#askworks

Hey! Thanks for the compliments - honestly, all my werewolves kind of follow the same transformation process, where their physical body type is visible, but edited with more canine features (face, shoulders, more hair, etc). Since my werewolves are barrel-chested and hunched over, if they have prominent breasts as a human they may be a little boob-y in wolf form. I’m not a fan of werewolves with multiple teats, since their mostly human anatomy means they’re probably not gonna be having litters of 4-5 weird dog babies any time soon.

Hip width, height, facial structure, and weight are all distinct, because the last thing I want is a bunch of clone-lookin’ indistinguishable werewolves. Body hair amount depends on the individual themselves, and if they just shaved recently they’ll probably have shorter fur in wolf form, which is maybe a little embarrassing.

I did a quick doodle of a very stereotypical “girl” werewolf for ya though! Hair length stays the same and gets scruffier and fluffier, as does the rest of the body hair. She’s as tough as any of the dudes though, she don’t take no shit.

Her snout is a bit thinner than the other wolves I’ve drawn, she probably has a narrow jawline when she’s a person. That said, there’s no softening of the facial features between male and female wolves - they all look like angry, snarling abominations against nature.

Hey Anon, thanks for your interest in my beasties! These are some great questions too, so I’ll answer them as best as I can.

The parasitic fungi on the sheet can technically infect just about anything exposed to them - although a few are specialized to be picked up by backrunners alone. They usually do this by releasing airbone spores - runners breathe through the spiracles on their necks, which are lined with filaments to help them sift the air. Spores catch on these filaments, and spread over the hoods of the animals, which is why most of them look like they just dunked their heads in paint.Other fungi are picked up by runners from prey items they eat, or get into the bloodstream via bites from other infected animals. Kinda like fungus rabies.

King’s Torch is symbiotic in that it will attack any other infections it detects within its host’s blood. This is particularly beneficial for backrunners that are prone to getting into scraps with other species, or enjoy eating fetid, rotted garbage for some bizarre reason. Bluebell also offers an odd sort of symbiosis in exchange for propagation - infected runners’ hoods will become thicker and more rigid, which is particularly beneficial during mating season, when females will tug violently on them to test a male’s ability to carry their young.

(Quick aside, they’re called backrunners because their young curl up into little balls and dig their baby claws into the fur on their mom and dad’s hoods and backs, so their parents can travel and hunt without worrying about them. It’s really cute. I’ll draw it sometime.)

When the female bites down on an infected male, spores are released and more often than not, she gets Bluebell too.

Other fungi, like Jester’s Point, aren’t maliciously parasitic, and only use runners (and other creatures) to get from point A to point B. Jester’s Point exclusively infects hair follicles, so while it may look you’ve used too much hair gel, it won’t kill you. Gold Dust also looks pretty nasty, but it’s not terrible unless the host is infected somewhere important. Spores on the arms or legs will grow into uncomfortable spires rooted in the skin, but can be removed. Spores in the lung or throat will also grow into spires, but with less tolerable results.

Queen’s Ire and Plum Wine are completely parasitic and often fatal. They can infect most anything, with Queen’s Ire growing bloated, blood-filled sacks over their host until it’s a walking, trypophobic nightmare, and Plum Wine poisoning the bloodstream, necrotizing flesh and thickening veins and arteries to the point of uselessness. It’s nasty.

Thank you! I’m not really sure how to do a tutorial since I tend to just….draw them, super quickly and unceremoniously, but I did my best! Anatomy-wise they’re kind of a mix between a human hand, bat feet, and spider monkey feet.

I actually don’t have a “set” way of doing lineart, lately I’ve just been colouring straight over my sketches! If you wanna take a hi-res look at that process, here’s an image from my old patreon (and yes, the species being open still stands).

When I do decide to do lineart though, normally I got with 1-pixel uniform lines, nothing too fancy - I prefer to let my colours and shading add dimension to the piece.

I get a lot of questions asking about what I don’t like, but not very many asking what I would love to see more of, so this question is actually fairly fresh. It took me an extra day to get to answering since I needed time to mull it over, but I think werewolf fiction needs:

