Yeah, to me the original pics of the Garudans feet looked like they had 3 small hooves for each foot.

Really love your updated designs to these creatures! It's about time somebody came along and put some real quality control on them. ^^

I'm also really curious; In the Robotech Expeditionary Force Marines sourcebook, it says they have fur on 'parts' of their bodies, and in previous incarnations (particularly the comics) it looks like they had fur all over except for their arms and parts of their legs. Is that the case here, since it looks like she would not have any fur under the clothes she wears around the upper arms and waist, or is that really tight clothing? I was wondering if you could verify that. :3

I drew that as tight clothing. Really, to original, inorganic-looking "feet" and whatever was going on at the knees really didn't work that way, especially when the arms & hands didn't match what was going on below the waist. I have *no* idea what that was all about.

I think they were supposed to look half-furry, half-bird?

If you google "Garudan" you get a bunch of images of statues of men with bird wings.

Ah, thanks a bunch ^^

As for the half-furry, half bird thing, I'm not so sure. They seemed pretty fixated on them being a cross between a fox/cat/human species from the get-go. Perhaps they merely borrowed the name or had no idea it existed prior to their project. At times it looked like they had some type of long black gloves over their paws and arms, but that is also contradicted by those strange claw-like protrusions they had coming from their wrists (females had theirs pointed down like, but males had theirs pointed up..so I guess they could be used as claws, but then not?). I don't know what they were thinking back then. It seemed that every new artist that got a hold of these creatures was simply grasping for straws whenever they tried to interpret them. Must've been why there wasn't very many stories on Garudans. XD

I think the wrist things were tufts of fur.

If you take a long hard look at anything Palladium Books has been involved in, they crab this and that from any/everywhere, and then don't seem to care what goes on when/where/how..

This being said, the original art for Sentinels had, as far as I can recall, been in design before Palladium got hold of the designs, and I'm not sure Macek et. al. knew entirely what they were going for. The books written by McKinney also didn't go into a lot of detail on the Garudans. My thoughts on this (having been there to watch it all come about in the 1980s) is that Macek and his team were trying to fit in their own, at the time not entirely properly formed, ideas into the format and style of the original component anime and their own alterations to it to fit their mythos. Thus, you end up with American artists, at the time not yet familiar with anime as later individuals would be, trying to shoehorn in their own stuff into it.

I've noticed Palladium's practices with this sort of thing with the old releases of the Robotech Sourcebooks as well as the new as they contain numerous continuity and tech specification errors, as well as falty info on weapon capacity. But it's also not entirely their fault. These books also have to go through harmony Gold for approval, and of course, they send them through without a second that. Either missing or not caring about the problems they contain just to push a long-delayed product onto the shelves. Plus, I'm starting to get the feeling Harmony Gold and crew have no idea what's really going on in the Robotech universe at this point as they constantly rework story elements and screw up the canon seemingly without any real knowledge of doing so (Love Live Alive somehow managed to out-retcon Shadow Chronicles' retcon of the New Generation ending while unbelievably trying to act like it's story is still in sync with Shadow Chronicles).

However, this doesn't necessarily fit with Palladium as production of the Sentinels began in 1985, while the RPG sourcebook of The Sentinels (made in 1987) was more of a collection of ideas on what 'could've been' after the project was cancelled (Palladium Books also added this to their distribution of the three finished Sentinels episodes in movie-form on VHS, made available only through them at the time). Its also hard to say if Carl Macek and his team really discovered what they were looking for in the pre-production phase of the The Sentinels series, as I have come to learn. At the time, Harmony Gold was partnering itself with Tatsunoko Productions (owners/producers of Southern Cross and Mospeada) to help form a Japanese anime style with the designs and animation, while story, scripts, and music were all done in the states. According to the contents in Robotech Art 3, Macek and other staff would fly to Japan to have meetings and art sessions with the Japanese staff and artists hired by Tatsunoko to work on the project, in which Macek and crew would pitch story and character elements for the Japanese team to form a concise plan on where the art direction would go. According to Macek, the pre-production phase with the Japanese was pure hell on wheels as there were many disagreements/misunderstandings where the story and character elements fell into play as well as constant reworkings of material had to be made overtime due to some of the Japanese staff wanting to do story elements and design their own way (Macek said the Japanese sent out at hundreds of character sheets and turnarounds week by week, just to work on something agreeable). It also didn't help matters that none of the staff spoke the same language and had to have interpreters to work things back and forth, as well as sending faxes and sheets overseas, translated and re-translated, in order to correct conceptual disagreements and problems that couldn't be settled in person. And the rest is history.

