(This was originally supposed to be a final-day-of-#Spectember bonus post, but it got much longer than I expected so it’s a few days late.)
To finish off this year’s diversion into speculative evolution, instead of pulling from my still-rather-long list of unused submissions I’m doing something a little different – trying to give an idea of how I go through the actual process of designing a speculative species.
And for today’s example I’m going to do a “redesign” of sorts for a classic Dougal Dixon After Man creature: the reedstilt.
For several reasons:
- It was on the cover of the old edition of After Man I first discovered as a kid in the local library, it immediately caught my attention, and as a result it’s always been one of my favorite species from the book.
- But some of its anatomy doesn’t really hold up.
- I really really Do Not Like the “official” redesign that replaced the original art in the 2018 reprint. It’s shrinkwrapped.
- I just think it’s neat.