1. More healthy romance: If you are a fan of giving monsters kisses, which I most certainly am, you’ll know the werewolf genre is pretty much plagued by poorly-written, forced A/B/O (Alpha/Beta/Omega) “romance” of all kinds. I would love to see a story of two actual people in love, of any gender - it is 2016, and I am calling for LGTBQ werewolves that aren’t limited to pornographic narratives - whether one is a werewolf or both, whose feelings develop from mutual respect and admiration instead of the usual and deeply creepy “you need to be together because of pack politics” shit I see people pull. It’s boring. Learn how to write people with realistic emotions and do better. 2. Deeper characters: Characters in werewolf narratives tend to fall into the same categories over and over, mostly because many werewolf stories are horror or gore mysteries, and the author/director is just lining up people to kill. This treatment happens to werewolves as well, and often they’re depicted as either power-mad murderers that revel in their deeds, or repentant and pitiful creatures that would rather die than suffer their curse. As far as I’m concerned it’s gotten very, very old, and being able to see people with stronger motivations than “werewolves killed my parents” or “boy howdy do I love eating people” would be a welcome change. 3. Fresher backstories: This somewhat ties into number two up there. If a character is a werewolf, how are they a werewolf? How does lycanthropy work in this narrative? I want to see less magical hang-waving and old book-reading, I’ve put the “pure of heart” poem to memory and it’s not deep enough for me to dip my toe in. If the werewolves are the murderous and ravenous type, why? If they’re the suffering type, why? If it is some sort of curse, who did it? Why did they do it? Regale me with tails of poisoned bloodlines and damned descendants - or, if you’re the open-ended type, tease me with hints to the bigger picture and leave me to try and connect the pieces. Make me want to know as much about your narrative’s past as I do your character’s.4. Older werewolves: I never see these and I think they would be honestly excellent. Consider the possibilities of a protective werewolf grandpa, or a sweet werewolf grandma that makes cookies. If werewolf packs in your narrative are structured and systematic, please, please, there have to be some elder looking pups in there somewhere. I’m very tired of the excessively hunky mid 20s-to-30s werewolves I always see, please show me a 60-year-old lycanthrope with a wolf-headed cane and “BEWARE OF DOG” sign on his door.  5. Werewolf families: Playing into the structured werewolves again here, and I don’t mean strictly nuclear families either. Makeshift packs of people looking out for each other, neighborhood watches, gangs, anything is better than the forced and suffocating A/B/O dynamics I keep seeing. I am tried of werewolf infighting, I am agitated by conflict that relies solely on romantic disagreement. I want to know what happens to werewolves that don’t get shot when they maul people, I want to know if there are support groups, I want people helping each other - and not just making plans to hunt down the Beast and shoot it. And god damn it, I want to see people handling their werewolf problems on top of their current problems. I don’t care if it’s taxes or college classes or a wedding, people’s lives completely dissolving due to a once-a-month madhouse occurrence is just silly. Give me subplot, give me people talking to each other, give me intimacy, give me werewolf best friends and parents and siblings, adopted or otherwise.     6. Less gore: I know I’m breaking a cardinal rule of werewolf media here, but ever since the Wolfman remake I feel the genre has been stifled by the idea that werewolves need to be bloodthirsty and imposing, and that the only way to reinforce their scariness is to make them kill, kill, kill. Show me a villain with other motives, a villain who doesn’t need his lycanthropy to be scary. Consider werewolves with better things to do than devour bystanders - consider the fact you can write a horror story without making it a bloodbath. And if you’re all up in that bloodbath genre, deeper characters will make your story better. Werewolves have had their hayday as cinema slashers, and now I want to see some challenges of those tropes. I want to see introspection and believably, and I’d love to see people assume how werewolves work based on those films. Splashing someone with gallons of blood and viscera is good fun, but there’s so much more we can do with the media we’ve been given here. There’s so many new narratives we could weave and original spins we can take on these things, we can use them literally, metaphorically, we can make them as elaborate or simple or feral or human as we want and there are so many, so so many things we can twist on their heads to create something really, really cool.

Oh boy, sure thing! Like my other posts, I’m just gonna reiterate this is all based on opinion and aesthetics, so if it doesn’t align with your views of a “good wolf”, there’s nothin’ wrong with that. That said, I am very serious about werewolves, so this post will probably be a lot more impassioned than my other ones, heh.

Without further adieu, (now with IMAGES) Werewolf things I am just Not here for:

Kangaroo legs: The legs are so excessively extended the animal appears to be on stilts, or even looks like a bird. The worst offenders have the knee and the hock on the same plane. The creature can’t walk properly and would probably fall on its face constantly if it existed. I often see this in video games, where the legs will clip through the terrain, its own body, the fabric of time, and yet no one seems to see a problem with it.This can sometimes work if you’re trying to emphasize that lycanthropy is absolute hell to death with, and are a big fan of asymmetrical transformations and poor misshapen creatures that are purposely caught between human and wolf. However, a lot of times people present werewolves as functional predators (heck, even superpredators), and while it makes more an imposing silhouette, it still wouldn’t be able to run - and if you’re going for beast-form accuracy, even normal wolves don’t have hocks that long.

Wall-eyes/Massive eyebrows: The werewolf’s eyes are so far apart it looks more like a horse than a human-canid hybrid. This thing probably has a huge blind spot in front of its nose, and the comically oversized brows make expression difficult, and decrease believably. Would this guy have to cross his eyes to look at you? That’s not scary at all.

It’s A Bear: I noticed this happens a lot with werewolves with smaller ears, as well as when people try and combine human and canine nostrils, and end up with something that looks more ursine than canine. This is a good try, but the whole thing being furred over, the floppy ears, and the droopy lower lip make it look like a big bear with human’s hands. It’s good for stealing picnic baskets and reminding kids to stamp out their campfires once they’re done making s’mores, but not much else.

