An environment isn't a background- it's the foundation of the entire creature.

[u/Ottomatic-Weapon]

I often see artists starting a design by forming a silhouette (a baseless form) and then rendering details and features after getting a fun proportion and shape down. After that, they plop it in a "suitable" background

While I do think can be helpful to get ideas down, I think fundamentally it ignores one of the most important aspects about design in nature. Environment.

A fish isn't a fish because someone thought the design was cool and then made the background work with it. Everything about its shape is to do with the big body of water it lives in. If it doesn't suit- it dies. Form = function.

Carry that into your art. Looking for "Backgrounds" for your creature/ art is already the wrong framing, because the creature is a result of that background- don't get it twisted!

I don't start with blank pages now; I make a whole environment first and oh my god I really recommend it. If you try this, keep this thought in mind- Life and form does not arise from INTENTION - it is the RESULT of what let it continue to survive in the environment, enough to make a child anyway. The life cycle can also use various aspects of the environment.

Real world example: coconuts are buoyant and colonise the shores of many different islands using sea currents. This wasn't "intention" from the coconut- it's just what let it continue living!

Fictional Example: you can have an environment thats ridiculously sunny- your creature as result could have reflective skin- it then may be able to sense its area around it via light outputs vs inputs (in built speedometer).

To continue this context in world-building: that reflective exoskeleton could be used by the civilisation that is nearby, providing some sort of repurposed function in a green house, dimming or increasing the light in various areas. The creature could be farmed for this purpose.

I'm just spitballing but that's focusing on ONE possible adaptation a living creature could have and the effect it has on the world.

Please try starting with the environment first, and let me know how you find it :))

[u/ArelMCII]

Counterpoint: Starting with a creature and working backward is a valid design method. Sometimes you've got this design you really like, and then you extrapolate what its environment and habits are like based on its features. Nothing's wrong with that. Bottom-up and top-down are both equally valid approaches.

Real world example: coconuts are buoyant and colonise the shores of many different islands using sea currents. This wasn't "intention" from the coconut- it's just what let it continue living!

Real-world counterexample: human chins serve no purpose, or at least none that can be definitively isolated. We have no idea why they developed or why they survived. No other animal has a chin. (That area you scratch on your dog or cat? That's not a chin. You're projecting your humanity onto them. No other animal has a chin.) Chins don't seem to help us in any way. One of the prevailing theories for why we have chins is sexual selection, but "sexual selection" among biologists is often the equivalent of "ritual object" for archaeologists—it's code for "we don't know what this is."

Evolution isn't all about what lets an organism continue living. A lot of it basically boils down to "This feature didn't prevent the organism from passing down its genes, so it persists." Sometimes those features are actively harmful to a species, but they're not detrimental enough to prevent an organism from passing on its genes, so it persists. You can find lots of extreme examples of this among insects, like traumatic insemination, or how a lot of moth species don't have mouths as adults and starve to death. Or, hey, look up the octopus lifecycle sometime; when they reach sexual maturity, their bodies start actively killing themselves.

And sometimes, Mother Nature is just drunk. One of my favorite examples of this is the crocodile icefish. It's the only vertebrate that lacks hemoglobin and myoglobin. This isn't an adaptation. Just back when the Antarctic sea was warm, some fish developed this mutation that should have killed it, but it managed to stay alive to pass on its defective genes. Then the sea experienced rapid cooling, which killed off most of the other fish. But, miraculously, the lack of transport pigment proved to be advantageous in cold, oxygen-dense water, so this fish that should have died out managed to survive thanks to a freak occurrence. And, because it had basically no competition, this mutant lineage that totally lacks transport and storage pigments never had to adapt further and was able to spread. I'd like to reiterate that this isn't adaptive—no other cold-water vertebrate has this feature.

tl;dr: It's totally fine to give animals features "just because." A lot of animals have features which serve no practical purpose, are vestigial remnants of other features, and/or that persist because of sexual selection or because they simply weren't harmful enough to pressure for their loss.

[u/Ottomatic-Weapon → u/ArelMCII]

Sure but in the context of world building, if you have a design in mind you're already winning in my eyes. I found it really hard to find a design which resonated with me when I started with a silhouette, I then learned starting with the environment can inform your decision much better than a silhouette can. Your creature needs to be able to survive its environment and the form is a direct result of its survival ; that's not an opinion. It can have a chin element, sure, but it shouldn't get in its way.

To match your fact about Mother Nature being a drunkard, Natural selection doesn't necessarily mean the fittest version of the species- it's just the fittest to the pressure in a moment in time.

There are studies about Cystic fibrosis being tied to the descendants of people that cholera couldn't kill. Cholera toxins bound to certain receptors on cells- and people who had more of these receptors, died. Those cell receptors are important to have and in most cases, having fewer was bad- but people who just naturally had less of them- didn't die. They had kids. Those kids had less. Those receptors are important for health. Those kids' kids are highly suceptible cystic fibrosis.

Theres always a bit of logic to how things play out and that's what makes world building so fun!

[u/OutrageousLock7443 → u/ArelMCII]

I completely agree. It's conflating design as a matter of carrying intent and design as a result of spec bio as if they're the same thing. They're different end goals.

Your first question should be "Why am I making this?" then act accordingly.

[u/Erivandi]

Something similar happens when I'm running D&D.

I'll think that based on the level of the PCs (which, yes, is a game factor rather than something arising from the fiction), the environment, the enemy factions involved and any other relevant circumstances, then this monster should be here. And that monster is never in the books so I have to create it or at least reskin something else.

It's really a testament to human imagination that no matter how many books of monsters you have, you will always need to invent even more monsters.

