Some sort of creative freedom has to be given to those of us with beaks, otherwise we'd never be able to smile or make expressions. This is awesome though, all very cute looking.

I'm always somewhat amused by anyone who complains about how beaks shouldn't be able to smile or whatnot, considering half the expressions we draw on everything else are impossible too. Those who want realism can go look at photos. These are drawings and we can do whatever we want in 'em, I say! :P

It does start to get a bit silly on the bottom middle one, though.

It does, and that's what makes that one so fun! x3

Incidentally, as an owner of a bird, I can say that even actual hookbill beaks can smile -- sort of. :) A lot of people seem to think that it's like one single-hinged joint, and that's just not true.

But yes, if you look at any cartoon bird, I guarantee that the beak will be doing all kinds of unnatural things. Yay anthropomorphism, as you say, artistic license. ;)

Yay, now nother challenge, feathered wing are always hard to draw, :P

Feathered wings aren't too hard to draw, they're just annoying. They get in the way of everything and I hate them. x3

Oh? what do you mean get in the way of everything?

I find wings- wings in general, feathered or not- just get in the way of everything when trying to draw a character. If you draw the character from behind they block the entire view of the character, and it really limits the amount of poses you can draw because half the situations where a character is laying on their back or even just sitting don't work with wings.

Even really good artists tend to do strange things to wings just to get them out of the way I've found, and I'm not that good an artist so they just cause me lots of problems. x3 Personally I much prefer wingless characters just because of how much more you can do with them, which is why most of my birds tend to be wingless.

This.

I was requested to draw two dragons having 'a moment' together... and needless to say, the pose deemed difficult for me for the girl since her wings were covering the majority of her back @w@ I had to move the wings up and make them a bit transparent just to get the general look down xD

I always love it when I'm asked to draw two characters together- both have wings, and they want to see penetration -and- both character's faces. Like... what possible pose do you imagine this happening in? I think wings have almost universally made the pictures I draw worse because I have to futz with the poses to make everything work so much more. Blah!

God damn you did a great job with this! <3
Beaks are too expressive! You just need to work harder on the face surrounding the beak. D:

Myes, the rest of the face is also pretty important for expressions. Still, the beak certainly doesn't have to be a passive participant! :P

I can see why it'd be more difficult but yeah proof that beaks CAN be expressive.

I'll admit I had to tap into my inner cartoonist on some of these, but that's half the fun really!

oh those are very very awesome. I always love some good expressions.

burds are awesome. *nod* you need to draw more of them! :D

OH goodness, these are all super adorable!

Now I've got to practice my beaks and see if I can work on some expressions. Been trying, but not with too much success.
Love the expressions you've done, especially that blushy beak. ^v^

I find the biggest sticking point for me is simply thinking of what expressions to draw. So I look up expression sheets on google to get ideas and then make my own versions of the expressions I see, basically. :P

oh whoaa...all so awesome ^V^

I hope you don't mind me making this into a .GIF ;)
I absolutely adore this. Amazing.

A .GIF? Not at all, but I'm not sure I see what there is to be made into a .GIF here. I'm curious, could you explain?

http://i.imgur.com/YO0BYFA.gif

This is what I mean with GIF. :P

Ahh, I see. Pretty nifty!

That almost looks like some kind of conversation sequence between two birds.

You do draw the best birds, Ruaidri. Always a pleasure to see them!

Love em!

See, beaks can even sip tea! x3

Your art always makes my day better.

Most of the emotion comes from the eyes and eyebrows. Much harder to guess the expression without them. But I guess that goes for all types of faces!

I agree! I am glad you took on the challenge. People argue with me all the time about beaks being cold and non expressive which I find to be false. Body language along with beak movements can give off easy to see emotions like with any other face. ^v^

Or you can just do what I do and completely ignore reality when drawing beaks, making them do whatever you want. x3

If it works, it works. :P

Yay bird expersion. i could use these, well more try to make mine better. sorry to hear you hate wings.

The mouth shape, beak or muzzle or whatever, is pretty irrelevant to the expression, past a certain point. It's mostly the area above the mouth region that gets the emotions across.

Not true, not true at all. Leaving everything else identical you can get a pretty wide array of expressions and emotions by changing -only- the mouth. It is neither dominant nor irrelevant, but one of many important aspects in facial expressions.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The expression of the mouth matters a great deal, but the setting that that expression is housed in doesn't matter much; a smile is a smile, whether it's in a beak or a muzzle or whatever.

Ah, in that case I guess we agree then.

About the one place that beaks are really disadvantaged is teeth. It's hard to emulate the feeling of a really toothy grin with a beak unless you go the full cartoon route and actually just outright give a toothy grin to the beak. Even the slightest hint of realism in the style and it's going to make no sense, but it's a rather difficult feeling to replicate without the teeth.

Yeah, that sounds really difficult. But, well, all of your birds are submissives and aren't likely to be making that expression. So you're in the clear, I think.

Beakboops!

I'd say you rose and met the challenge :D Awesome work Ruaidri

Those are indeed very expressive! I think a good artist can make any mouth style as expressive as they need it. These faces have a bit of a classic Disney style to them . Really hope you do more!

I like them! :>

The beak is as expressive as the artist wants it to be! :) And you did a fantastic job proving that!

Very nicely done.

And Yay for Birds!

These are awesome! Hooray for expressive beakers. ^^

I hope you don't mind if I join in on the fun! I commissioned Sefeiren a while back for some expression shots with my Lyrebird, Lizanne. The results were quite nice, and can be found here.

So much better than mine. So very much better. x3 Gives me something nice to study though!

Sef is an amazing talent with expressions, that's for darn sure. ^^

You're very awesome, yourself! I would love to commission you for some work with Lizanne should you ever be available.

I do -really- like the character. If you can ever find a spot I'd be happy to have you grab it if it means I get to draw her. :P

How wonderful! I'll do my very best to keep my eyes open. Should you ever be willing to take her on, I would be more than happy to work with you. ^^

I'm so pleased that you like Lizanne! These are currently my favorite examples of her, in case you'd like to see.

That second picture is actually partially the inspiration for this picture (not work safe, but nothing too nasty), actually. I was wanting to work on indoor scenes a bit already, and seeing that picture gave me a sense of how to fit a couch on a page without it looking weird. Obviously I did things quite a bit different and not nearly as well, but it planted the seeds of thought that eventually turned into their own idea. :P

Aww, that's so wonderful! I'm sure Bombird would love to know that his work inspired you to work on your craft, and I'm terribly pleased that Lizanne could be involved. Your piece came out great, and there's a special place in my heart for subject matter like that. ^^

Delightful expression work! :D

Beaks are plenty expressive. The people who say they aren't just let reality push into what's essentially fantasy. Love the expression work.

I have a hard time with beaks. I'm the sort of person that likes anatomy to be as realistic as possible, which means beaks are rock hard and incapable of emotional expression. Then again, this drawing is awesome and I want to believe!

I'm one of those people that feels like I already spend most of my life around reality, so in my fantasy I get about as far away from it as I can stand. x3 I actually find myself being drawn to more heavily cartoonish styles lately and really enjoying them. As long as things don't get -too- crazy, I can suspend my disbelief for quite a ways.

I do that by having my vegetable garden eat me out.

Hah, that's also a fun way to do it. I've taken advantage of plants a few times m'self over the years!

One of these days I'll get some nice, tasteful nudes and some nice, rauchy plant sex commissions done by you. Soon.

I look forward to it. :P

WOW.. Love 'Em !!

Lol, bottom right- Did I leave the oven on?

These sketches are a lot of fun!

If I knew you were going to draw burds, I would have volunteered my character for it

I am super-impressed with how you can capture such a wide range of emotion with the beak. Truly fantastic!

Very nice! I really like your style, and I just love references for facial expressions like this. Especially with something like a beak. And as you point out in one of the comments, most facial expressions we draw on furries make no sense at all on those species if they're even possible with their anatomy.
You don't have to go further than monkeys and apes for our facial expressions to make no sense, e.g. grinning chimpanzees (who are actually showing their teeth in aggression).

Cutie maximus.

I actually thought the bottom middle looked like me then! (Its the crest!)

Lovely expressions! Burds are epic!

Aww, so cute! Well done.