Rabbit ears: Okay, I love the Howling. It’s a great movie with great effects for its time. But these bunny ears are too much - pointy ears are great for helping create a wolfy silhouette, but taking them to such an intense extreme is ridiculous. This is more suited for the Rabbit of Caerbannog than a werewolf flick, although I do love the rest of it. It’s like the kangaroo legs issue - if the creatures you’re combining don’t have either of these traits, why are you adding them?

Really big wolves: They’re wolves! They’re big! They’re good for cuddling and riding, but I prefer werewolves with a recognizable human element. Also, how’d they get so big? Where’d the extra body mass come from? How much do they have to eat? And most importantly - what am I supposed to do when I need to tell two of them apart, but they both have the same hair colour?

Talbot wolves: The original Wolfman is a wonderful movie that paved the way for our furred friends’ cinema chokehold they have today, but I feel this design needs a major reboot (or perhaps even, has run its course). There is something decidedly unintimidating about it - perhaps it’s the oversized teeth stopping him from closing his mouth, or the squinty, uncomfortable-looking expression, or the fact Benicio del Toro’s permanent bedroom eyes will scare me more than any prosthetic makeup ever will. The original Lon Chaney Jr. makeup is almost brilliantly sad looking, which worked with the character and made us feel sorry for him - but now that people are pushing the Murderous and Deadly werewolf more than ever, our short-snouted friend here just isn’t doing so well. It appears that keeping a human element is good, but being too human kills the fear factor - the key is finding a functional balance between the two.

I did make one with werewolf tropes! I’m fine with writing another, just as long as people remember that these are mere opinions - if you think you can use these tropes and freshen them up, be my guest!

SO, monstrous things I’m tired of - I’m not going to link specific designs, but in general, I would not mind seeing less of:

Useless Eyes: The monster has a random set of eyes, perhaps more than one, somewhere on its body - but in addition to the extra eyes, it also has a normal set of eyes on its face. Logic would follow that it technically doesn’t need these extra eyes at all - but it has them, for some reason. Doesn‘t apply to creatures with multiple eyes on their face (such as one set below the other), or body horror and nightmarish designs, where extra eyes (preferably clusters) do wonders.

No Eyes: The monster is completely blind, but can still see. There are no given explanations as to how it can see, nor any physical evidence it “sees” via echolocation or some other method (telepathy, maybe). It just has no eyes.

Really Tiny Wings: And I mean super tiny - not atrophied through lack of use, or vestigial remnants, just fully-formed, but super tiny wings. These tend to work on oldschool renderings of humanoid demons and imps, but nothing else.

Humongous Forearms: 100% opinion that these just freak me out - really, REALLY big hands attached to equally big forearms - usually with exaggerated extensor and flexor muscles - attached to “normal” sized biceps and triceps. I don’t know how this works and it makes me afraid. Proportional big arms are cool though.

Extremely Tiny Back Legs: Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t - it’s good for emphasizing power and top-heaviness in a monster design, but when pushed too far limits believably of movement and just looks really, really weird. I see this happen to a lot of minotaur-esque designs, which is unfortunate.

Zipper Creatures: A monster - often a dragon, sometimes not, but always serpentine- with a thin body and a long neck, and the entirety of the neck opens into a mouth, like a zipper. It reminds me of splitting a hair, and I have never seen it done in a way that feels believable. It makes me worry the entire creature will just cleave itself in half.

It’s Just A Dragon: I know dragons are technically monsters, but I feel a little more creativity - and a little more pushing of forms - is always a good idea.Mouth Eyes: The monster has an eye (or, multiple eyes) in its mouth, and cannot close them. There are teeth in its mouth and it eats through its mouth - but there are still eyes. Doesn’t apply to nightmare or body horror stuff, but if you’re trying to make a functional creature this is really hard to believe.

The Head Is A Skull: Doesn’t apply to creatures that are completely skeletal, rotting, wear a skull as a mask, or have heads that look like skulls. The head is a pure, unaltered skull from some pre-existing creature that moves and functions as if it’s not completely skinned. Sometimes it has eyes, but I don’t think that makes it any better.Stomach Mouth: I feel like this can be done well, but almost always it throws off the silhouette and balance of the creature completely - especially if it’s placed vertically.

Pointless Bioluminescence: The monster glows, but has no reason to. There is nothing to back up the fact it should glow, and the glow is arbitrarily placed - sometimes, even the whole things glows. There is either too much glow or not enough evidence for glow, and the creature is neither radioactive, nor insectoid or deep-sea based.

Tentacles For No Reason: Not applicable to body horror or nightmare creatures (or anything Lovecraft wrote). The monster has a cohesive design and looks functional, but then has tentacles coming out of it. The tentacles do nothing besides make it more chaotic. It 100% doesn’t even need them.

Whew! That got longer than I thought - there are more I could add but I’m feelin’ the list is getting too pinpoint and negative, so I’m finishing it up here.