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Description
I know a lot of people do snake-people like this, but I want to do it for a reason.

Part 1 of 3 Snake Project.

My jargon :

Why do people anthropomorphise mammals in art? One of the reasons I reckon is that it takes an animal quality and turns it into something recognisable as human. Pop eyebrows on a horse and suddenly you can see that mischeviousness that would otherwise be impossible to communicate unless you met the horse. Give a dog a smile and the playfulness seems that little more intense - you feel touched by it, like you can enjoy it, like you know what the dog is thinking.

Snakes and many reptiles are so far removed from our own way of thinking that people find it hard to associate with them. My earlier 'Turoth' works contained alien creatures, that looked so alien because they had no eyes - no point of reference (see the work of the marvellous Wayne Barlowe for my inspiration on that one.) Snakes don't have eyelids... they don't smile... they don't have eyebrows... they don't communicate many things through noise.

I own a snake and I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she has personality. She's bloody smart, in the way that snakes are smart. Same way a dog can be bloody intelligent, but it's not about to sit down and pound out some quadratic equations --> they've just got no need for it, so it's not something they can learn (yar,yar, exceptions to the rule.)

But if I created a snake person - a human with a snake tail... there'd be no element of that 'snake-personality' in there. It would be a human with a snake half. But without something human, what is there for people who don't *know* snakes to connect with?

Booyah! Arms

So, here's a King Cobra. Doing that 97% attention, 2% nervous, 1% aggressive thing they do It'll look better when it's done. Just had the urge to upload a preview

Description
I know a lot of people do snake-people like this, but I want to do it for a reason.

Part 1 of 3 Snake Project.

My jargon :

Why do people anthropomorphise mammals in art? One of the reasons I reckon is that it takes an animal quality and turns it into something recognisable as human. Pop eyebrows on a horse and suddenly you can see that mischeviousness that would otherwise be impossible to communicate unless you met the horse. Give a dog a smile and the playfulness seems that little more intense - you feel touched by it, like you can enjoy it, like you know what the dog is thinking.

Snakes and many reptiles are so far removed from our own way of thinking that people find it hard to associate with them. My earlier 'Turoth' works contained alien creatures, that looked so alien because they had no eyes - no point of reference (see the work of the marvellous Wayne Barlowe for my inspiration on that one.) Snakes don't have eyelids... they don't smile... they don't have eyebrows... they don't communicate many things through noise.

I own a snake and I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she has personality. She's bloody smart, in the way that snakes are smart. Same way a dog can be bloody intelligent, but it's not about to sit down and pound out some quadratic equations --> they've just got no need for it, so it's not something they can learn (yar,yar, exceptions to the rule.)

But if I created a snake person - a human with a snake tail... there'd be no element of that 'snake-personality' in there. It would be a human with a snake half. But without something human, what is there for people who don't *know* snakes to connect with?

Booyah! Arms

So, here's a King Cobra. Doing that 97% attention, 2% nervous, 1% aggressive thing they do It'll look better when it's done. Just had the urge to upload a preview