Making a Fantasy Creature

Creating a fantasy creature is trickier than you might think. Combining two or more things to create something that would work is a tough thing.

My first idea for a creature to mix was, as always, A SEAGULL!
The beautiful majesty of the common Laridae was to be mixed with something. To start, it was going to be a lizard, but then, this big 'ol mellon came up with something. Why not take something we see everyday and make it GOOD?

I devised a plan to make... The Homolaridae.

The MANGULL!

I took a stylised female form (a kind of Shōnen manga body shape) and a drawing of a Gull (It was a Herring Gull)

By researching a bird's anatomy from x-rays, I devised a way of creating a creature that could be plausible... In a fucked up kind of way...

An issue arose, how could wings be attached to a human? They are attached via a kind of shoulder on a bird... So, how about if the shoulder structure of a human skeleton had a version further back, making for two shoulder joints, one for the arm, one for the wing! It's mad, but it may just work! I made sure the muscles around the shoulders would not impede the new bones. It would work! I replaced the human skull with a Seagull skull, having the neck join the skull much in the same way it joins to a human one, meaning the skull had to extend on the back (see top image).

The lower leg is the bone structure of a bird (which is much like ours, until the foot) making the feet that of a bird. The skin reaches down to just above the shin.

The body is feathered from above the breast to the thigh, hiding everyone's shame, allowing their grandmothers to see the image and not blush.