#character refsheet

Made a new outfit drip for Vyse ✨

Helen Love'bow reference aka The Creature

As you can see i've changed my characters' designs quite a bit but this one for Helen still aplies!!! Just make her fingertips long and sharp

Gonna copypaste some info from Art Fight so it's on here as well

I finally finished making a highly professional refsheet for Tansy, my little regenerating immortal critter of dubious origin!

I’m by no means a good visual artist but this at least conveys a basic idea of what she looks like. You can also find this on my DeviantArt page at https://www.deviantart.com/ihcfanfic/art/Tansy-Refsheet-888217938

Tagging @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi​ because I think you said she sounded cute when I mentioned her in an ask so I thought you might want to see what she looks like.

Other Info:

Her design is based off martens, genets, and ringtails. This is kind of the “default” body plan for carnivorans, though. I’m not sure where Tansy would fit into Feliformia or Caniformia - if she has relatives they might actually be something that diverged before the feliform-caniform split, like a surviving Miacid lineage - which would technically put them outside of Carnivora.

Tansy’s body is long, slender, and flexible - think martens or genets. She’s not quite as noodley as a weasel or ferret but still kind of in the “Noodle-cat” category. The fur makes her look a bit less skinny than she actually is. She’s pretty lightly built, made for agility and flexibility, not strength. This is a bit deceptive though, because she’s unusually strong for something her size.

She only weighs about 5-6 lb on a good day, which is comparable to a really small domestic cat, but a little bigger than polecats, ferrets, or martens.

Tansy’s fur is kind of similar in texture to a cat’s: it’s fine and silky, and can be pretty warm when it’s all fluffed up, but it doesn’t repel water very well and can easily be saturated by heavy rain or immersion in water. I don’t think she likes the British climate very much!

Her paws are kind of half-digitigrade, half-plantigrade. She normally walks and runs in a digitigrade stance but can drop into a plantigrade one when climbing or trying to stay low to the ground. Often she has her entire front paw on the ground while still walking on the toes of her back paws. There are quite a few animals like this, including martens, ringtails, and fossa.

Her back paws don’t have a full “sole” like a fossa, civet, or genet, but they do have a small “tarsal pad” on the heel.

Her forepaws are kind of halfway between the paws of a ringtail or pine marten and a raccoon’s hand. Again there isn’t a full palm or bare skin along the entire length of the finger, but she has elongated fingers without skin webbing between them, which gives her a lot of manual dexterity. Her front paws do have a bit more fur than a raccoon’s which kind of masks how hand-like they are.

Tansy has five digits on all four paws - not four like a dog or cat! The fifth toe touches the ground even in digitigrade stance, and the distal paw pad has an extra lobe at the base of it - look at the paws of martens, fishers, or ringtails for reference!

Her claws are semi-rectractile, a trait she shares with cheetahs, martens, and ringtails. They don’t fold up out of sight like most cats’ claws, but she can hold them off the ground to avoid blunting them (or making clicking noises on hard surfaces). The claws are sharp and hooked, making them excellent for climbing as well as restraining prey.

Tansy has a dark mask around her eyes, but it’s a very different shape to a raccoon’s mask. The markings don’t meet in the middle, and merge with kind of crescent-shaped markings on her muzzle similar to what genets and ringtails have. Two thin stripes go up over her forehead, and there’s also two lines going out from the corners of her eyes - a little like the marks around a Margay’s eyes if you took away the smaller spots.