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FelisGlacialis — Siderian reference 2016
#big #bigcat #cat #felidae #feline #reference #siderian #metafelidae
Published: 2014-10-08 20:57:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 10573; Favourites: 248; Downloads: 56
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Description
See newer refsheets here: www.deviantart.com/felisglacia…
Finally I have made new reference sheet of my original feline species; the siderian. As you can see on the phylogenetic tree, there are three other species in the Metafelis genus. I will make a similar reference sheet of these species too - if I have the time. The siderian is my main species and I have by far most siderian characters, but lately the javines begin to become clearer and clearer. Here is the reference sheet of the javine species:
Siderians; as I call them sideries or just deries; are mostly inspired by Oriental cats and tigers, and to some extend by Eurasian lynx (especially the large paws). Just explore my gallery to find more characters and see how they all have some individual characteristics. You are free to make up your own siderian character with the help of this reference sheet; but just make sure you always refer to me as 'creator' and NEVER use a siderian character for commercial purposes!
If you have any questions about possible variations or for example coat colours (those are complex and there are more exceptions possible than shown here)- feel free to ask me! I will try to answer
-btw...there may be a LOT of typos...
art and species to me!, please don't copy/use it without my permission!
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Comments: 70
Aw thanks! Curious when you saw them for the first time. I also realise that my art looked so skewed and distorted in the older drawingws...Siderians haven't really changed in my perception, so I think it's mostly that my anatomy skills and understanding have evolved over the years. Sometimes faster than that I could follow and I constantly had to correct anatomical mistakes that I kept on finding...
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Youre welcome =^.^= it was a few years ago that i remember seeing em it might be just because u havent seen them in a while XP
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This is a gorgeous species! I love how well thought out it all is.
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This is the first time I saw the urajiro on this sheet. But from that example...would that mean that what Bojan has going on is an oddity? Being that he is more white with only some black limited to the top part of his body? In a ways I am guessing a reserved marten…
But what does Fury have going on with that dark color along her spine? Is that also an example of urajiro working on a different color coat or is it something totally different?
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Finally some reply on your question - well these are just examples because the whole range of coat colours doesn't fit on this refsheet. But this extreme-urajiro (with colour restricted to the spine) is not so rare actually.
Fury has this cape/cloak effect. She is probably ticked tabby or something and has a dark eumelanin marking on top of agouti. As if the agouti-gene doesn't work on these spots.
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Thanks! That's good to hear!!
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Can there be torbies and calibies Siderians? We have tortoiseshells and calicos (I guess we can have those too), but can they have patches of tabby fur?
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Yep, the reference sheet says that tortie can combined with any other effect so tortie+ tabby = torbie and tortie+piebald spotting = calico. And tortie+tabbie+piebald is a torbie calico XD www.tnfcs.co.uk/History/Black%… although, the red (and thus the tortie) isn't supposed to be common XD - even though River has a whole red family
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Would that explain Helena's color? But what would be used for a dilute tortie? Don't they have a different gene that makes their colors lighter? Since the ginger ends up being cream, the black area being gray?
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Yep- Helena is non-agouti or dominant black with tortie (X-chromosomal red probably) and piebald spotting (low degree). The dilution gene (usually called the D-locus) dilutes all colours equally so it 'dominates' all other colours (except white of course - that can't be further diluted). So every cat/siderian/dog/rabbit/mouse (that gene occurs in many species) that has the dd genotype (two recessive dilution genes) have a diluted colour- which means that torties, tabbies, tortietabbies, siameses and so on all have an entirely diluted coat (unlike merle, where only random patches are diluted). There are however, other genes that only dilute red pigment (usually the silver-genes - fairly common among siderians) or that only dilute black and derived colours like chocolate and cinnamon (in mice it's called the pink-eyed dilution, but it doesn't appear in siderians) and leave red pigment relatively unaffected.
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the way how you work with your species really deserves much admiration! it's just awesome and very interesting
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Thanks! That is really good to hear! I try to think about a lot of biological details
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This turned out fantastic! I've loved watching these creatures evolve. (Also, love the new species name!)
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Thanks!! I have seen pallanophs evolving a lot as well, since the moment you joined DA - they were already, but now they have become even more fascinating. I'm curious about their phylogenetic relations with other mammals/carnivores actually. I think I picked something up once - but don't know where.
I'm thinking of making a similar refsheet for the other metafeline species too.
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Thanks! It took a while though.
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Wow, I have never seen such a well thought out reference sheet. You did a great job on it. 
