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The Shrubbery

@shrubsparrow / shrubsparrow.tumblr.com

Nature, cartoons, Pokemon, Undertale and even art sometimes. Header by @tatsupyon ❤
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Howdy there, i really like your bird drawing tutorial, but i wanna know if this would work for flightless birds like ostrichs or other extinct flightless birds, if not could you send some tips on how to draw them?

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Hi! I was thinking about mentioning flightless birds in the tutorial, but I decided I didn't want to open that can of worms, since there was already so much to talk about. But in short, some things in the tutorial still apply to flightless birds, others less so.

Especially the parts about feathers don't apply as well to flightless birds, because the general anatomy of the wing has evolved to maximize flight efficiency. In flightless birds, the general bone structure and the shape of the featherless wing is still similar, but since the wings aren't used for flying, the feathers can be completely different.

Ostriches use their wing feathers for social and sexual displays instead, so their wing feathers are big, poofy and less "orderly". In other flightless birds like emus and kiwis, the wing is very tiny and the feathers on the wings are very similar to their general body feathers, so they are basically invisible.

Penguin wings have evolved for swimming, so they are more robust. In general, flightless birds have heavier bones, since they don't need to reduce their weight in order to fly.

Flightless birds also don't have much of a tail, since the tail is the most useful for balancing flying.

While the leg anatomy is the same for flightless birds, the feet have usually lost a few toes, since there is no need to grab branches. Ostriches have only two toes.

That's just some general things that came to mind! I don't know of a good tutorial going into more detail than this, but if anyone has recommendations, feel free to share them!

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Hey! I saw your tutorial on birds and first off I wanna say... love it! Very useful

Second, I wanted to ask about bird legs because I have no clue what to search up....

For this, I'm talking more about the big birds with the bigger legs, like... secretary birds, cranes, herons...

I struggle with one main aspect with drawing the bird legs

And its the texture of the legs. I don't know what its called, or what to look up to figure it out on my own... is it like, scutes? Is that what birds have? Or is it scales? Any tips on how to interpret the pattern of the scales/scutes to depict them into art? Any tips on how the scale/scute covered flesh wrinkles and folds on itself?

You don't have to answer any of these but it would be really really appreciated... I struggle SO much with this 🥲

Even a point in the right direction on what to look up would be really useful... thank you, and i hope you have a nice day!

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Hi! Sorry, I think I missed this question earlier, I only now saw it in my inbox. I'm glad you liked the tutorial! I honestly hadn't looked too deeply into the small details in bird feet before, so I'm not an expert, but I did some digging just now and maybe it will help you in the right direction.

It seems that scute is the correct term to use for the "scales" in bird feet (English isn't my first language so I didn't know about it either). The function very similarly to scales!

It seems like generally, bird feet have a row of large scutes on top of each toe. From below, the toes have these soft "foot pads" instead. In those areas, the skin may form tiny scutes, but those are usually hard to see so I wouldn't necessarily draw them in detail.

I also found this video which, starting from around 15 minute mark, goes over a lot of fine detail about bird feet from different angles, with some info about the scutes as well. Most of it definitely wasn't covered in my tutorial, so I recommend checking it out!

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It took over two months... But it's ready. A special animated update to send Team Rowanberry off! I hope you enjoy!

(I feel like you should be legally allowed to use this song after you finish a PMD comic)

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How it started in 2011, and how it ended in 2023.

Team Rowanberry has finally come to an end. Well, almost! There will be a couple of special updates later as a final sendoff, but the story is pretty much concluded at this point! Just in time before the comic turned 12 years old, which happened yesterday. Thank you so much for all these years!

I haven’t been posting the comic updates here for a while, so if you want to start from a specific place, just go to the archive in the website and select a page!

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Hello!! It has been a long time since I posted here, but the comic has officially entered finale territory! I took a hiatus last autumn to sketch out most of the remaining pages of the story, so there shouldn’t be too many delays with the updates from now on. I just started uploading pages again this week! Please check out the website to keep up with the updates, which go up every Thursday and Sunday.

