How would you recommend drawing differences between saber tooth cat types (Sorry if that doesn't male sense I didn't know how to word it)
So I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but I did make a whole species sheet here:
I wanted to make one of these for fun mostly, also because I wanted to slightly update how I draw the Fleets to fit the Homotherium mummy; m
The point of this is to illustrate the differences, both based on skeletal anatomy, and ones I added in soft tissue for fun!
Uh oh lads, Pav's rambling again!
As far as depicting extinct species in a way that makes them distinct; I find restricting certain traits to only one species or the other helps.
e.g: Ice Fangs will never have ear-tufts and Fleet Fangs always have them, Ice Fangs will always have exposed sabers and Fleet Fangs always have lip-pockets covering theirs (they have to be actively grimacing to show the whole fang).
Also look at the varied soft tissue of real life animals.
Fleet Fangs have lynx like ear tufts because they share a similar environment and are both long-limbed ice-cats. They also have a paler under-tail like deer, which I imagine is used for social signalling (Homotherium is hypothesised to be social irl too!)
I decided to give the Ice Fangs more bear like lips, which is loosely based on a (debunked) idea of them having huge jowls that enveloped the whole length of their sabers. This would make actually using the sabers too hard for me to think it's plausible, but a more mobile lip that can be moved out of the way when they go from full gape to rest is a fun concept :D
I also try not to draw any sabercats with pantherine noses. Pantherine rhinarium are quite distinct in their reduction of lower lobe (which I'm sure has a proper name but I Cannot find it and keep getting photos of nose jobs, so I'm giving up). This makes the whole nose into a defined T-shape, but there's no reason for any sabercat lineage to have that specific autapomorphy.
So the Fleet Fangs get Jaguarundi/lynx inspired heart-shaped ones, and Ice Fangs have very wide noses like a stretched domestic cat c'x
Not sure that answers your question but hope it helps a bit anyway c:
I love seeing the colour patterns on your clan gen homotherium and smilodon.
They remind me of cat colours. Colour mutations in animals (cats and prehistoric animals on general too) are my special interest
I remember that my favourite smilodon design was the one from Primeval. I still have the box sets and they were my favourite as a kid (and now lol).
Sad that Smilodon was most likely tawny like lions. It apparently lived in open areas so most likely wouldn't have spots or stripes. But that doesn't mean we can't draw them like it. Also I wonder what mutations they did have in real life (like white lions, white tigers, "strawberry" erythristic leopards, albino leopard, and melanistic leopards and jaguars do appear in the wild)
I actually discovered your comic when I followed the homotherium tag after seeing the frozen cub. I once saw lyuba the mammoth at the natural history museum, London, at a limited exhibition. I'm completely obsessed with the permafrost mummies. I hope I get to see more in person one day.
Here's my kitty, Zoe.
Oh my goosh what a cute cat ;A;
here's my creature, Fat Tilly! She's an 11yr old Selkirk rex who likes loafing and lying in the sun c:
And thank you! I adore colour mutations in extant animals and I agree that it's really fun to contemplate them in extinct ones c:
I'm gonna preempt this getting long and put a cut here jhrjhrf
I'm sure you will already have seen this, but for anyone interested in paleoart depictions of colour mutations, I'd really recommend this great article all about it
Siamese pattern on Patriofelis, an oxyaenid from Eocene North America. It’s plausible an animal like this actually lived. Paleoartists somet
White Cat, Gold Plains was actually all about the premise of a Homotherium with piebaldism. Pied is one of my favourite pigment mutations because it's so much deeper than integument patterns; it's actually a neural tube defect that leads to distinct behavioural changes.
WC,GP was about Kiina, the pied cat, and her struggles with always being view as 'childish' by her peers and struggling to fit in. There was also more human impact in this story, as Kiina gets picked up as a cub by a group of early humans. It was sort of my own experience/musings on neurodivergency played alongside some thoughts on early domestication attempts humans must have had (though we all know that, sadly, Homotherium did not end up domesticated). Pied animals are typically more trusting, which is why you see so many pied domestic animals! (Fat Tilly and Zoe both are, for example lolol)
Also the Primeval Smilodon has one of the most gorgeous and distinct designs of any media sabercat tbh, I really loved the episode as a whole even though it had a sort of sad-but-expected ending.
I don't remember where I read it, but there was someone discussing Smilodon patterns and the conclusion was basically "we can't be sure". While lions are solid as adults, they're spotted as cubs and likely had spotted ancestors seeing Pantherines seem to have strongly contrasting patterns as the default. Machairodontids aren't even the same lineage as Pantherines, so we really can't know what patterns they had except for Homotherium latidens having dark brown cubs! They could just as easily grow into a different adult coat, like hyena do.
(side note, I was sorta hoping that absolutely amazing Homotherium mummy news might drag some people to my comic so I'm glad it did lolol)
Smilodon was also likely very ambush dependent, being too bulky for pursuits even as long as modern lions. Disruptive colouration could have helped with this even in fairly open habitats. This is actually why I gave the Ice Fangs very faint stripes; high contrast tiger striping didn't make much sense, but breaking up the outline a little couldn't be a bad thing even in a steppe environment.
I also didn't want them completely solid because there are actual lions to differentiate cx
Rude!! Rude Question to this poor horse man!!
he could also have said "my whole family was killed by ice fangs but that would be depressing
Invasive like... 6/10? it's kinda just mildly annoying
(i imagine the same level of annoyance as i have with people asking about my birthmark bc it's on my knee and NO it's not an injury have you people Never seen a port wine stain before???)
Is it ok for us to make OCs from your pleistocene big cats?
Of course!! (It's really cool that people want to tbh 🥺 )
Homotherium, Smilodon and Panthera (leo) atrox are all real, extinct animals, so I don't have any ownership over them!
That being said, I do own the worldbuilding and lore of Kindred of the Mammoth as a setting+ some of the names/terms the different species use in the Species Sheet and in-comic!
So if you want to make a "Fleet Fang" rather than a "Homotherium serum," I would appreciate credit, at least the first time you post them! ;v;
Also this probably doesn't need saying but I politely request you don't make money/adoptables using my headworld and lore! Designing Fleet/Ice Fangs/Tuft Tails for yourself or friends is 100% fine though c:
