple choice (when deciding to go the realistic route instead of the cartoony way) of just how human they should be.. The word anthropomorphic (meaning "ascribing human form or attributes to a thing not human", or even "resembling or made to resemble a human form") is very vague as to the actual ratio of animal vs. human attributes, and the way those attributes manifest (ie. human hair-dos vs. animal hair, plantigrade vs. digitigrade, paws vs. feet/hands, amount of muzzle vs. human face,...etc,.. etc.....).

With SO much free room for interpretation (there is no "general" guide for "proper" anthropomorphization of animals,..nor should there be,..in my humble opinion) it's really enjoyable to observe the individual rules each author/artist makes up for their own fiction/style,..and further more, to get them to explain whatever logic (or aesthetic reasoning) they have conjured to set their own standards for their rules. For instance,..I choose NOT to give my anthropomorphic animals human hair-dos,..but I DO give them fully formed five-fingered hands (with claws and such, as appropriate), and five-toed feet (with claws as well, and sometimes a "slightly" different shape), and plantigrade (specifically human) legs. Muley chooses to do just the opposite, finding the human limbs and extremities going too far away from the natural animal characteristics for his taste, yet choosing to give his characters human-like head-hair treatment to some extent.

As far as I'm concerned,..this is ALL good,..and utterly dependent on people's individual tastes. But I'm often surprised by the amount of strong and vociferous opinion concerning what's "good" and "bad", or "right" and "wrong" with such choices. I've even heard,..personally witnessed,..fiery debate on the subject,...arguments and such.. The subject of "correctly rendered" secondary sexual characteristics has become a huge debate in and of itself (ie. sheath-vs. non-sheath, breasts or no-breasts, and "number of" rendered or described). I'm amazed that such powerful opinions are formed concerning something that seems to be so open-ended and free for interpretation...

Any thoughts?


Jadúgara ^_^

I'm quite fond of saying how the devil is in the details. Some of the design choices I make in SLOP are not an accident. Some are.

For example...in SLOP a lot of critters have something on top of their heads that's longer than the rest of their fur. They've got hair. Not everyone does, however.

Take a look at the bottom of this page... http://www.rustedtusks.com/slop/index.p ... 6&p=8&nc=1
Why do I have it absent on some characters? In part, hair is useful for telling characters of the same species apart. Its ALSO useful for quickly establishing gender. Not everyone has it. Some critters have just a bit of a head rough. This relates to the convergent biology of SLOP. Scientists in the SLOP universe refer to the sudden appearance of bipedalism and sentience among many different species as the Convergence. Some religions refer to it as the Hand of God. There's a cultivation of a hairstyle because it makes you less of an animal to that society. I haven't got to the story most relevant to this whole "distancing yourself" from your wild cousins thing yet, but trust me... Cultivating your animal side is sorta frowned upon.

Oh...I tend to draw human looking mammaries. Again, this is an artistic convenience. It quickly identifies gender. If you look at Muley naked, he's got quite a few nipples. The multi-mamarries exist in SLOP but the top most two are the most developped. There aren't a lot of litters anymore among most species though fraternal twins are quite common. Mulefoot's family even has a set of quintuplets in it. Thats more common among Vepr than other races.

This whole "anthro" versus "furry" thing sounds to me a bit like homophile verus homosexual or something equally strange. I don't care for lables. I draw what I draw.

From neck to navel, most furry artists draw a mostly human torso.
The ability to stretch our upper limbs out in opposite directions it mostly an 'ape' thing.
That whole 'ball and socket' shoulder is rarely found in other animals.
I guess that might be one reason why us apes were able to become intelligent.
The female ape has to have hips big enough, that can pass our wide shoulders, this made it possible to also pass larger heads through there also.
The whole 'brain size to body weight ratio' thing.
Any ways, I'm glad that a few in slop still like to get in touch with their animals sides.

http://www.rustedtusks.com/slop/index.p ... 4&p=5&nc=1

Ramseys

You know what would be really cool? If you put up short bits of info about each kind of species. I know there's some of that around like for the veprs and fel and whatnot. I'd be intrested to see much more species and animals. I am particularly curious about bats.

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"Sharp sword and empty horizon. Sometimes that's all a man needs... sometimes."

It would be fascinating to see something like that done!

And that brings to mind a quick question, concerning the SLOP denizens.. Earlier in the story we have seen a crow-based person, working at the rendering plant where Mulefoot dropped the corpses off. I seem to recall seeing it written somewhere (forum discussion, I think) that the crows were one of the few (if not the only) bird denizens of SLOP...

My question is, however....can they still fly? By the looks of the one at Smolik's,...who didn't seem to have very developed wings at all,...I'd assume they can't. Either that,..or his were "clipped" in some major way...

Jadúgara ^_^

About the Corvi...

Adults generally cannot fly. They don't have the wings for it. A long time ago a rare child of the right age could fly. There's the right balance of bodysize and strangely developed hands. Back in the "old nest" these children were quite revered. In the Federated Union, such a thing would be seen as childish fantasy. A great leader was whom could fly is foretold to one day return but the Temple of old has to be restored before their feathered leader can return and lead them all to the Sky.

Fossil records show that 100,000 years ago, they physically may have been able to fly. Some inventors are working on the right kind of ornothoptic prosthesis that would allow unhampered flight. While no one has yet been truly able to fly, there is a bit of an extreme sport where Corvi wear extensions to their winglike arms and jump out of planes--gliding for miles and miles.

Whatever brain structure that used to be optimized for flight isn't there anymore. The genes are inactive.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

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Emoticons are the wheelchair ramps for the humor impaired.

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Emoticons are the wheelchair ramps for the humor impaired.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

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A lone figure sits still by a pool - he's been stamped human bacon by some butchering tool - he is you...
Social Security took care of this lad - we watch in reverence - as Narcissus is turned to a flower

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -

Funny, I was just talking about "Plague Dogs" in another forum just last week. Snitter!

"King Kong..." I'll have to look at those media sources again to be sure, but Kong was just a large, aggressive ape with a range of mental faculties and emotions that seem true to the actions and reasonings of apes. Willy, from "Free Willy" and Flipper are animals in animal shows with no evident anthropomorphization. The animals from "Homeward Bound," "the Cat from Outer Space," and "Benji" I would consider to be furry media. There is an assignment of human attributes to these characters that allow them to communicate, reason, and/or act differently from the base animals that cast them.

"Werewolf in London" is furry media because that empathy is required for the audience to feel the horror of a human descending into the uncontrollable mind-set of a murderous, mythical wolf-beast. The shark in "Jaws" was given the human disposition for being evil so that it represented a supernatural force of insatiable hunger, but nobody empathized with a peckish great white. The killer whale in "Orca" was given the attributes of incredible reasoning and a burning sense for revenge and, despite the set-up that the whalers killed its pregnant mate, there really was no sense of empathy for the animal; if anything really was swung that way in the film it was more of a sense of the whalers reaping what they've sown. Ein from "Cowboy Bebop" may be a Welsh Corgie but is arguably the smartest member of the crew despite having that intellect over-ridden by his endearingly canine actions - a furry character indeed.

I think much of what trips people up is using the label of furry in describing genres. Furry is not a genre. Furry is a device of characterization.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -