So. Y'all know how the Animorphs books are now free online? I've been reading them, along with so many of my friends

And losing sleep and generally getting fucked up in the head... Tobias gave so many of us our first inkling of how dysphoria works, but also the whole child soldier thing






Anyway! The alien designs, to me, felt fatally generalized. If I can't tell a juvenile apart from an adult, or he looks more like a random adversary than his own brother, we needed more. And... it always felt too close to human for me.

If they don't have mouths, why are their faces shaped like they have jaws? If they're so nimble and cervine, why do we draw them with big clunky horse legs? Their tails alone are a nightmare. And the eyes. Are they just stapled on?

Either way. I redid it to sort of fit the physique of the stories better, and maybe look a little less like a human centaur idea. That involved longer necks, a more cervine frame, eye stalks that grew out and back from their cheeks, for a more interesting silhouette, redesigns of the hands and tails, some visual cues to distinguish a lanky aristh fawn from mature, muscular warriors, a rethink of their chest and waist and shoulders to make them not look human... hell. Even the colors.

Elfangor's green stomach was a computer bug. I didn't draw that. X3 but I'll imagine he rolled in algae. Or maybe that's blood from his wounds.

And the tengwar is there because... come on. The Lord of the Rings references are unignorable. Applegate even admitted the word "yeerk" comes from the Quenya for an Orc, "yrch." So I say have fun with that!