Chiroptera - Blog Posts

And as usual Art Fight is getting my ass moving, hooray! This year I'm trying "batification" attacks to hopefully kick-start my motivation and it's working great actually. I'm very proud of my anatomy right now, it feels nice to like my own art again. Now I just gotta find something to paint!

Characters belong to MaWzda and @p4rt1cle !

The bats of Pokémon through the eyes of a bat nerd (who also used no references so they're a tiny bit iffy)

Forgot to bring my tablet so I'm playing with dad's rainbow markers and pens. I kinda dig it actually but my phone cannot take proper photos of them lol

Nerdy stuff about design choices and lots of bat facts under the cut if you're interested in that!

Zubat is mainly modelled after Vespertillionidae and Natalidae species, inheriting both families' pointy faces and dense fur that often covers their eyes, making them appear blind (except zubat actually is blind). Their wings are broad, more akin to a Megadermatidae species, which was just a choice based off of the original design. Broader wings allow for increased manoeuvrability at the cost of speed in real species. Their legs are long and spindly, another trait borrowed from Natalidae.

Golbat still has zubat's woolly fur to keep its rounded appearance but has narrower wings as well as stumpy ears and a large mouth, all traits gleaned from free-tailed bats, the latter a trait specifically of the genus Otomops. They really do look like that sometimes yes. Its large feet are borrowed from the fish-eating myotis (Myotis vivesi) who frankly has even bigger feet than this guy. Bats are wacky lol

Crobat has a mostly furred face similar to Pteropid, Rhinolophid or Phyllostomid bats. Its ears are more fantasy and not modelled after any existing species. I had hairy-tailed bats of the genus Lasiurus on the mind while interpreting the little tufts on its bum, here they're meant to be fluff hanging off the uropatagium. It has very narrow wings similar to Molossid bats, and it fits for such a speedy Pkmn! (Fun fact: a Molossid bat was the fastest recorded vertical flight of any animal)

Woobat is inspired by Desmodus species, more commonly known as vampire bats. While their cousins the Honduran white bat (Ectophylla albus) is more commonly the interpretation, I chose Desmodus instead for its flat, heart-shaped noses and similar dental structure. The excess in fur is more attributed to the same families as in zubat, but with some more Lasiurine influence.

Swoobat's choice in inspiration was pretty obvious to me at first: the heart-nosed bat (Cardioderma cor)! The furred face and ears joined at the base is indeed inspired by Megadermatid bats but otherwise it has probably the most mixed influences of all these designs. I once again took the flat, heart-shaped nose from Desmodus species like I did with its pre-evo, and then its tail was adapted from Rhinopoma species (fittingly known as mouse-tailed bats!) as well as Molossid (free-tailed) bats. From an entirely nerdy perspective swoobat is easily my favorite, it really highlights a lot of chiropteran diversity whether intentional or not.

Noibat has joined ears like swoobat, inherited from Megadermatid bats (and sometimes Molossids) and is the first to have an actual nose-leaf, partially influenced by trident bats of the genus Asellia. I was kind of imagining that the bare patch between the tufts of black fur were present because they housed scent glands like in Emballonurid (sac-winged) bats who have similar bald patches. (I don't know a ton about Emballonurid bats unfortunately, so I'm not sure whether this is a family-wide occurrence or attributed to certain genii, lol. If anybody knows feel free to tell! I think some Molossids have scent glands too so heck throw them in as well)

Noivern is easily the most fantastical of the bunch, more dragon than bat, but it wouldn't feel right not to include him. He's got the same design choices on the face that its pre-evolution has (joined ears and nose-leaf) but otherwise doesn't have any more specific influences in batty terms. However, I turned the tragus into that little protrusion under the ear of the original design which I thought was kind of clever ;)

Here's to another year! It's been a real wild one full of some high highs and some low lows, but hey, we're all still alive :)

Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

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A couple bats to wrap up the year. There was gonna be more but, just my luck, my tablet's pen is malfunctioning real bad and I'm on the other side of the globe in New Zealand right now. Oh, well; expect more when that's taken care of!

Nerdy stuff under the cut. Happy holidays, everybody!

In terms of chiropteran diversity they may not be the most dramatic examples, but these species are in separate classifications entirely. The left is an eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis, though I did take some liberties with the colors) in the Vespertillionidae family and the right being some indiscriminate funnel-eared bat (specifically a Natalus sp.) from Natalidae. It is worth noting that both families are in the same superfamily, though, but pff, that's not even a real word.

It's no secret that I love my lasiurine bats (though I really broke the mould this time with a L. borealis instead of L. cinereus, woah gotta slow down there) so she was my first on the sheet. I'm already pretty adept in terms of lasiurine anatomy so she was more of a shading test which I'm rather happy with! They're so whiskery 🥺

At first the second bust was supposed to be of a generic Myotis species, but I thought that might be a bit boring (not that I don't love them too of course but my sketchbooks are full of them) so I went with a different pointy-faced little fella. Or, well, I think my thought process was more like "what's another species that when its mouth is open just looks like :V" but same deal. Funnel-eared bats are a very small family and you can tell they aren't very far-removed from vesper bats, but it's their subtler differences that interested me. They have these really funny moustaches, b-shaped skulls and almost woollen fur. They're also a more traditionally "ugly" species and that especially made me want to showcase how lovely they are.

I do wonder if the eyes are maybe a little uncanny, though. I intended for anthros of species without visible scleras to remain partially faithful to that and have enlarged irises/pupils but I dunno, looks kind of cartoony here, haha. Oh well, still plenty of room to experiment!

