IT’S SPECTEMBER AGAIN!
Unfortunately college is starting again this September so I won’t be able to post a lot until we get a vacation. But still I’ll be leaving a fun little thing for the occasion:
Tag your entries under “#hamster’s paradise DTIYS”. I’ll reblog the top ones at the end of the month. You can change up the poses and angles as long as you keep the climactic one-on-one clash in the thunderstorm.
Have fun and enjoy!
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#speculative evolution #speculative biology #spec evo #speculative zoology #hamster's paradise #the calliducyon saga #hamster's paradise DTIYS #spectember #spectember 2023
for @tribbetherium's DTIYS contest ! i have no idea how to draw wounds in fur
@squidlife-crisis Oh this is absolutely wonderful! Love how you did the hard shading and the light contrast, it reminds me of Primal’s art style. :D Very intense and way more dramatic than how I drew it. ❤
As for the teeth: it helps to recall that as derived as all the species on the planet are, most still retain vestiges of their ancestral rodent dentition. (My art is very inconsistent at drawing the teeth too so I guess the ref is for me as well lol.)
In the case of the calliducyons they retain the merged upper incisor of their sabertooth-like ancestors the daggarats, with their lower incisors acting as whetstones to grind against the upper fang and keep it sharp. Their incisors still do grow constantly, which among the carnivores is usually alleviated by chewing on bones or other hard parts of prey.
Also I picture that over time the calliducyons, unlike other, non-sophont zingos, would develop pronounced dental gaps that allow them to carry objects in their mouth more easily as they use their jaws and teeth for manipulating objects too. There’s also the issue of the northhounds being omnivorous as opposed to the southhounds being carnivores, and that surely has an effect on the structure of their teeth which I might try to work on later.
TheTiger773 also made an entry on Deviantart!
Something about the shading and proportions reminds me of a classic Japanese tapestry art for some reason. Loving how the two entries I got have wildly different aesthetics!
(again, I don’t have a DA so someone give them a shoutout and please like, favorite and comment on their post!)
My entry into @tribbetherium 's draw this in your style challenge. Had a blast working on it. Shame my camera doesnt do it justice.
oooh a colored pencil sketch! love the “fuzzy” texture and the shading. also the really nice angles for the faces.
really appreciating how much you guys are enjoying this :)
Hamster’s Paradise has recieved such a great amount of reception so I’m officially remastering it!
The original thread and sketches from 2017 can be seen here.
Below are the chapters completed so far:
(More to come…)
‘The two endlings could only run and hide for so long before the demons, the creatures of fire and ruin, finally caught up with them to seal their doom. But the mismatched sisters-in-arms would not go gentle into the dark eternal night: they would fight with all they had, fueled onward by rage and vengeance with nothing left to lose, and resist defiantly until the bitter end– and take many dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of their tormentors down with them in one final stand.’
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Welp it’s Spectember again and I’d totally forgot, so have a special bonus art for the conclusion of this in the meantime while I start work on the Middle Temperocene.
‘Driven off the more productive and hospitable lands by the other southhounds, primarily due to behaviorally-unacceptable ancestors being exiled from their communities and finding other outcast members, the Outlanders are forced to make do with harsher territories where only the toughest can survive. Over time, through strict hierarchy and aggressive dominance through necessity, the Outlanders found a way to flourish despite all odds: and long to reclaim the welcoming lands denied to them by the other groups.
One such environment that the Outlanders inhabit are the regions surrounding a volcanic chain in the center of South Ecatoria’s mountain range. These highly unpredictable active volcanoes make life in these areas dangerous, as they from time to time spew large, deadly clouds of ash and smoke that can be lethal to any creature caught in its vicinity. Yet the Outlanders, in all their resourcefulness, frequent such regions once the dust has settled: for in the aftermath, the volcanic ash encourages the growth of abundant plant life nourished by the minerals, which in turn draw in plenty of herbivores for the Outlanders to hunt. Thus, in its destructive power, the Outlanders nonetheless find a reverence to the fiery peaks, for they too grant life as well as death. And it is in this reverence that their fearsome ideology arose: to burn down the enemies that oppose them, and build anew from the ashes left behind.
The increase of volcanic activity, both terrestrial and submarine, are in part due to increased tectonic movements in the Middle Temperocene that will only continue on throughout millions upon millions of years in the future. While now, for the moment, imperceptible to the growth of civilization, the landmasses of the Middle Temperocene proceed onto a slow march across the sea: perhaps heralding a collision course that will bring species together or drive them apart in the course of eons to come.’
