Who wants mudokon drone/queen headcanons because I got ‘em. a lot of this art is old but it’s mostly still applicable. This might give some insight into Marek and Atchi’s designs (and other characters in the future when I get around to redesigning Marek’s family). Buckle in this is about to get anatomical, nudity ahoy
so we got queens!! not all queens immediately develop into giant broodmothers (in keeping with canon), and there’s some variation, particularly with infertile queens not even reaching full “phase 1″ development, but your average queen looks roughly similar to a worker (aside from genitals and nipples) for the first few years of life, until that phase 1 puberty kicks in and the physical differences start to become apparent
Upon reaching maturity they then STOP and you have yourself a dormant queen who looks something like this:
Above pics are a little outdated, but you can see it clearer here in Marek’s ref; “breasts” that are more like segmented body sections (not soft or loose). A queen who doesn’t develop in the typical way (hormonal imbalance, gonadal agenesis, any other of a number of intersex conditions) might have a very different body shape due to the reproductive system not developing and not taking up as much space in the body.
NOW, when a queen’s eggs get fertilised for the first time, their body undergoes some drastic changes over the course of several months; the abdomen enlarges and elongates, and the segments on the abdomen start to develop into fully-formed breasts
They might lay a few eggs during this process, but the bulk of egg-laying happens once the metamorphosis is complete. Eventually they become too heavy to move - at which point they’ve hopefully had a comfortable, secure nest constructed - and the legs begin to atrophy (are maybe reabsorbed into the body completely? haven’t decided but it’s possible). Eventually you got yourself a fully-developed active breeding queen, as modeled here by Marek’s mom, Nadia
Tumblr is going to get my ass for all the alien titties in this post
AS FOR DRONES, when their differences from workers become apparent varies wildly between individuals. Some workers are just straight up infertile, end of story; some have to be exposed to certain triggering factors to induce their development into drones, some of which are natural (e.g. hormones/pheromones) and some of which are artificial (e.g. cultural coming-of-age rites or constructed tests); and rarely, some will just develop into drones no matter what.
When workers do develop into drones they are VERY distinctly different. They’re much bigger, and they get distinctive eyebrow ridges and feather crests:
They also tend to grow feathers on their legs and arms, but this isn’t absolute and the degree of extra feather growth varies by individual.
annnnd I think that about covers it, this is (for the most part) stuff i’ve been settled on for YEARS with only minor adjustments to incorporate canon elements