Still working on the mayvian prompts on Tumblr though I'm likely going to have to slow down on drawing completely because of life. I'm still going to try to make art whenever I can though. For now enjoy some bird vicsi snuggles.
Part 4 of my bird au is finally done and boy do I have a lot to cover here.
First up, the mercenaries.
Agent is a swan. Swans are incredibly loyal to their loved ones and are equally vicious. Regular swans are 30 pounds of pure muscle and their wings, while not quite strong enough to break bone, are very powerful still.
Hazard is a magpie. Magpies are very intelligent but also chaotic birds.
Primal is an archaeopteryx. Basically he's a dino bird. There isn't much information on these guys behaviorally but I thought it'd be cool to have cavestickmen be dinosaur birds.
Ballista isn't really a bird. He's basically a robot so he has robot wings. His hooked tail makes up for his lack of wings claws.
Secondly, the villagers.
Mitsi is a dove. Doves represent peace, love, and protection. Plus her sheep, Chiptune, who doesn't have wings but likes to wear little cutout wings.
Shepard is a golden eagle. Golden eagles are far more aggressive when hunting than other eagles, allowing them to take down prey much larger than them like wolves. Very convenient when you have a flock of sheep to protect.
Most other villagers would probably be in the columbidae family (the two gnome children are pigeons for example). Admittedly I didn't think about the entire village because they're mostly background characters. There's probably a chicken somewhere in there and Granny could be a barn swallow but other than that I leave them up to you guys.
Next up, miscellaneous.
Grey worker is a quelea. Queleas are small crafty birds that have flock sizes that can reach the billions.
Neon Yellow is a starling. Starlings are vocal birds with the ability to mimic most sounds they hear. They're also considered to be invasive pests that bring messages of change. Now this might be a bit controversial but if Navy and King are foils then why wouldn't Orchid and Neon also be foils? If Orchid was a good mom (albeit quiet and frail) could Neon have been a bad mom? Would explain why she's not in the story without having to kill another female character.
Corndog Guy is a city pigeon. City pigeons (or feral pigeons) are intelligent, opportunistic birds that live in urban environments. The real life bird can even do simple math and recognize different people.
Magenta/The Conductor is a cockatoo. Cockatoos are by far the most chaotic and hyperactive bird you can find and just based off what we've seen of Conductor I think it fits.
Eye/Node isn't a bird, they're a Hundun. Like Orange, Eye is a mythical winged creature, but unlike Orange, doesn't have the instincts of a real bird. Hunduns are many-winged, faceless entities that represent primordial chaos and cosmic disorder in Chinese mythology. We'll see how well this holds up as we learn more about them but for now I think this fits.
Finally we have miscellaneous hollow heads.
Right off the bat I'm going to acknowledge that most of them are ocs but I still wanted to show them, especially since one of them does fit directly into this au specifically (well, he can exist in other aus but he's guaranteed to exist in this one).
Freedom Guy is a bald eagle. Do I need to explain this one?
Killer and BEAST, although they don't exist as people in canon, are a seriema and jay respectively. Seriemas are agile hunters and the closest relative to "terror birds". They also prefer running to flying which I thought could be a neat nod to Killer being the only one of Alan's hollow heads to not have flight in their default power set. Jays are intelligent, adaptable corvids with the ability to mimic to a slight degree. As for Killer and BEAST themselves, they exist in any au (which for me is currently 1) where Alan decides it's a good idea to spawn more stickfigures before Chosen (who has golden eyes). Killer has the ability to summon any weapon he needs as well as laser vision, while BEAST is a shapeshifter with fire breath.
Last but not least, The Storm Bringer, or Stormy, is a white raven. White ravens symbolize transformation, healing, and mark the transition from old to new. Stormy is the aforementioned oc that is important to this au. I don't want to say too much about him just in case I do end up writing his story, but I will say he's the light at the end of the tunnel for the one person in this au who needs it the most.
So that should be it for the designs. I do still want to do stuff for this au, I've already talked about wanting to do scene redraw type art as well as the mayvian prompts, but if there's anything specific you want to see feel free to let me know.
Definitely didn't forget to post this here after posting this on Tumblr, nope.
Anyway, it's MerMay so have a mermaid.
First up we have King and Gold. Gold is a grey owl. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of information to work with to decide what he should be but figured he's decently smart and strong like his dad but admittedly those are headcanons so I understand if you disagree.
King is an interesting one. I'm seeing how well hybrids work in this world and if I should go back and change someone to also be a hybrid or if I should drop the idea altogether. As of now King's a crowned eagle/jacana mix. Jacanas are one of the best bird dads in the animal kingdom, taking care of his babies the moment the female lays the eggs and dips. They sometimes even adopt orphaned fledglings. Crowned eagles are considered the largest bird of prey, and they will fly off with anything they can fit in their claws even if it's as big as them (imagine what a human sized eagle could do). This type of eagle is also crowded so obviously I had to give King his crown. Physically he's more eagle but instinctually he's more jacana, he has a jacana sized tail and the hunting instinct of an eagle though.
Next up, Navy and Orchid. Orchid is a cardinal. Cardinals signify a visit from a deceased loved one as well as hope and comfort. While I'm at it, here's a look at how I think ghosts look in the stick world (at least to the living, other ghosts can see more detail).