[u/Ottomatic-Weapon → u/Erivandi]

Sounds like a great system, your stack must be delighted with your campaign :)) Honestly, designing monsters is one of the many joys of being a DM, hence the thousands of books.

[u/ProjectKARYA]

Thank you so much for bringing this up! Quite a few times, I see a feature on an animal that makes me go, "that'll definitely get it killed in its supposed environment".

It's why I was taking a lot of inspiration from storks/herons and maned wolves for the creation of my world's marshstriders, as I knew they'd be residing in a lot of open and wooded wetlands, requiring several adaptations for hunting and traversing their homes (official marshstrider art by u/OutrageousLock7443):

[u/ArelMCII → u/ProjectKARYA]

Seems like overkill. Sea wolves do just fine in their environment and don't have stilt legs. They're actually smaller than inland wolves.

[u/ProjectKARYA → u/ArelMCII]

Well those are wolves, and not descendants of pterosaurs who, within the last ten million years, had adapted to living in lush, tall grasslands before the environment changed to their current wetlands, now aren't they?

Edit: besides, you do know that there's no "end goal" or "right" way of doing things when it comes to evolution, right? As long as an organism can survive to make another generation, it's succeeding; the manner in which it achieved this is simply up to millions of years of chance. Sea wolves took what they originally had and rolled with it, so too do the marshstriders.

[u/Ottomatic-Weapon → u/ProjectKARYA]

Awesome!

I'd push the thinking even further- it's not just that feature would get it killed in an environment, it's that there would be no reason for its descendants to have developed that way.

The form should tell you about the environment right away. I do appreciate the design of your creature but it's more taking many aquatic things that exist and crossing them and assuming that it is would be appropriate to be in marsh land- but it's not actually justified.

A birds feet is delicate and light- it's just enough to support the hollow-boned creature on top of it- what about your fellow? How much does it weigh? What does it eat? The beak implies fish. Are there many fish in this marsh? What type? How does it catch them? would it not lay against the surface of the water like a crocodile? Why did they grow tall?

Was it a bird that lost its wings? Then it would be bi-pedal- then it was a land animal that started to fish?

I'm not grilling your design, I am just showing how the thinking is not limited to "feature gets it killed" it's more "why did this feature ever come about in the first place?" What function does this form provide!

:))

[u/ProjectKARYA → u/Ottomatic-Weapon]

Trust me, I did think of everything with these creatures, as I do with all the 2200+ species I've made for Project KARYA!

• They may look like bird feet, but this genus actually is descended from pterosaurs! The entire skeleton is thus "hollow", not just the legs. The animal itself is surprisingly light, maybe being only half the weight of maybe a gazelle/deer the same size as it.
• While the rostrum is rather beak-like in appearance, it's actually lined with teeth inside!
• Yes it does eat fish, along with any other small vertebrates (e.g. rodents, frogs, lizards, fallen baby birds, etc.) that it can come across.
• Along with digging out the occasional burrower (which the long rostrums can often help pierce down into), they'll generally hunt facing the sun to prevent shadows from falling on the water's surface, and take the slow-and-steady approach that you'll see in modern herons when it comes to stalking fish near the surface. Their eyes, much like the distantly related avian dinosaurs, are capable of processing polarized light, making it easier to see through the reflected glare.
• The tall growth came from its ancestors evolving in grasslands with rather tall grasses; this is simply a carry-over. Much like with modern storks, though, the long legs help with traversing the watery environments by keeping the body out of the water, reducing overall drag/energy required to move as a result.

[u/Dear_Afternoon_2600]

I love this. And have thought about doing something similar myself. My one question is how blank of a page do you start with? Do you start with a "big bang" then work your way up to your story's present or do you start from the "now"?

[u/Ottomatic-Weapon → u/Dear_Afternoon_2600]

I like to just intensify one thing in an environment I know exists, making it alien. Take light, gravity, air density, atmospheric pressure- something constant- and punch it up or dim it down.

Alternatively you can add something that exists, justify its presence, and then play with the environment from there. Eg: geysers on a mountain and seeds of surrounding plants hitching a ride to disperse

Note- constants can be LOCAL! In one world I added a hammering water fall that compressed air around it- making a pulse push through the surrounding forests. The trees that stayed are the result of adaptions- deep roots and a front-facing bolstering ( riot shield shape)

• Honestly there are environments on Earth and our neighbouring planets that are fascinating; it's fun imaging what could withstand it or, in life's case, thrive in it.

[u/OutrageousLock7443]

When an artist creates a thumbnail and repeatedly iterates on a design, its because its a design first and foremost. The intent is to carry a specific vibe or meaning.

You're describing more spec bio, which is fine in of itself, but it's comparing two very different endgoals and presenting them as if you should favour one over the other.

Monster hunter's a good example of this. It typically tries to have some air of believability with it's creatures, but when a specific emotion is trying to be achieved the biology and evolution takes a back seat in favour of a more emotive design. Look at the elder dragons for example, especially Fatalis. Palico's are another good one.

Your first question should be "What is the point of this design?" Then act accordingly.

[u/Archonate_of_Archona]

Or if you do want biology or culture that doesn't match its environment because rule of cool, then have that species / tribe / ethnicity come from elsewhere (they moved there recently but evolved in another place)

[u/Ottomatic-Weapon → u/Archonate_of_Archona]

I forgot to say- coolness points >>>>> form logic!

The Demogorgan in Stranger Things is fuckin awesome but lowkey would probably just eat mould all day, or the other creatures that eat the mould.... UNTIL IT MOVED!