Origins of the Naga (Wip)

[Vendanna]

And there is the staff attack animation for the full set of animations of the Naga Jackla.
So the unit would be fully animated (and useable)

What's need to improve:

- Need to give some tweaks to the casting animation 2nd frame. (under the hand looks weird)
- Remove Breasts (once I understand how)
- Change staff graphics (Need an unique staff graphic)

Still waiting for suggestions on what is need to tweak, I would want it to be at mainline quality in case someone wants to use it. (outside of UMC)

[Flameslash]

If it is meant to be female don't remove them. Mermen female have them and Naga should.

[thespaceinvader]

Why?

They are different species. Nagas are reptiles, reptiles do not have mammary glands, and therefore, do not need anything for them to sit on. It would be nice not to conform to the common video game stereotype of giving non-mammals mammalian physiological features.

[Neoskel]

Why?

They are different species. Nagas are reptiles, reptiles do not have mammary glands, and therefore, do not need anything for them to sit on. It would be nice not to conform to the common video game stereotype of giving non-mammals mammalian physiological features.

Technically naga could be 'reptile-like' creatures which have all the features of reptiles except they also lactate. It's really rather rigid and unimaginative to think that something has to fit neatly in a classification. It would be more realistic if they didn't fit neatly in a classification. It's the same thing with people saying that giant spiders wouldn't be able to get enough oxygen to live (but it's ok, it's magic). Theres no reason that they can't have a different, effective respiratory system that can support something that size.

But the point is moot if the official wesnoth stance is going to be 'no breasts on naga'. If that is so, this is umc stuff anyways and he should do what he wants with it.

[thespaceinvader]

Don't take my stance as official wesnoth stance. it's my personal stance. But I'm hopeful that the finalised nagini will be roughly in line with it.

[Vendanna]

Don't take my stance as official wesnoth stance. it's my personal stance. But I'm hopeful that the finalised nagini will be roughly in line with it.

Well, as already stated I will want to do some fixes to the nagini sprite later on, at the moment I'm fighting the code of the campaing because I can't manage to do what I want.

After all, my desire would be to be of enough quality to enter mainline (not inside factions but as resource for campaing variations in enemies)

a question arises tought, in that the naga fighter (male) seems to have pectorals (after all is the muscle that helps elevate the arms), so the nagini should have something similar to its male counterpart?

Apart of the breasts, does it needs some other tweaks? Just a list with all changes I need to do would be sufficient. (if you have time to do it ofc)

[thespaceinvader]

That aside, it looks fine - the quality's good.

I'd maybe make the shoulders a touch broader (currently, the snake-body is actually wider than the human bit), though (move the arms slightly further apart) and probably shrink the head-fins a little.

As regards pectorals, yeah, the nagini will need something of that order...

[Turuk]

a question arises tought, in that the naga fighter (male) seems to have pectorals (after all is the muscle that helps elevate the arms), so the nagini should have something similar to its male counterpart?

Right, but women have pectorals too. A woman’s chest is the same as man except on top of the pectorals lie the breasts, not that the female breast is equal to the male pectoral. So if you were doing just pectorals, there would be no change, except you could make the female body smaller.

[Lord Ork]

Technically naga could be 'reptile-like' creatures which have all the features of reptiles except they also lactate. It's really rather rigid and unimaginative to think that something has to fit neatly in a classification.

Technically, yes. But it could be otherwise. Is there any reason for them to have this exception? To be honest, I find more unimaginative to use breast (and hair) to differentiate them. It's the typical attitude in which we need to humanize more the female. Males can be horrid monsters, but the females must be a little cuter. It's like male is the default and then, you have to feminize the other side.

To illustrate, read this article I have just found: http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/05 ... orphi.html (or look at the pictures if you don't want to read).

By the way, I usually think of regular Nagas as females, don't know why.

[Vendanna]

Really long time without working on this, good thing is that I finally had some time to spare on this.

Even if I end without doing the campaing (I simply can't do what I want with wml) at least I want to finish the female naga if only to have another naga unit in the game for use on campaigns.

A few notes, this is the new experimental base frame of the unit with a few of the suggested things from TSI.

Basically, I tried to remove the boobs by looking at the "male" counterpart parts.
I made the head fins a bit smaller too.

the arms aren't worked on atm. but want input about the changes before "applying" them to the other animations frames of the unit.

[A-Red]

Why?

They are different species. Nagas are reptiles, reptiles do not have mammary glands, and therefore, do not need anything for them to sit on. It would be nice not to conform to the common video game stereotype of giving non-mammals mammalian physiological features.

I'm not entirely certain to what extent this has become a moot point, but Nagas are reptilian to about the same extent that merpeople are fishlike, and fish don't have breasts either. Goodness knows how either of these races reproduce or bear young, but it's not like it really needs to be explained.

[thespaceinvader]

This is true. However, it would still be nice to break a few stereotypes and not have our nagas have enormous breasts which, were they earth creatures with reptile or snake ancestry would be completely out of place. I had my own thoughts about the mers, too (dolphin, rather than fish, tails would make SO much more sense) but that would be a bit too much of a deviation from type.

I'd suggest that Nagas are probably egg-layers.

[Vendanna]

Guys even tought I appreciate talking how fantasy creatures should mate/reproduce I would like some input on the new base frame (especially the chest area), at least to know if these changes are an improvement or not.

About "mammarian glands" on the unit, its not something it bothered me, after all, the lamia from greeks also had a snake tail and the upper part was female (with breasts), that show that the greeks while "creative" in the aspect of creating a ton of creatures, they where rather "short" in that they only did pairs. (same with the siren)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamia_(mythology)

The nagas should hatch from eggs, tought because most of the reptilians on reality (and fantasy) do, and people will expect that.

[thespaceinvader]

The new base frame looks good, though I'd personally stil suggest even smaller head fins. Maybe removing the middle one completely, in fact.

[Lord Ork]

For a better reference about Nagas, their own entry, in which nearly all illustrations females have their breasts.

But I don't think so important if they are reptile of fish. The quid is how human-like they are. The nagas of this illustrations are a lot, so it seems logical to have human attributes. The sirens and the merpersons (being PC) are quite human-like, so their upper bodies resembles more that of a human. They have hair, and the male and female bodies are more or less that of a human.

On the other hand, wesnoth nagas are much less human-like. Their head are monstrous and their upper bodies are anatomically different. So, I don't really find a reason why females should distinct from males, be smaller or have breasts. Or even have some different function like males warrior and females witches (I supposed that the magic powers of the old queen naga came from being queen, not female).

I don't want to make a flame, so do as you like more, since you're the artist, but I felt like I have to back some arguments.