Navy is a cuckoo, one of the worst bird parents, they leave their eggs in the care of other bird families so they don't have to do the hard work. Of course he couldn't do that because Orchid wouldn't let him. Remember how I briefly bought up avians having their wings docked? It's a medical procedure only used in extreme cases where a permanently grounded stick has the main part of their wings removed to at least be able to use them for their claws (even if one is still healthy it's better mentally to have them both removed). Of course this can seriously mess with the stick's instincts and in extreme cases, like Navy's, causes them to try to denounce their bird half entirely. Of course Navy insists he's perfectly fine and that his messed up instincts aren't exasperating his already existent anger issues or anything.
Last but not least, our lyrebird Purple. She's been on quite the journey through her life. Obviously the canon stuff is still canon, there's my universal headcanon that Navy insisted she was male because he wanted a son and she kept using male pronouns until the last few years. On top of all that, Navy insisted that he's been a better fighter since he docked his wings and even tried to convince Purple and Orchid to do the same. Obviously Orchid refused but still taught herself and Purple how to fold their wings and use their claws in a similar manner. Everything was relatively okay, despite Navy's anger and Orchid's sickness, until Purple's wing broke, leaving the kid grounded before he could even fly once. She finally agreed to have her wings docked because what's the point in having a dead wing dragging you down. Newgrounds happens a couple years later and she loses one of her claws from a direct fireball, Navy ran off never to be seen again, Purple was orphaned, found Minecraft and started his little kingdom, same as canon but now with a sweater to hide his wings. Green and Blue found her and didn't say anything about her lack of wings because they're always around a wingless stick (Orange) so to them it's normal. Purple got her elytra and is able to fly but it's not the same as flying with your own wings (she also kept the sweater on in the End so they didn't see her wings). Normal canon events happen for the rest of the series until season 3, where while fighting Red and Orange in the PC she finally uses her wings in combat, leaving tears in her sweater. It fully shreds off by the time Green takes her elytra and she runs off to the noteblock world, where Green gets (most of) her story. King arc concludes, King adopts Purple, Purple has friends and a support system (and a therapist). Everything is good. Then season 5 happens. Her elytra breaks and it feels like losing her wings all over again. She lashes out at Yellow for causing all of this but does apologize later. One Farlands episode later and she discovers the Aether.
There are still a few miscellaneous characters to draw, Mitsi, mercs, cdg, so let me know if there's still someone you want to see as a bird. As always suggestions are welcome and don't be afraid to correct me on something. I've already thought of new designs for the cg (nothing drastic) so I'm definitely doing scene redraw type art after I get these designs out.
So I found a prompt list on Tumblr and thought it'd be a good idea to do alongside part 3 of my au designs. I am still working on the designs but I'll also take a couple days to do some of these prompts when I feel like it. This week's prompt is disability so have some Purple with her messed up wings wishing she could fly like her friends.
Part 2 of my bird au is finally done.
This took way longer than I thought it would but here they are.
Orange, like I mentioned in the previous post, is a phoenix. He got his wings along with his powers during the showdown but didn't know he was a phoenix specifically until somewhere between season 3 and 4. He still doesn't know about his powers until The Box though. Like phoenixes, damaged feathers usually burn away but ones that fall out naturally turn goldenish (which includes his gift feathers, tiny retcon from the previous post but eh those designs weren't final anyway. The bird legs and beaks are also gone).
Dark is a vampire bat, and he's very into it. He still loves his spiders more of course. Honestly he's pretty much the same chaotic maniac in canon but now with bat antics. He can somewhat choose how bat-like he looks but not his size or whether or not he has wings.
Chosen is a raven, and unlike Dark, he doesn't really like being an avian. His wings came in perfectly fine (hc that he's always in good physical health) but it was still painful. He's since learned to tolerate his wings but still wishes he was his old self. He doesn't take care of his wings at all. Btw remember that perma-chirping thing I mentioned in the previous post?
NO ONE is a sopping wet cat of a bird whose wings were torn and clipped while he was in the box. More information once he stops drowning.
Victim is a crow. Since his wings came in after he crash landed in the Outernet they didn't get stripped of color and are a shining pristine black. At least, they were pristine until Mitsi died and Vic stopped taking care of himself. All that damage on his wings are from stress shedding, stress plucking, mating and just general lack of care. Vic has thought about docking his wings but with how small his claws are decided it's not worth it. He used to have a lot of gifted feathers from his village and other close friends but currently only keeps Mitsi's.
While Vic can't fly on his damaged wings, H4CK3R has those cool electric hologram wings. Too bad electricity is bad for his accessories.
Fun fact, one of the differences between ravens and crows is that ravens are solitary birds with a flock of about two and live away from civilization in rural areas, while crows are more social and live in more populated areas in large flocks. Also ravens are larger.
Hollow heads, being the special race of stickmen they are, have shoulder claws as well as the usual thumb claws. (I also thought about giving them a second set of thumb claws but it looked weird so I decided against it)
Like I mentioned in the previous post, any stickfigure that comes to life outside the Outernet won't become an avian until they go there. So all the hollow heads had to go through a transformation to become avians. Vic was lucky to have had Mitsi convince him to see a doctor for the pain in his back so his wings came out safely and painlessly. Dark, as I stated previously, is more fuzzy than avian, so he simply shifted into a bat overnight. Orange was too distracted by his friends being alive after the showdown to realize he has wings and didn't even know something was different until long after he collapsed on the couch in the PC. And then there's poor Chosen who didn't have any of these benefits and experienced the pain of having two somethings larger than yourself tear out of your skin and muscle. At least Dark helped patch him up but he wasn't much help with all the mental anguish.
That's about it for now. Part 3 will be Purple and her families. As always if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them.