Furry avatars
Thinking about avatars, as you do, and juggling with the idea of cougartaurs, I was stuck trying to maximise a balance of cougar and human in the most useful end-shape.
I dismissed shapeshifting, being a simple and instant solution to the whole dilemma, as far too easy.
So - the cougar has speed, grace, stealth, and a feline mammalian fuzziness which in the domestic cat has led to it being one of the most popular and common animals in the world.
The human form, on the other hand, has arms and hands to manipulate objects, an upright stance useful for seeing longer distances, and can more easily operate the tools and implements of human society.
I also wanted to throw in at least four arms, as more hands are almost always useful.
For simplicity, I thought about the stock 2/2/2 layout used by some furry artists - two hind legs, two humanlike forearms, and two limbs in the middle which are kind of a half-and-half. While this cuts the number of limbs down to six and retains the "four hands, four legs" advantages, I was never able to accept that limbs built for running on could easily include such fragile structures as fingers, unless they were bent all out of proportion to protect them from being stomped on during motion. It's probably no coincidence that animals with good grasping manipulators on their walking limbs (birds, apes) don't tend to move very fast on the ground for extended sprints. Sprinters (hoofed creatures, big cats, humans) don't tend to have opposable grips or long gripping digits on their walking limbs.
The big cats have a good attempt at turning feet into hands, but even with claws, footpads are only so flexible. A lion can't play the piano; a tiger can't climb a steel pole or a sheer rockface.
I finally settled on something similar to a DND Displacer Beast, but with two sets of side-mounted orangutan-length arms (equipped with anthro-cougar hands for dexterity) replacing the tentacles and middle limbs. With the arms folded, it can run at top speed. With the arms extended front and rear, it can still hit very close to top speed while allowing it to grab things. It can stand on its rear legs and use all four arms and its forelegs to manipulate human tools and environments, and yes, it can even swing through the trees Tarzan-style. Best of all, it doesn't have the balance issues I always associated with classic 'taur design.
Of course, I had to sacrifice a couple of things in coming to this design. Human features are practically nonexistent - no human torso, no human head, the arms are the wrong proportions, and the humanoid hands (and possibly pelvis, to allow upright gaits) on this beast just make it disconcerting. With eight hairy limbs, four of which are quite long and thin, it can give the impression of an enormous mutant spider. And when standing upright, the movements of its upper limbs aren't 'right', even for standard anthropomorphic cougars.
In fact, to return to the DND simile, its structure is a little like a cougar with an advanced case of Fang of Lolth. Not the most comforting image.
Still, it seems to do what it was designed to. Choice of upright or four-footed gait (or even eight-footed or arboreal). The running speed, stealth, leaping ability and claws of a cougar. The dexterity of a human, and four arms to do it with.
Best of all? With eight limbs, it's a KICK-ASS swimmer. Especially when wearing flippers. And it can highdive without killing itself, something a centaur would have major problems with.
OK, that's the end of Random Imagination Engineering today.
I dismissed shapeshifting, being a simple and instant solution to the whole dilemma, as far too easy.
So - the cougar has speed, grace, stealth, and a feline mammalian fuzziness which in the domestic cat has led to it being one of the most popular and common animals in the world.
The human form, on the other hand, has arms and hands to manipulate objects, an upright stance useful for seeing longer distances, and can more easily operate the tools and implements of human society.
I also wanted to throw in at least four arms, as more hands are almost always useful.
For simplicity, I thought about the stock 2/2/2 layout used by some furry artists - two hind legs, two humanlike forearms, and two limbs in the middle which are kind of a half-and-half. While this cuts the number of limbs down to six and retains the "four hands, four legs" advantages, I was never able to accept that limbs built for running on could easily include such fragile structures as fingers, unless they were bent all out of proportion to protect them from being stomped on during motion. It's probably no coincidence that animals with good grasping manipulators on their walking limbs (birds, apes) don't tend to move very fast on the ground for extended sprints. Sprinters (hoofed creatures, big cats, humans) don't tend to have opposable grips or long gripping digits on their walking limbs.
The big cats have a good attempt at turning feet into hands, but even with claws, footpads are only so flexible. A lion can't play the piano; a tiger can't climb a steel pole or a sheer rockface.
I finally settled on something similar to a DND Displacer Beast, but with two sets of side-mounted orangutan-length arms (equipped with anthro-cougar hands for dexterity) replacing the tentacles and middle limbs. With the arms folded, it can run at top speed. With the arms extended front and rear, it can still hit very close to top speed while allowing it to grab things. It can stand on its rear legs and use all four arms and its forelegs to manipulate human tools and environments, and yes, it can even swing through the trees Tarzan-style. Best of all, it doesn't have the balance issues I always associated with classic 'taur design.
Of course, I had to sacrifice a couple of things in coming to this design. Human features are practically nonexistent - no human torso, no human head, the arms are the wrong proportions, and the humanoid hands (and possibly pelvis, to allow upright gaits) on this beast just make it disconcerting. With eight hairy limbs, four of which are quite long and thin, it can give the impression of an enormous mutant spider. And when standing upright, the movements of its upper limbs aren't 'right', even for standard anthropomorphic cougars.
In fact, to return to the DND simile, its structure is a little like a cougar with an advanced case of Fang of Lolth. Not the most comforting image.
Still, it seems to do what it was designed to. Choice of upright or four-footed gait (or even eight-footed or arboreal). The running speed, stealth, leaping ability and claws of a cougar. The dexterity of a human, and four arms to do it with.
Best of all? With eight limbs, it's a KICK-ASS swimmer. Especially when wearing flippers. And it can highdive without killing itself, something a centaur would have major problems with.
OK, that's the end of Random Imagination Engineering today.