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scythemantis — Mantis arm drawing guide
Published: 2012-01-04 01:36:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 8257; Favourites: 141; Downloads: 168
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Description
A quick little guide I just drew for fun - I'm not really anal about this, it's normal to simplify animal anatomy in cartoons and caricatures. If your intent is to portray a mantis accurately, however, it's important to remember it has "hands!" The vast majority of mantids in art, realistic and otherwise, simply end the foreleg with the tibia, like an organic scythe, which is cool, but it's not quite what they have.A mantis usually stands, walks and climbs with all six of its tarsi, holding its forelegs off the ground only in hunting mode!
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Comments: 31
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lot people miss the tarsus because it folds up agents the tibia when eating to keep them from getting in the way on attacked this what most people watching when watching the mantis.
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I love mantises but never thought about it. Glad I found this in a random search for something else, simple but effective information
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i've known this, but i'll favorite it to help get the word out, because that is something i notice people don't realize.
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The "standing, walking and climbing with all of six of its tarsi" really surprised me the second time I ever saw a mantis. Particularly walking. It was very weird to look at. Alien, almost.
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Yeah, they still look like "upper arms" so it's almost like an ape walking on its knuckles
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This is good reference. I should save this for later!
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i used to have a pet mantis, her name was claire. she survived out of all 1000 eggs and whas the most lovable insect i could ever imagine. god bless her soul
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I've actually learned something. There's actually a giant mantis in one of my comics. Thanks.
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I always wondered how that bit joined on... I tried to find a good picture of it, but given that it's often the same colour as the rest of the limb, I never could picture where it attatched.
Now my life is complete.
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Thanx!
Good to know!
Just drew a creature with mantis like forelimbs and for some strange reason, without knowing, I added a spikes-like thingy right where the tarsus should be...
Weird or what?!?
Wooo!
Morphogenetic fields!
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This is good to know. I planned to make a mantis-based monster anyway, and actually having the hands and scythes will probably make it seem a lot more interesting.
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*quickly googles a mantis photo* My god, I never noticed! [link]
Haha, learn something new every day.
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in high school i did a sketch called mantis boy about a bag check guy at a super market who get mantis arms and tries to live a normal life . made my amigo look up how to properly make mantis arms . lol thought I'd share
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Wow, seriously? I never noticed that part on a mantis before.
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I just realised that they have that last joint of that limb, when I watched an dokumentary about mantids ^^
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Thanks, I didn't even know that.
I could probably use a few more of those.
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I'm anal about it! I'm not...but I do like mantid monsters that have spiky, crushy claws instead of razory scythe claws. Like Scizor vs. Scyther u_u
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I always enjoyed the similarities between a mantid's arms and a Venus Fly Trap.
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I can't recall ever seeing a mantid walking with all 6 limbs, but I can't say I see them in nature programs unless they're hunting and eating things.. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, my friend.
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When I was in 8th grade, I had a science teacher actually correct me on this while he watched me draw a mantis alien. Not the Kenner one, mind, just an alien that was mantislike.
When trying to make it analogous to humanoid structure, though, it's usually easier to just bump the joints back one and make the femur/tibia joint the 'wrist' because the trochanter looks more like an elbow in humanoid arm layout (which is instantly confusing considering these are still legs on a mantis, just 'front legs' so it uses leg terminology instead of arm terminology; by that argument, anyone making a mantis anthro with front legs coming out of the shoulders would already be horrifically wrong). When I try to draw more 'realistic' mantids (including that one inexplicably growing out of the neck of an angel, not realistic but arguably not a straight up anthro, either), sure I include the tarsi. I kept some mantids as pets, it's so much easier to draw the distinction when you watch them move in person (for hours).
But when making anthros, sometimes it's just easier to take artistic liberties if you're trying to give them actual hands with fingers somewhere on that arm. I know I've committed some severe travesties of arthropod anatomy in making anthros because I'm a terrible artist and value "it looks cool" over anatomical accuracy.
tl;dr, I actually really like this, since it's such an elegantly simple tutorial on something a lot of people overlook. In actual application, though, artistic liberties can sometimes trump this for the sake of the rule of cool, but you already covered that in the description.
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I always thought of it as if insects have two elbows XD....or I think of the coxa like a "shoulder blade" since in some insects it's barely more elongate than one.
Shoehorning things into human terms is fun, even if it makes some biologists twitch
I figure it's okay to forget the tarsi in the same way artists might not draw certain human body parts anyway, like ears, noses or pinky fingers.
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This helps me a bunch, I never knew!
Thanks, man <3
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Thank you! No one ever seems to remember the tarsus.
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A connective piece called the trochanter, the name didn't fit well into the drawing
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Reminds me of my pet mantis Isis I had in middle school. I lent her to my science class and when someone else brought in a scorpion they stuck it in with her. :/ When I discovered that I took her home immediately but it was too late, she was missing one of her little feet from a forelimb. So her leg DID end in the hook. She would try to climb and look all pathetic, swiping at stuff uselessly with that leg.
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