It's time for a quick update. As you may know, The Book is ready to find a home with a publisher. Unfortunately, one or two of the publishers I would be very happy with warn aspiring authors away by saying that they pick their own candidates and have plenty of those to choose from, thank you very much. Others say they want submissions on paper, not digital, which might be a way to reduce the number of proposals they receive. If so, good, as perhaps my proposal may then have fewer others to compete with. Anyway, I had a few samples printed on good quality paper. Here is a quick view of the sample of The Book.
Some of you may have spotted that the name on the sample reads 'Nastrarruzzo', not 'Nastrazzurro'. I had to start an official business to market The Book, (and perhaps sell prints too), and wanted to avoid possible problems with companies with similar names. That's why my firm is called the 'Nastrarruzzo Compagnie'.
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| Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk |
While all this is going on, I do work on the occasional new painting. Actually, there are about four in various stages of completion, but that is usual for me. Here is a fragment of one I just completed. The animal is a hexapod arboreal species, a swobbler (it was originally a 'wobbler', but I made a typo while storing the file, and the unintended 's' made the name more interesting, so I kept it. The animal is not entirely serious...
You may be wondering what the things on its back are. Well, hexapod skins vary a lot, and part of their basic integument is a sort of hair, but hair that is flattened, and often with multiple filaments, so it can range from feather-like structures, but decidedly heavier than true feathers, to a fur-like covering. The structure lends itself well to leaf-like excrescences. As hexapods are not at all restricted to the restricted palette of Earth's mammals, there is room for weird and colourful protuberances.
The fruit is a baignac, of course. Don’t eat them if you are a human.
The sample already looks like something I would gladly put on my shelves, can't wait for it to be published!
ReplyDeleteI remember those fruits! :D
ReplyDelete(food for Marblebill food!)
Great to hear that you have options where it comes to publishers. All the best of good luck.
Davide: Let's hope a publisher hears you!
ReplyDeleteKeenir: You are absolutely right. Baignacs indeed feature on the marblebill page as food for 'aggies', which are marblebill prey. Swobblers (Popino inmodicus) are not 'aggies'(Berbex ululator) though. Marblebills don't mind such subtleties: "If swobblers are not careful, they represent only a short interval in the turnover of energy from fruit to predator".
I thought Aggie was a shortening of the genus name Agitator? If it’s been changed, what does it stand for now…
DeleteThank you for clarifying - I'd forgotten the name "aggies" (sorry)...Though, looking at the picture, my biggest question isn't "what is on its back?" -- my biggest question is "how did the head get pinched downwards, before widening at the lips?"
ReplyDeleteI'd guess that it helps the swobbler tilt its (neck? back?) so it can reach more of the inside of baignac fruits, than could be done by a baignac fruit-eater which lacks the combo of narrowed jaw and unnarrowed jaw.
Keep up the great work; you're awesome.
Keenir: Well spotted. That 'pinched head' is something that has been going on for quite a while, with an origin in the 'Great Hexapod Revolution.' Hexapods ('Scalata', really) do not have vertebral columns consisting of many short bones strung together. Instead, there are fewer but longer bones. This means that the 'neck' cannot move and bend like a tentacle, but moves rather like an arm or a leg, with straight segments connected by joints. That's one departure. The second has to to with cephalisation. Instead of the major sense organs, brain and jaws all clustered in one bony housing, the sense organs became clustered after two neck segments, while the jaw apparatus became clustered after another two neck segments. In essence, here is a proximal (near) neck and a distal (far) one; and also a sensory head as well as a masticatory one. If you look at posts going back at least a year, you will see evidence of this anatomy.
ReplyDeleteExciting news! I've been looking forward to buying a copy whenever it gets published, a big step closer, it sounds like
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for that great explanation.
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt I'll see that underlying structure now - because now I know what to look for; its an added layer of detail and attention that you give to your creations.
...I just don't think I would have even thought to look for anything like that, because, to my admittedly poor eyes, the front of Furahan animals looked basically like Earth animals: sense organs and jaws in a single location at the end of the neck. So now I have a new question, and I don't mind waiting to see the answer in The Book: in organisms like the Marblebill, did the eyes (with or without the other sense organs) migrate forwards to be near the jaws, for the best view of the enviroment being brachiating through, or did one of the necks shrink, or did a third thing happen?
While it is true that The Book cannot come soon enough, whenever it comes will be perfect.
again, great work on The Book and all of Furaha.
a bit of clarification: what I just said, thats a fault from me & of me & in me...i never saw it, because I never thought to look, because I never considered it a possibility to have the sense organs and jaws on two distinct parts of the neck.
ReplyDeleteKeavan: I made some attempts a long time ago but feel my present attempt is much more attractive, so fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteKeenir: the paintings on my main site are the old ones form before I transferred to digital paintings. They also date from before the Great revolution. I have been keeping most paintings out of sight to keep them 'fresh' for The Book. I am not surprised that you mostly saw what you expected, as I have not yet showed extreme departures from Earth norm. However, you can probably imagine a giraffe analogue with a neck like a jointed crane, and beyond the 'head', carrying the eyes, there is another crane carrying jaws. That image would underline the departure from the earth norm. Mind you, the typical 'animal' (=vertebrate) shape is difficult to dislodge.