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Oh yeah I remember her and your amazing drawing! I would love to see more of your work! (goes watching you because I see I didn't ). About the markings; Bianca is genetically either autosomal or X-chromosomal red (which is slightly lighter and shows a vague tabby-pattern) and her brother is black tabby. The case is that piebald spotting is dominant, and to get a high degree of piebald spotting; that typical Van-pattern of Bianca and the Harlequin pattern of her brother; both parents need to have that gene. So both parents need at least to have some white markings (can be low-degree; like a border collie). One of the parents must at least carry the agouti-gene (for tabby) but this can be masked by a dominant solid gene. So I think golden tabby (although it's rare) and dark brown is possible. But this suggests that Bianca is autosomal (recessive) red; and not X-chromosomal (in that case her father should be red and her mother at least tortie). So conclusion; the colours you have in mind for the parents are good possible but they both need to have at least some white markings.
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Thank you so much for the great answer, I think genetics is a very very interesting subject, and I definitely will take some research in the next time. And you know so much about it, it´s really impressive! It´s great to hear that their parents actually (almost) can keep their coat colors, and since they are quite new characters and I don´t know them so well yet, it will be easy to give them their white markings. I´m planning to draw them all in some sort of family portrait and right know I sketch a picture of Bianca near her favorite spot, a little pond she found hidden in the forest, where she explores the sweet water flora and fauna. Also her father starts to become more clear, I imagine him to be born and raised in the italian alps, his name is Giacomo Favelli. So I´m really excited to draw them all soon and to see how they look on paper. Thanks again for the great answer, it is good to know that their color combinations are naturally and genetically possible. Also thanks a lot for the watch and the nice words!
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Sorry for the late reply
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Amaaaazing work, I love your species as always, and it's also nice to see the subtle changes from when you last made the references - I note that the heads now look quite a lot larger (in some of the very old ones, if I'm completely honest, the heads looked too small compared to the rest of the creatures, but only in the oooold drawings which were still otherwise great of course), the back is more level now, and they have a much more "square" appearance in general, also the legs and body are now more similar in length, I think the lynx influence has perhaps made them a bit less long compared to their height now, and the squareness is definitely more tigerlike in looks - also love more of the cat influences too particularly in the second bodytype.
The cheeks also look slightly broader to me too (particularly in the males, a bit like tomcats or male tigers), and the muscles seem more "blended" (i.e. not as bulging as before and a bit more typically catlike in a smoother appearance), and it's also nice to see how some of the drawings are clearly based on the old references, but updated in anatomy, like the muscle structures and head studies - also like how the pose of Stian reminds me of his same pose in the "Growing Up" sheet you did of him ages ago.
I have to say, what I REALLY like about this reference is how concise it is - it takes information which used to be spread over several sheets and condenses it into one, yet is still packed with information without being overwhelming for the reader. (hehe, the snowy-inspired bg reminds me a bit of the snowy look I did for my recent ref, hehe... guess we both like blue and snow a little bit too much, haha. :'D Yours is of course done much better, that goes without saying. :'D)
Also... the inverted silver tabby is FREAKIN' GORGEOUS! 
It's also nice to include a bit about their habitat as well, and that painting of the landscape is BLOODY AMAZING - even that on its own is something I could stare at and admire the details, colours and realism in for hours... just a shame I don't have hours to look at it in wonder. <3 Interesting too how they have their own names for the mountain ranges, I guess it makes sense for them to name their own home something different to humans - Krovendraekk don't have alternate names for mountain ranges - the only addition is the super-range of "The Devil's Spine", but this is a "fantasy landscape" in a way since it's not in our world, but their world is larger and with some geographical differences - the Himalayas and Andes etc. are still present, and still have the same names - Krovendraekk and humans don't have different names for mountain ranges since the two species did interact (not so much now though as there are reasons), and so their cultures do exchange information on occasions. However, though the ranges are called the same thing by both species, some individual mountains were originally named by Krovendraekk and not by humans, such as one of the highest peaks in the Hellspires (a particularly nasty and inhospitable region in the Devil's Spine in Northwest Germany), "Eisenklinge", or "Iron Blade"... so called since the lower slopes are coated with ice and snow, but the upper region is bare grey rock as the surface is too steep for snow to remain in place, so the peak looks like the top of it is jagged metal from a distance. (I could go on to talk about other names for mountains in Krovendrakk habitat, but I'll stop here.
Also a big contrast in our species that yours like to hunt with cover but mine hate it. 
