Warriors Designs by Someone Who Hasn't Read the Books in Years

He’s. He’s Firestar. He’s our good vanilla protagonist. What more is there to say?

All joking aside-- I don’t have very many design notes for him, and the ones I do have are littler things. It was interesting to design him-- the vanilla Warriors protagonist who’s existence is the standard for all protagonists later --after designing his daughters. I’ve always wanted for my designs to have some form of family resemblance between close-knit families-- and so I had to base Firestar’s design fairly heavily off of Leafpool and Squirrelflight’s designs(NOTE: The same will not be true for Cloudtail because he’s got a whole other parent I can just say he takes after).

I decided my version of Firestar would look mostly like Squirrelflight, with some Leafpool mixed in. The paws, for example, are from Leafpool-- as is the dark stripe running down his neck, but the white spot on his nose is Squirrelflight, as is his general size and shape.

Rusty is rounder and softer than Firestar-- I like the idea that when leaders become leaders they have small physical alterations-- for Firestar, he got more angular, with his ears tilting back and out slightly while he just gained an air of authority.

Firestar has a more realistic cat nose than Rusty/Firepaw/Fireheart do.

A good couple of his colors are colorpicked from Squirrelflight, and then saturated a little bit. I just felt like they always looked really similar to me, but Firestar’s got to be the neon bright popping color in the forest to get that fire across, yknow?

 As always, requests are open!

I am aware of how similar their body types and the differences between them are to Squirrelflight and Leafpool! That’s completely intentional as I’ve always seen a ton of parallels between the two sister pairings. I like to imagine that Dovewing and Squirrelflight have a soft fluffy cuddle pile with kits any time they can.

Intentional similarities: Full-tail color, socks and toes, under-eye spots!

I wanted Ivypool to look tall and lanky like Leafpool but still retain a lot of that spiky flashy attitude that she has; hence the spiky uptufts of fur.

The stripes on Dovewing’s neck, though barely visible, are on the second rung of fluff down! They are based off of a real-world dove.

Dovewing has,, wings on the sides of her paws.

Ivypool does not.

I included all the eye colors I could find for these two! Dovewing has heterochromia AND sectoral heterochromia; while Ivypool just has sectoral heterochromia. Dovewing’s eyes, when she uses her powers, glow amber. Ivypool’s, in the dark forest, become bright red.

Originally Ivypool’s design was going to be a lot more complicated, but I toned it back so that she would be easier to draw repeatedly and replicate.

I wanted these two to look pretty different while still retaining some similarity in order to keep them clearly related. For Squirrelflight I took a TON of inspiration from other designs I’ve seen-- off the top of my head the Five Bells design has always had a special place in my heart and as such has a lot of weight here.

I also wanted them to sort of mirror a lot of designs I’ve seen of Ivypool and Dovewing! I always felt like the two sister pairs had a lot in common thematically and story-wise, so I wanted that to be reflected in their looks. 

Yes I know Leafpool canonically has white paws. Look at that, she’s got two of ‘em. I wanted to sync her and Squirrelflight’s designs together better-- the dark back paws give them sister similarities. 

Squirrelflight’s tail is always curled like a squirrel’s

Squirrelflight is one of the fluffiest cats in the Clans-- and yes, her fur is as soft as a cloud.

Leafpool, meanwhile, has nearly no fur. Squirrelflight makes Leafpool let her cuddle in the winter so that she doesn’t get cold.

The tuft on Squirrelflight’s head is 100% inspired by the Five Bells MAP’s design for her. I just. I really like that MAP and it’s design, okay?

Yes, Squirrelflight has a heart nose.

Yes, they both have freckles.

In my envisioning of the books, medicine cats always have sort of galaxy eyes when they’re recieving a vision or when they’re at the moonpool in StarClan-- I just love that aesthetic. The galaxy eyes glow! I just didn’t show it in this drawing.

Next up - I dunno! Probably Ivypool/Dovewing or Firestar/Sandstorm because those are the ones I have in my mind-- I plan on releasing a few in batches like this one and a few individually(ex. Firestar will probably get his own design sheet, but Ivypool and Dovewing will share one).