Character Art: Fianue
Another doodle of an upcoming elf character, this time of Fianue (pronounced fee-AH-noo-ay) or as his name translates, Falcon, who happens to have a companion gyrfalcon. It’s not a coincidence- when he was a newborn, he was nearly carried off by a griffin, but a neighbour saw it and sent his gyrfalcon friend to distract the griffin- and Fianue was rescued. Shortly after, he was given his name. Some years later, in a clutch of eggs the gyrfalcon laid, one chick was encouraged to bond with the young elf its mother once rescued. The two have been inseparable since. It is not a pet, but a wild bird- elves don’t understand ownership of other living things. They will befriend animals, but never own them.
Fun fact: in the Dark Wings universe, elves are something in-between mammal and bird. They have hollow bones and their ‘hair’ is actually very fine feathers. On some they are so fine they look almost exactly like hair, but on others they are fluffier and more traditionally feather-looking, like Fianue. Elves’ tails also have feathers along the end that can fan out, and it gives them amazing balance and agility- something that’s very helpful when you live inside giant trees.
When it comes to reproduction, that works just like a mammal, so no weird comments about egg-laying please. XD
Also, some really old, exceptionally crappy art of Fianue:
No weird comments about bird reproduction … got it, though I once won a charity competition based on my knowledge of that general subject.
That said, I think you need to change “inseperable” to “inseparable”.
The hair-feathers thing is fascinating. Skin, scale, and hair development is king of interesting controlled by very few genetic commands, and the development of each is only a tweak or three apart, though the end result is quite divergent.
Oops! Late-night typing and a spellcheck that doesn’t always check very well strike again. 😛 It’s been fixed.
I won’t pretend to be very knowledgable about the mechanics of biology, but the way I crafted the elves in Dark Wings had a lot to do with my favourite fantasy books: Lord of the Rings. I remember elves being described as agile and light (they didn’t even freaking sink in snow) and most fantasies cast them as woodland tree-dwellers. And though my elves are not like LotR elves, I thought a lot about the elf stereotypes that Tolkien popularised. So what would make elves extremely lightweight…? Aha, hollow bones like birds. And being part bird might also give them a desire to live in very high places, like giant trees (the ones they live in resemble sequoias), even if they can’t actually fly. And tails would give them better balance when climbing…. So, that’s how my elves came to be half bird, half mammal. 🙂