Whatever was discussed in those meetings on alien designs and character concepts, nobody really knows, except Macek and the Japanese staff members that were present at the time. Anyone else involved hasn't stepped forward about anything else. And considering The Sentinels didn't last long enough for the aliens to be introduced, all that exists are the notes and conceptual prototypes that were never fully finalized in production. Frankly nobody seemed to have an idea on what to make of this stuff. This is further evidenced with Chris Ulm and Tom Mason, as they claim to have received mountains of the storyboards, character sketches and production designs needed to make the Sentinels comics, but they couldn't figure out what they were looking at because they were all in Japanese and could never get an accurate translation on any of the material.

So yeah, I guess it was all up to anyone else's interpretation at that point and time and continues to be the case today.

Well-researched, my friend, VERY well-researched! I'm impressed. It's been decades since I last looked at Robotech Art 3, so aye. My copy, if it has survived, is somewhere in deep storage right about now. Note: I'm also hesitant to speak overly much about Palladium Books on some matters, but you've hit things pretty much on the head.

I'd try to bring more to the table, and for that I must apologize for my failure, but I just woke up and my head isn't yet on straight enough to give meaningful answers beyond this. Please forgive.

On a side and unrelated note, you have NO clue how pleased I am to have a good, reasoned, logical discussion on things like this. You've brightened my day and given me a smile. Thank you!

Hehe! Thank you very much. ^^ And its quite alright, you don't need to respond with anything special. It just feels really fulfilling having somebody actually read through your research and commenting on it instead of just shying away and disappearing.

And again, you're very welcome. Though, I too am grateful to finally be able to talk to reasonable people regarding skeptical and historical matters regarding Robotech. Believe it or not, I've only been a fan as of two years ago (the comics are what sealed it for me, really...also still reading them...and looking forward to the McKinney novels as well) and have been slowly collecting as much information on Robotech from it's universe to its inner workings as much as possible. In the process I've come to see how ugly things can get in these discussions as purists from both Robotech and Macross have their own different versions of how perfect one over the other is. However, on my end, I find myself more distanced with most of the Robotech fanbase as I completely disagree with just about everything Harmony Gold has done as well as Tommy and Steve Yune's re-imagining and careless retconning of past stories, and any skepticism on the company as well as story problems with Robotech aren't exactly welcomed on the more radical front. Many of these people are just dreadful. Its no wonder this fandom is dying; They're just determined to root out any form of dissent regardless of what respect they may have for Robotech, all in the name of holding onto the dream that HG will one day do the right thing and fulfill they're 20 year old dead promises of a revitalized animated project.

But any rate, I'm glad I could brighten your day! You certainly have done the same for me.

One of the reasons for some of the more acerbic and vicious opinions many fans hold against Harmony Gold is due to their stranglehold on the Macross franchise abroad. The purists who favor HG's work, honestly, I've thankfully not run into, having been more overwhelmed by the fans of Macross (which I number myself among, though by no means rabid about the matter). I see Robotech as an early entry into the field, an attempt, for its' time shockingly well done (though pale by later, more modern standards), to bring anime to the masses here in America. I disagree with them holding on to a elsewise useless "in perpetuity" clause as to distribution of the Macross franchise, mostly because they're not capitalizing upon it in any way, shape, or form.

On its' own merits, I believe Robotech can be and indeed IS a viable, stand-alone setting and story, this solely based upon the TV series and to some lesser degree the McKinney novels. I've never frequented the comics, having only seen a few here and there, but usually consider anything comic-oriented non-canonical (as, eventually, the McKinney books were also declared). At this point, I think safely one can only assume the series to be "official" and canon, and all things after to be questionable at best.

As to the matter of discussion, I'm always open for good, reasoned, sane discussion on almost any subject I feel competent to discuss (which is not as wide a field as I might like, but this notwithstanding...). ^_^

Be well, and feel free to chat any time. I rarely find someone so pleasant as yourself to do so with.

I'd love to see your style of lemurians and man this character looks great!

Lemurians as in, "Destroyermen"? As in, Denis Silva cozied up to Chak's sister? Or Lt. Blossom?

Lt,Bla mas ar sounds good or Silva and Risa would be nice but truthfully I was thinking Tabby / Tab at perhaps finally getting her way with that fella she is infatuated with. The one that gets mad when he comes in the boilerroom and the ladys are shirtless.

Of course... Tabby.
All dirty, pulling off her shirt in the hawt, sweaty boiler room...

Climbing on top of him guiding his hand to her breast, moaning no one wants to come down here we are safe.

I love this updated design or the Garudans, it look way better than the design that appeared in the original Palladium RPG and other artwork. I mean, the Waltrips and co made it look pretty good for the Sentinels comics, but I see this as an improvement on that again.