Here’s a little teaser of what’s to come! 

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Felt like drawing some Kyoru. I chose almond blossoms for the background, for among other things, they symbolise enduring love. The almond is also believed to represent great grace hidden behind unappealing exterior.

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Random "Shrub rambles about fandom stuff" time because this new Deltarune content is!! Wild!! Specifically, Noelle's blog post about Susie. It recontextualizes a lot of early Deltarune and the relationship between Noelle, Kris and Susie.

So Noelle and Kris have been 'friends' since childhood, mostly because they're neighbours. While Susie is new in their school, which is already interesting! Susie has already caught Noelle's attention, and it seems like she's attracted to her, but I don't think it's a full-on crush yet. Noelle likes scary things after all, and Susie is very scary, so she gets Noelle's attention easily.

Noelle recognizes Susie as a huge bully towards Kris, and it doesn't seem like she is trying to find reasons why 'Susie might not be that bad actually '. Noelle's feelings are probably very mixed on her, so she tries to protect Kris from bullying by trying to draw Susie's attention to herself. That's a win-win, right? I have a feeling something might have happened later that gave Noelle a more positive impression on Susie, turning her interest into a full crush.

I hadn't really considered that the interaction between Kris and Susie at the beginning of Chapter 1 would have been an ongoing dynamic for some time. Susie tries to act violent and threatens Kris, but Kris doesn't respond in any way. And like Susie said, quiet people piss her off, so Kris acting this way just makes Susie more mad. Maybe Kris really isn't afraid of Susie and knows it's all an act, so her awkward attempt to intimidate them just makes them laugh.

This part is SUPER intriguing to me. Susie is being absolutely horrible, trying to hit Kris in the weakest possible spot she could imagine. Even Noelle feels horrible. Susie has always brought Toriel's and Kris's relationship when she bullies Kris, like making fun of Kris holding hands with Toriel all the time. I think this is sore spot for Susie herself. We still haven't fully seen Susie's relationship with her parents, but I can almost guarantee that it isn't good (after all, she completely ignores calling them to let them know she's staying over at Kris's place). So to get love and attention from her mom like Kris does from Toriel could be what Susie desperately wants, deep down.

Still, Susie telling an adopted child that their mother will get tired of them and be glad if they were to disappear is, like, the worst thing she could say. Susie has grown so much over the course of the first two Deltarune chapters already, but if stuff like this had been going on before the game, I hope Susie will bring it up some point and try to own up to it.

Kris continues to be a mystery, and I'm so so so curious about what they said to Susie. Kris might know something about Susie that makes them feel like they have the upper hand on her, and that's why they're not bothering to respond to her bullying. Clearly, just a couple words from them sent Susie running from the situation.

Noelle has an awkward meeting with Kris afterwards, which is pretty funny. Noelle tries to act like all that wasn't really a big deal, but it must have affected her too. She continues to try to think of ways to get Susie's attention, and justify it by getting attention away from Kris. Noelle, you sweet mess. I'm glad it's already established here that Susie likes the smell of the apple shampoo that she later drinks in Chapter 2. Truly a great character arc for the shampo.

Seriously though, this makes me very eager to learn more about Kris, Susie and Noelle before the start of Deltarune. Susie has mentioned that she never bullied Noelle because Noelle gave her a pencil and was nice to her when she came to the school. But I feel like there's more to these three that we've yet to learn.

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Heyyyyy! Remember that old comic I made of Chara (from Undertale)? After the second chapter of Deltarune came out, I got an inspiration to write a script for a video where I thoroughly analyse the character, and explain some of the decisions I made in that comic in more detail. I also wanted to have a neutral guide of the character and how the info from the games can be interpreted in different ways.

I failed to finish the video back then, but this summer I put aside enough time to complete it. Please give it a watch, if you're interested!

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