Topic: Anatomy of taurs

Posted under Art Talk

Do taurs have two hearts, two pairs of lungs, a really long small intestine. What about the liver? What about the Pancreas? How much bile? Diabetes? Sharp spine bends? And the spleen? Branched trachea?

Updated by FibS

felix_nermix said:
Do taurs have two hearts, two pairs of lungs, a really long small intestine. What about the liver? What about the Pancreas? How much bile? Diabetes? Sharp spine bends? And the spleen? Branched trachea?

I think this could be an interesting discussion. What are your initial thoughts?

Updated by anonymous

CCoyote said:
I think this could be an interesting discussion. What are your initial thoughts?

I think the spine shall not have sharp bends like most artists draw them. There shall be a lot of muscular tissue (but just enough unless the character has a very muscular body) in the back in order to mantain an 'L' shape without much effort. The trachea is branched, so it can supply air to both pairs of lungs. They have only one stomach that is in their upper torso (in the case of taurs "upper torso" does not mean the same as in anthros or ferals). The upper torso does not have a large intestine. No urinary nor reproductive system in the upper torso (unless the character has two sets of genitalia). One spleen, one liver and one pancreas. Organs without duplicates are bigger than in anthros or ferals. The liver, stomach, spleen, pancreas and upper lungs are so big those occupy most of the upper torso. A pseudo pelvis holds the organs of the upper torso on its place. The duodenum is very long because the rest of the digestive system is in the lower torso. The lungs in the upper torso and the lungs in the lower torso are synchronous. I do not know if the hearts should be synchronous, asynchronous or contratempo.

Edit: I know that the diaphragm is what moves the lungs, i just forgot to include it.

Updated by anonymous

felix_nermix said:
A pseudo pelvis holds the organs of the upper torso on its place.

I have to abandon the idea of a pseudo pelvis because it has a high risk of spinal injuries. Instead there will be soft tissue and the first rib of the lower torso ribcage will resemble a pelvis.

Updated by anonymous

Many artists don't draw centaurs partially for this reason - not because they particularly want to be "realistic" or "anatomically correct", but because they find visualizing a centaur's anatomy on even a basic level impossible and thus they are very hard to draw.

There's a good reason nobody has popularized a standard for defining and naming anatomy in the specific context of centaurs, such as what to call "the human torso" as opposed to parts of "the horse torso". People prefer compatibility and ease of use to novelty, so centaurs are not popular characters in most creative media and there's no pressure to catalog their anatomy. They would be a nightmare for most freelancers to do in 3D, for instance.

I don't worry about internal organs 'n' stuff in practice when drawing, but I always perceive a centaur as a single unique body - not literally a human or furry torso glued onto a headless horse (or deer or whathaveyou.) I hate uncreative goofball thinking like that.

One of the first objections I see most scientific-minded people give to the idea of centaurs is that their butts (horse halves) are much too massive for human lungs or hearts to bear. While I don't know if it's enough "believably", I substantially size down the mega-butt in proportion to the upper body, whereas most depictions of centaurs appear to be circus midgets sewn onto Clydesdales.

My usual goal is for the upper body and front legs to vaguely match the body-to-leg-proportion of a normal two-legger, but with a big sexy horse butt behind. It's okay if it's a bit off as long as it's in the ballpark.

Of course, this means that any morons who attempt to ride centaurs must be considerably smaller than normal, as centaurs themselves are a bit smaller than normal, adjusted for the same "human part" size. Most of my centaurs are not much taller than normal people!

I also have a rule that all tits must be adjacent. I will not draw human breasts on an upper torso and also teats / crotchboobs. It looks bizarre and uncanny; my centaurs have only the human breasts.

They otherwise have visually equine genitals in roughly the place they would be found on a horse (including dryads/deer and other non-horse centaurs.)

I'm working on a solution for the spine concern, but I have never drawn it and it's in a rough state. It involves creating a completely new bone or five just for centaurs that I don't believe any creature on Earth has a parallel to.

Updated by anonymous

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