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I see I haven't answered this yet! Funny that you mention that the muscles are more blended - I corrected that indeed. And yep I wanted to make the males more look like tomcats but I didn't want to give them the heavy head of a male jaguar or so. More that of a male tiger or Oriental cat. Keeping that elegance kinda. Anyway the description of Krovendrakk habitats sounds really interesting and inspiring! I like how you have combined a fantasy landscape with the 'real Earth'- I still struggle with that. I tend to copy the current geology too much...
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Haha, no problem, replies are still great no matter what time! ^^
Ah, yes, I was sure I hadn't just been seeing things, definitely thought their bodies seemed more smooth with the muscles more blended and not as sharp-looking in definition. Ha, yes, that's exactly what I thought, since I noticed more sexual dimorphism in their faces but it wasn't as pronounced as in jaguars, so when I saw it I thought of a tiger or a tomcat since the difference is more subtle there. 
Ah, thankyou! Ha, yes, Krovens have rather different lifestyles and size/shape to Siderians, so even if they were to live in the same region, they wouldn't exactly share the same habitat. Of course, habitat varies per clan, and per individual, since some clans such as the Kundai are desert specialists, the Fjorhal of Scandinavia prefer a colder climate with snow and flatter ground (well, some mountains are fine and to their liking, but they don't tend to be fond of anything too steep), whereas the Larkhai have more of a coastal distribution and are also the only clan where fish forms a significant percentage of their adult diet... and as for the Renvor, they tend to have a wide range of habitat and are generalists as a rule - they prefer to avoid absolute extremes, but otherwise can be found in pretty much every type of habitat except in forests. (the size, speed and shape of Krovendraekk, particularly the large clans like Dreikov, Renvor etc. is not suited to moving in a forest environment, or to their hunting strategy) Kårstatt on the other hand... I call them my "extremophile bacteria Krovens" since they inhabit a region which is uninhabitable by any other clan, having adapted to live somewhere Krovendraekk, by rights, shouldn't be able to survive... well, looks like Darwinism in action there! 
Ah, yes... my version of Earth where Krovendraekk reside is actually a "scaled-up" version of our own planet - the countries are the same shapes etc. but muuuuuuch bigger(heck, they'd have to be to fit all my Krovens... long things that they are, they take up a fair bit of space. :'D) As for gravity... this is the same as our world, but I figured that this would be due to differing densities of the planet's core and mantle, or could perhaps be to a binary system with another planet or satellites, but I decided not to go into depth on this since I'd be drifting away from my Krovens themselves... and they want more attention.
However, whilst coming up with that concept, I figured that with the world essentially a bit different and also larger, I decided to add some different geographical features, including The Devil's Spine, the sort of interconnected "super-range" of mountains in Europe. There's more detail on it too on the megaref text-bomb if you're interested on finding out more! ^^
Hmm, I suppose I added the "fantasy landscape" since well, making the world bigger meant that I could have extra spaces to fill or play around with, plus the planet itself is, though a version of Earth, still fundamentally different to it in some ways, so I took a bit of imagination there. However, I don't want to go too wacky or unbelievable either - The Devil's Spine range is partly inspired by the Karakorams and some Antarctic Nunataks as well as fantasy sort of "nightmare mountains" (In the case of the Hellspires/Sackrischturmspitzen especially), though I tried to keep it with the realms of what's naturally possible, with some shifts in climatic patterns and geographical composition compared to our planet to explain the more chaotic/intimidating/inhospitable nature... and the climate itself adds to the inhospitability of those mountains since they're dangerous enough without frequent high-powered thunderstorms (often with snow or graupel by the bucketload :'D And hail the size of tennis balls... mind yer head in the Stormlands!*alternate name for region of Devil's Spine mountains most exposed to bad weather - mainly the Northern French and German componants of the mountain range*
Hehe... the heavy, reinforced skulls of the Kårstatt clan are useful for more than just biting force or combat - built-in crash helmets. 
The winds across the entire range are also fairly extreme, but in the Stormlands in particular, the winds can reach up to 200mph hurricane-level, and swirl erratically buffered by the jutting peaks, carrying blizzards in chaotic directions at blinding force, and these winds, combined with the altitude, exposure and general climate, can drive the temperature as low as -80 in winter. O_o
Ha, the Stormlands weren't exactly imaginatively named, haha... but it's fairly descriptive.
