#plus red and yellow are technically both based in the same color energy anyways so it still feels unapealing

[neptunian-aphonia]

nice lil sketches of the newest addition to the muse list: qanosh! and he clothes :>

some biology notes, for those interested:

qanosh’s species are colloquially known as belters, due to their planet belonging to a solar system in the Orion’s Belt constellation

pretty much all their fingers but their middle two have ball and socket joints, giving a ridiculous range of flexibility.

they’re arboreal, and ambush predators, for the most part! though their trees are so big branches could often be comparable to roads. nonetheless, this leads to them being able to move in quick bursts, but they aren’t built for pursuing over long distances. them legs’re made fer climbin’ not gallopin’.

the nasal cavity of a belter is not an external set of nostrils, but instead a spot in the roof of the mouth that both sends out and receives scents and pheromones. these pheromones are used in their language to define the tones and pronunciation of words, which is why when qanosh speaks Human, he can tend to sound flat. this also means they can, with a bit of practice, pick up the rudimentary scents humans often give off with emotional responses. though it isn’t an airtight way to read their emotional state/tell if they’re lying, of course.

belters do not perceive the common light wavelengths as we think of them. instead, they see lifeforms and the energy they give off, typically believed to be detection of the electrical pulses of a creature’s nervous system, or something along those lines anyway. different lifeforms can tend to give off different colors; in a place like a human city or dungeon cell it is seen as very dark, drab, and gray. it is a common misconception that this way of sight allows the belters to see lifeforms THROUGH objects, which is not true.

belter eyes look ‘blank’ and ‘glow’ at most angles because they have structures similar to tapetum lucidum (what create things such as a cat or a dog’s “eye glow”), as well as several protective lenses to guard these sensitive layers against bright light.

to make up for their odd sight, the ears of a belter is not so much an ear as a complex, inwards formation that can detect tiny oscillations when a sound wave hits and bounces off an object. they will instinctively recognize the differences in the miniscule vibrations, and be able to tell what that object is from the “sound” of it. However, they do not have “super hearing.” rather, their ears are specifically specialized to hear these tiny vibrations, but in other regards more or less hear the same as a human- though they can hear frequencies somewhat lower than the range of a human’s.

their blood is iridium-based, as compared to the human iron-based blood; as such, their blood is capable of binding to both oxygen and hydrogen, and can subsist off of atmospheres composing mostly of either without the other, after spending some time adjusting. 

because of the, comparatively, lessened effectiveness of iridium versus iron, their respiratory system has evolved to something more convoluted to better transport it to make up for it-- being a complex set of “air tubes,” with their analog to the lungs serving more as central air pumps to move it all around-- in conjunction with a set of twin hearts for ease o’ pumpin’.

this weird lung situation had them develop armored “rib plates” that sacrifice flexibility for protection, as they don’t need their chests to expand the way humans do. this creates a bit of a universal barrel chest and snatched waist look, though of course like any other animal/species they’ve got diversity in their body types.

a caveat to having iridium based blood is that iridium is photosensitive. on their home, this isn’t too much of a problem, as the belters evolved to have dark, UV-resistant skin and live under extremely dense canopies. however, when on planets such as Earth, with a source of unblocked bright light, or on space stations with constant sources of artificial light, the iridium in their blood will start to decay after prolonged exposure. which leads to a condition a bit like if anemia and sepsis had an ungodly child. to combat this, they have developed protective suits and very nice sunscreen.

a plus to this light sensitive blood nonsense: it changes colors when it decays! lmao

in the veins their blood is bright ass yellow, and outside it is a vibrant orange. as it decays, it will go from a duller orange, to green, and finally to a deep bluish-black.

in general, the belter homeworld is bombarded constantly by heavy UVs (having two suns: a blue star in similar size to our own and a red dwarf, which is the main source of all them ‘youvees’) so their skin tones are always dark; though in the time since they became space faring, paler tones that’re technically disadvantageous mutations have popped up.

this also caused them to develop a three stomach situation, so they can filter out UV radiation from prey and squeeze out every nutrient they can get.