Im working a series of characters that are hybrids of two or three different species.
Now, this is not unusual; hybrids are common in furry.
Its a fairly easy way of creating a character that is interesting and, dare I even say it, unique. There are so many species, so many combinations, so many manifestations of those combinations that you're more likely to come up with something no-one else has done by merging different species.

But in my research into hybrids, I've come across a problem that seems fairly common in furry: people don't know how to mix two species plausibly.

What I see a lot of is a mix of two species that is just the 'main' species, with a few tacked on features of the other.
For example, lets take a wolf x deer, as an example. What I see most is a normal wolf, but with a pair of antlers stuck on, maybe some deer markings.
But nothing has changed in its bone structure, its coat type, its dentition and so on.
People seem to take two species, take a chunk of features from one, a chunk of features from the other, and space them out evenly on the animal.
No NEW features are created, born from both parents, its always either one or the other.

Now, as we don't have real hybrids to look at, lets look at a species that features individuals who vary widely in bone structure and anatomy, but are often crossed: dogs.
If you take a pug and a greyhound and cross them, you don't just get a standard greyhound with pug markings and a shorter curled tail; the entire BONE structure changes. Everything about the animal becomes different. The two breeds mash together, til what you have is recognisable as neither one nor the other.
The skull doesn't become either a pugs skull OR a greyhound's skull; it becomes a mixture of both, the same as neither one of its parents, but a new shape.

And this is my issue.
A wolf x deer wouldn't have a normal wolf's skull just with antlers. It would have a skull that was neither really wolf nor deer, it'd be a unique melting of both.
It seems when people make these hybrids, they just choose the features that are most appealing from each, and stuff them together til the creature is one species with bits hacked off another and glued on.
Someone might give their wolf x deer some hooves. But always neat, perfect deer hooves, like they've been chopped right off the deer and stitched on the wolf. That, in all likelyhood, wouldn't happen. It would be more likely to be an odd mixture of hoof and paw, something more 'deformed'.

I understand people want their characters to look cute or neat or not to stretch people's minds too much, but it kinda bugs me.
With a cross of two differently shaped animals, you don't get to choose what bits come from which side; nature will just mash them together and you get what you get.
In reality, a hybrid furry would be classed as deformed. They wouldn't have neat perfect paws and normal shaped skulls; they'd be odd looking. You possibly wouldn't even be able to look at them and tell exactly what species went into their make-up, like you sometimes can't tell with a mongrel dog what its parents were.

Im creating a shark x big cat (won't say which yet) and myself fell into the trap of doing the cat template and adding shark bits on it.
But it just seemed so lazy and unlikely that you'd have this cool looking 50/50 animal with distinct features of both; you'd be more likely to get something with a deformed half shark/half cat skull shape. The very BONES wouldn't be one or the other, it would be like someone smashed them together into one, rather than being very distinctly one species or the other.
Something NEW would be created that wasn't like either of the species that went into creating it.

I know that you are allowed to take liberties with art, and it doesn't have to be realistic. But I think that if people are trying to create something really unique with a hybrid, they would be more likely to come up with something genuinely individual if they didn't just draw a bog standard cat/wolf/horse/whatever and glue bits from other species into it.
Perhaps its just that people are afraid of mutations or of 'ugly' characters. A cat with horns is much cuter than a cat/bull crossbreed with a freaky cat/bovine skull shape.

But its something I see a lot and wonder if people just don't realise that this isn't how a hybrid would work. It doesn't work like that in any other species. Cross two of anything and you get a blend of both together, not a distinct set of features from one and a distinct set of features from the other.