Ha, I have to figure out how to draw those mountains though... to put across how I see them in my head (a sort of "Himalayas gone evil" kind of look about them)... not to mention the weather. ARGH. I think it's waaaaaaaaay beyond my ability(both current and potential) but I still want to draw them since I love how it looks in my head, and plus it's not fair for my Kårstatt to be "homeless" in drawings. :'D
I think copying Earth's geology works for your species though... hmm, I think the closer proximity to humans and hyenas makes sense for the conflicts in generates between species, and also your Siderians are a bit less bizarre than my Krovens(though that's not saying much), and their lifestyle is more similar to other felids and fits well into existing geology. So I don't think you copy normal geology far much, not at all... indeed I think it works very well with your species and sort of makes you imagine that they could be living in our world, that you could glimpse one in a cold forest while watching deer... I guess my world is a bit further removed from our own, but I think certain things work better for certain stories. Besides, your addition of intellithos and metaflow crystals is an interesting twist to current geology, as with the sort of peaks that grow around the crystals as you described before and drew in that painting... I think perhaps adding more unusual things might perhaps be a step too far, and that you've actually got the current balance just right.
Ha, sorry for the 
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A shit ton of people these days make new species without putting any further thought into them other than their appearance; most of the time, their appearances don't even completely make sense. This, however, is a really great example of what development looks like, and I am very inspired by this ;v;. Maybe I will even make one, as I have been a long-time fan of these guys!
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Thanks a lot! Yeah I see that as well and it bothers me - and amuses me at the same time; to watch what kind of shit is produced on DA...Not that my art is so good; but I tried at least to think about every single detail and I have used a lot of knowledge from my biology studies into my species; to kinda make sense in the light of evolution. Anyway nice to hear that you already are a long-time fan 
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It will most likely just be sketches. I have a part-time job and have been using the rest of my time doing comms and website mastering to earn extra money to save up for school and fix my car. Hopefully I can get something done, soon!
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Sketches are nice too! I'm curious! Yeah I understand that work is taking a lot of time. I'm looking for a job right know and writing a lot of applications - and meanwhile I take commissions, but that's not so often >>
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Now THIS is how a fantasy species is supposed to be described. Fantastic work, good job!
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Thanks! I hope it's useful and interesting
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wow, cool ref sheet
the Cool semi albino color is beautiful
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Will comment properly on this soon, but just for now, it's AMAZING! 
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I have thought about that! I think I will
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so beautiful and realistic and detailed.
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GoOOd! You are already very good in drawing my deries! I'm sure you will be interested in javs as well
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oh yes of couse I am VERY interested!
you know...as a test (along with drawings of Demi and Devin in the near future* I'd like to draw Vivian as a Javin, when I see her as a 'metafeild cat' her small body just screams JAVIN. But then I was wondering about the details of cross-beeding because there is no doubt that Allister would posess more the look of his father a more distinct Russian Siderian look *I can see him with that nice heavy chin and he would have spiky hair that sits forward on his head and of course be almost all black...but maybe with hints of brown IDK...* Their designs would be 'just for fun' though, not serious characters hahaha.
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Ye plan to make more drawings of Demi and Devin?? Oh I will submit more sketches of Demi and their parents to my stash. Anyway are you intending to create more bastards?? Bastards are going go have a very hard life, because they are not accepted in neither the siderian's nor the javine's. That's why Demi and Devin struggled so hard - especially when it became more and more clear that they were halfbloods kinda. It was really a bold and irresponsible action of their parents to mate...and now I don't only blame Nhera, but also mr.Jav (he's actually golden blotched (like yer drawing) - so I everytime tend to call him mr.Gold) for running away with the kittens. Anyway if you want Alliser to have a russian look it can be possible that Vivian is a javine, but then I'm wondering where there parents would have met and who so bold to mate the other species... Or maybe Vivian is more like Rubi? I light and fine build siderian, but still with having some typical siderian traits (like the relatively strong limbs and feet?). Anyway as it comes to cross-breeding - it is really something unaccepted...But maybe that makes the story of Vivian and Alliser interesting? Or maybe Vivian is a bastard which explains why she is a bit sickly? Because I don't think that all cross-breeds are that healthy - can be, but not always. Especially when arctians and canovines are involved. Only siderian x javine can result in healthy, fertile offspring. All other combinations can result in infertile or in some cases even dysfunctional offspring. Anyway I hope this helped you further 
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yes of course I want to draw them!
and ah I can see how such a reckless decision can leave us angry at both parents *sigh*
Yeah you are right making Vivian a 'bastard' kitten may work better. She is very small and petite in my head (both as a human and a Siderian/Jav/whatever)
hehe really you would? Well thank you! (from all of us) I was very pleasantly surprised when you started asking me about him and I'm trying my best to not explode into character ranting because I know you are busy lol. It was so funny when you asked about him Allister gave me a 0.0 look in my head lol! I never see him looking so surprised! *he usually has a dark emotionless look* I have been working on some practice sketches of him as a Siderian hopefully I can finish one soon.
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i just love the slender looking bodies 
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