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While the daggarats, specialized zingos descended from saber-toothed Glaciocene hunters, now dominate most of the predatory niches of South Ecatoria, a few other species from other, more distant branches of the family tree still thrive on the continent. As the daggarats occupied large-predator niches, the other zingos ended up becoming smaller opportunists: being scavengers, insectivores, small-game hunters and generalist omnivores.
One of the more notable of these species is the mountain barredbandit (Bandacyon acervus) a small, nimble member of the zingo family commonly seen in the scrublands and foothils of the central region of the continent, where climates become fairly temperate. Forming loose family groups, the barredbandit is an avid hunter of small, generalist rodents like furbils and diskmice, as well as gregarious burrowing squizzels and nesting ratbats as well. To hide their kills from other predators, they cache their food in small hidden largers to eat later, and frequently engage in surplus killing when plenty of prey is available, in order to acquire plenty of food that can be left within easy access of other members of the group who may have had less success hunting. While their family bonds are loose, they have a sense of community, sharing their excess food in hopes that they too will be left with some leftovers when it happens to be their turn to have slim pickings.
This habit of hunting and killing in excess, frequently carrying entire litters of freshly-killed young furbils or duskmice in its mouth all at once after raiding a nest, has gotten it a very divisive reputation between the northhounds and the southhounds, whose territory it both overlaps as well as the mountainous regions that divided both sophonts. To the northhounds, crafty and resourceful beings who primarily prey on small game, the barredbandit is known as the “wise food-keeper”, and is admired and revered in folktales for its habits of sharing and planning ahead for tight times. But to the southhounds, who hunt large prey and have cultural norms to only kill what they need, the barredbandit is despised for its “wastefulness” and “cruelty”, and is spoken off in folklore in a more antagonistic light as a thief and a bully of bad character.
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Some design process stuff to make up for the hiatus and lack of Spectember content! A few more-detailed facial close-ups of several zingos and lemunkies, two clades from Hamster’s Paradise that got quite a lot of comments of them just being “just primates” and “just canines”. So I’ve been playing around with how to make it more evident that these are in fact very derived rodents: so how would they be designed to mix together features of canines and primates with more traditional rodents for a face that seems somewhat familiar, but not quite?
Naturally the split upper lip of the ancestral hamster is present, and most obviously the dentition lacking canines and lateral incisors, while more-subtle details like the ears and noses somewhat help in highlighting their rodent ancestry.
Pictured here are a couple of basal zingos with one being more jackal-like and the other being a smaller, fox-like species, while keeping some rat-like features to avoid them looking too canine (while still functionally being suited for canid-convergent hunting behaviors), as well as a marewolf, a large macropredator (think amphicyonids and borophagines) of the Glaciocene and largest of the zingos that was inspired by several “carnivorous horse” prompts on the Spec Evo subreddit and was a bit of a challenge trying to merge canine, equine and rodent features into a cohesive and natural whole.
Also depicted is the lemunky known as the chimpmunk, another challenge to make something look primate-ish but not too simian, with forward-facing eyes for an arboreal lifestyle and a rather flatter face from a bigger cranium and jaws suiting a frugivorous diet, but keeping rodent characteristics, like the split upper lip, gnawing incisors, higher-set ears and more rodent-like nose, as well as whiskers that are retained perhaps for tactile social interaction. Also pictured is a descendant of the chimpmunk from after the Glaciocene, a large herbivore converging with orangutans, gorillas and Gigantopithecus that again was an exercise in uncanny-valley straddling.
Sorry for the really long hiatus on Hamster’s Paradise! I know it’s Spectember but there’s just been a lot going on, both Tumblr and Reddit are being unreliable and I’m still working on the harmster saga, the Late Glaciocene, and the next geological epoch, the Temperocene.
In the meantime: have this depiction of harmster cave art, portraying large predators such as daggarats and ripperroos seen in their eyes and depicted in their art as outright demons, etched in black coal with twisted, monstrous shapes and piercing eyes and slavering tongues– drawn in animal blood that seem to make the paintings drool and weep blood and perfectly reflecting how the harmsters saw their rival carnivores: first with fear, and then with defiance.
And then, a desire to conquer the things that once hunted them…