I'm very happy with these! The difference in fur texture especially was something I didn't think I'd be able to pull off, but I think I nailed it (without references, too! Booyah!). I hope to bring you guys some more underappreciated species as well as showcases of diversity soon; there are so, so many bats out there to love and they're all so different. Much love, hope you enjoy!

Man this file is just named “aeaeaeaeaeaeaeae” I’ve truly given up in the names department

Not much to say about this piece, just something experimental with my character Zelda. She was a birthday present from a dear friend of mine and I wanted to draw her! I’ve got mixed feelings about this piece but hopefully it’s at least interesting to look at!

Fantober day 2: vampire

Just a tiny crobat for today! Shout out to my shiny crobat, Mr. Crocker, who is named such because he loves to murder fairies

Reuploading trying to beat Tumblr’s awful horrible tagging system but I guess this little dude is just doomed to never appear in the tags. I am fighting a losing battle

Math class doodle to retain my sanity. I got this awesome bootleg Smiling Friends shoulderless sweater and I feel adorable in it 🥺 💕

Wow, haven’t drawn one of my own fellows in a while! Too many varying forms of brain rot. This is Skylark and I lobe him and my bat buddy plumbeach made him and I hope you like him too 🥺

Chiroptera Visual Database

Hi there! A couple years back I compiled a massive folder of all the bat species in the world* in photographs for quick visual reference. I feel I should share it in hopes that it can help someone like it has me and save them a lot of time looking up ambiguous search terms such as "bat species" or trying to find photographs of obscure ones.

CLICK HERE!

This database contains:

Sub-folders labelled after families (vesper bats, megabats, etc.) for easier sorting

A-Z sorted photographs of all the documented species in the world*

A little text document telling of the best places to find more photographs and/or info about the species

Photographs include professional-grade shots, scientific illustrations, fieldwork photographs, headshots, wingspans, skeletons, skulls, foot details, and comparison shots between species

All files are downloadable, including the folder itself which you can get as a .zip

Some of these photographs are very obscure and needed to be dug out of the farthest corners of the ‘net. This was a passion project of mine in order to give myself an easy-to-access art resource to better understand these animals and their incredible diversity. I hope you can find some use of this, as well!

Enjoy, bat nerds! If there's anything wrong, please don't hesitate to contact me. I've worked like crazy to put this together and I want only the best for it!

Quick disclaimer:

Nothing here belongs to me, all of these images were found using Google Images and this is meant to be nothing more than a database/directory for anatomical reference. If you plan on reusing them, please reverse image search the original image and ask for permission from the rightful owner(s) as necessary. Photography is an art just like anything else, and it ain't cool to steal! Thank you. <3

*Some species have only been documented in writing and therefore do not have readily-available photographs of them on the internet. This database was compiled by going through the list of documented species and finding photographs of them when I could; there are even more species than those listed in this folder!

It’s that time of the year again!!!

I'm really proud of my progress in 2021, I've become a lot less afraid of painting compared to the past couple, and it's all thanks to sacrificing hyper-detailed pieces for ones that only have what they really need. Happy soon-to-be NYE and screw covid! :D <3

Jan | Feb (w/o filter) | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

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I think that at long last I’ve finalized my sona’s design! Phew, only took like eight years. God I’ve gained weight. :p Her Toyhouse is over here if that’s your scene! https://toyhou.se/896743.-sona-emily

But anyway, sorry for being inactive, I’m really just not much a social media person hahaha, hope you’re all doing well! <3

A gift/late Art Fight revenge for my buddy @razziliciousart !! We’ve both got bat sonas, but hers is afraid of heights and mine loves to be high up, so I wanted to play with that dynamic a bit. :D

I’ve never been so proud of one of my pieces before. I didn’t know I had something like this in me and I got really emotional when it was finished because I finally feel like I’m becoming the artist I’ve always wanted to be. I really hope you enjoy this as much as I do! <3 <3

Oh, on another note, could someone tell me the Tumblr method for replying to comments on your posts? People are being so sweet and I wanna thank them but I’m not sure how! 

A Tribute to Avicii | early 2019 | SPEEDPAINT

Reposting some of my favorite paintings from the past year or so. This piece is rather personal to me, all info below the cut from the original description! 

Rest in peace, Tim. </3

“[April 20th, 2018], Tim Bergling, better known under his stage name, Avicii, passed away. I wrote about my feelings regarding this in detail last year, so I won't ramble on for too long, but after creating this, I feel liberated, I think this is what I needed to make to move on. This is one of my favorite pieces, deeply personal to me, and I hope the passion that went into it is visible. Here's to the man, I know he was perpetually and horribly stressed in life, so I hope he's finally at peace. Thought the Bismarck flying fox fit due to the angular white markings on its face, it's truly a beautiful animal. The background is inspired by his songs "The Days," "The Nights," and "Sunset Jesus." The composition of the piece is a reference to his logo: ◢ ◤”

Content warning for blood and religious imagery!

Happy Halloween!! This piece was a Halloween "Secret Santa" for Eden featuring his brown long-eared bat / golden-crowned flying fox hybrid!! Had so much fun with this character; bat gang rise up (and then down, and then back up). I was getting a bit too close to the deadline near the end and so had to swallow my pride and face the fact that the wooden frame was just not gonna happen, lol. It's a royalty-free image from Pexels, one of my favorite sites ever tbh : D The meaning behind this piece is up for interpretation. I'm a big fan of taxidermy, I was inspired by my own framed bats to spin a respectful (and in my opinion beautiful) art-form into something macabre. The pose of Jesus on the cross was something implemented partially for the irony of it as this character lives and works in Hell. Perhaps one could take this piece as punishing the damned in a horrific way that's still deemed moral and wholesome, or maybe it could be commentary on how torture and violence is so readily displayed through religious imagery. Would love to hear what you think!