As for eyes, the standard scalate package included four eyes around a cylindrical shape, so with left/right and upper/lower eyes. That made sense for free-swimming animals, but less for other environments. Not surprisingly, eyes moved around in evolution. For example. in many walking animals the lower eyes moved up and back.
Thank you for your years of hard work sir! Coming this close to a publishing is really exciting. Hopefully you full find a publisher soon and we will get to read the full project.
ReplyDeleteNail: What can I say? I hope so too!
ReplyDeleteIdle: you are quite correct. The name 'aggie' was indeed related to the genus name 'agitator'. When I later decided to paint an aggie, I reconsidered its name too. In The Book, these animals are now called 'Berbies'. In the post above, I slipped back to the older name. Then again, an aggie might also be another marblebill prey species. I wonder how it will look...
ReplyDeleteThis is very exciting! I’ve been following this blog for years without ever commenting and hearing it’s at the point it’s at is mind blowing honestly. I feared you’d end up having to upload your brain into a computer to keep working on it for a few hundred more years hahaha.
ReplyDeleteI do have one deeply important question… will the book contain the word “cernuation”?
Novaraptorus: Thank you and welcome! The big difficulty will be finding a publisher.
ReplyDeleteAs for 'cernuation', that word is not at present in The Book. The reason is that I never evolved a cernuating animal. I read my posts on cernuation again, and still feel that, once an animal can brachiate, there is little need for it to evolve the more complex cernuation.
By the way, at the time of the cernuation posts, 'Metalraptor' commented often. That name and yours resemble one another, so I wondered whether you might be the same person. But you wrote you never commented before, so I guess not.
I remember that you’d said you most likely wouldn’t feature a cernuating animal, alas this seems to be the only opportunity for to word to appear in print!
DeleteAnd no that would not be I, I made this account specifically yesterday to comment on this blog in fact, even if I’ve been following it a long time. Those ceruation posts and ones like it such as the ballont ones always were favourites of mine.
Novaraptorus: Thank you very much for liking the blog enough to register! I like such 'physical' posts too and will continue to write some, even tough the most obvious subjects have already been dealt with.
ReplyDeleteWoo! I was wondering if you’ve ever gotten fan-art before? If not I may end up doing some haha, perhaps a properly centaurified spindred… anyways what’d be the best way to show off fan-art?
ReplyDeleteNovaraptorus: well, I think people occasionally posted something inspired by Furaha on Deviant Art, which is fine, so that is one way. Another way would be to publish on the Speculative Evolution Forum, also fine.
ReplyDeleteThe third way would be a new one. I was once asked how people could contribute to the projects, and I answered that it wasn't a community project. I still feel that way, but am open to publishing fan art as an experiment on the blog. Posting fan art would however not mean that I accept the resulting creatures as part of the Furahan Fauna.
There is a precedence as there has been a guest author too.
If you don’t mind my asking, what does the future hold for this blog after The Book is published? I’d hate to see it end…
ReplyDeleteIdle: I do not plan to stop the blog. for several reasons. First, I like blogging, so there's that. Second, I also do not plan to stop designing new Furahan creatures; there's an empty remote continent on Furaha, which is empty i the sense that none of the life forms described until now lives there. Third, I have plans to sell art-quality prints of my paintings (giclée prints) through the website, which also means continuing with the blog.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been following your blog the last ten years but never made a comment. I really hope to soon be able to buy a print of your book.
ReplyDeleteIf not, perhaps a digital version?
Björn: Thank you for commenting! My plan is to try to get the book published in the -for me- most attractive way, and if that fails, I will try the next one, etc. I certainly do not plan to wipe it from my hard disc if no publisher wants to publish it. At one point or another it will become available.
ReplyDeleteSince hexapod mouthparts are mounted on a jointed proboscis, how do passages like the esophagus not fold inward from bending at such a sharp angle?
ReplyDeleteIf I was to guess, it would be along the lines of how herons bend their necks...in one of the past discussions in this blog, we discussed how the esophogus(sp) of herons is longer than their necks are.
ReplyDeleteI second the offering up of thanks for all the wisdom and art of this blog has presented throughout its history.
Idle and Keenir: God question! I was gearing up to provide an answer, but Keenir beat me to it. I was also preparing a post on a hexapod head and neck sculpt. It should be ready in a few days, and I will take the opportunity to go into the oesophagus problem.
ReplyDeleteKeenir: your sentiment is much appreciated, but the post you referred to, wit a similar feeling, was merely meant to lure people to the gambling business linked in the sender's name. I deleted that post, as I -eventually- delete all advertising posts.
Oh. Sorry about that; I didn't think to investigate it or even see who/what it was. But I still am thankful that you are here, with Furaha, this blog, and your good natured self. (and all who come here, for longterm or otherwise)
ReplyDeleteAnd I apologize for beating you to an answer; please don't let me stop you - ever.