The neck on the grown female does look a bit.. broken. And there's something about the baby female's face.. I think its the snout just being too large or something. It just looks more dog-like than anything. And the male baby could maybe use a little less height on his rump lol. As for the adult male, the way its back connects to his neck is really weird in my opinion. He just anatomically does not look like an actual deer :c I do love the direction it's going in though! I was a little sad about the idea of the fae getting a new look just because I love the current fae, but this is looking good so far and I'm sure once the final version comes out it will be awesome! Thank you guys for all your hard work! <3

I like the adult male much better than the old version. Comments have been made about the male ruff on the neck but adult male Red Deer and Elk have just this kind of look with the longer, thicker and darker hair.







Maybe the female can look more to the front or toward the male. Please note my drawing is terrible, I do not have the right apps or tools to make smooth lines or adjustments, but hopefully you can get the idea.



Here are some small changes to young (removing pointed cheeks on male and leaf near horn) and (removing flower bud and adjusting angle of ear). Also remove flower from doe ear and turn head toward male or front). I could not shift leaves around neck but I am sure your lineart personnel can fix it.

>The tail leaves... ew. The sharp colourshift is a bit unpleasant? Like, I don't know, it's very sharp/abrupt and weird. Maybe if it matched the neck leaves' colours rather than the vines it'd work better? or if the center had more of the body colour fading out into it rather than just a very thin core?

Adult male:
> adult male's leaf looks. Scrungly. like, maybe it's just the shading but it reminds me of the leaves that have been infected by the things that make them produce too many cells in certain places and they end up looking really weird?

> antlers still look kind of wonky and the prong positions don't match but the shading at least lessens the effect slightly. It's just very different from the current fae where it's easier to ignore because they really just look like, well, branches? my brain just kind of writes him of as "yeah he just has tiny scraggly tree branches growing out of his head" a bit, I think, where the new one's antlers are much more solidly giving off antler antlers vibe rather than branch antler vibes?)

> front legs' wrists/"knees" are uh. really really hard-defined with that shading and are very distracting, to us at least. Particularly the close one, the dark shading makes it very. There. Really emphasises how knobbly it is. Could probably be fixed by just slightly lessening the shading intensity there

> his far hind leg being shifted the way it was without the positioning of the front legs being shifted forward as per our breakdown on the previous thread... hm
(do the alterations to his legs/feet make his forelegs seem shorter compared to the hind ones to anyone else or is that just me? Esp. far foreleg)

> can we Please get his back hiked up as it comes towards his shoulders so it's higher than his butt? Like, not as extreme as out suggestions from the last thread but just so like, top-line-just-hidden-by-leaf higher? I DO appreciate his butt at least being Flatter than the previous Lumpybutt, but he feels like he should have beefy shoulder area like an adult male elk or something and he just. Doesn't?

> I'm squinting at the ruff, and does it transition to the same colourslot as the antlers towards the bottom? I feel like that could potentially get a bit weird

> Also would be nice if the transition from the ruff to the lower chest/foreleg was a smoother transition? Currently it kind of reminds us of a rabbit dewlap more than an elk... mane? (I think maybe because elk have a narrower neck and the fur comes to a sort of... point? along the lowest edge, where the fae have a broader neck that isn't shaped the same way as an elk's?)



Adult Female:
> why weren't her front foreleg's proportions fi x e d before shading aaaaA I hate it I hate it, PLEASE, please fix the proportions on the leg it's so bad, please



> not sure why her torso was made longer, was that something someone commented on or something? It seemed a perfectly fine length to me

> her petals are very. Fleshy/thick? ?

> far hind foot angle wasn't adjusted at all (but the male's which seemed fine as it was in comparison was?)

> she still has lumpybutt and lumpythigh while the male had his fixed?

> still think her face is just a tad too long?

> Is the flower/neck leaves perhaps too busy? There's a lot of shading and shade lines everywhere, where they're darker than the current art, and there's more of them? Obviously, we don't know how the updated g3 traits are going to look, but I feel like, sometimes they're hard enough to see the current versions on the less-cluttered current leaves, are we going to be able to see them well on these if there's so many overlapping leaves and so much dark shading? It might be fine, it's just hard to tell without knowing how the g3's are going to end up looking

> still not 100% on the way the neck connects to the body.

for comparison's sake, our previous version edits layered over current version



Baby male:
> His legs seem fine so that's nice

> something about his face seems weird now it has shading? hm. Might be that it looks like,,, hang on, I will collate my thoughts on both his backline/shoulders/neck and head into an image



> I think my only actual real problem is how odd the back line going directly down into the shoulder line?

here's another alt. version of the shoulder area



I think it is that as it currently is his far foreleg looks a bit disconnected?

>shading on his belly around where the leg meets his torso seems weird- no shadow from the leg?

> the close hindleg might actually connect a little too high up on the torso, now that the shading is in place?


Baby female:
> her head shape was altered so the extreme dip in her face is less pronounced, so I have nothing to really say, since that was basically my only issue with the previous version

--

The shading on everything that isn't the neck leaves and the baby male's belly seems nice overall, though

(I feel like I'm being way too overall negative and that makes me feel bad about it, but I dunno, my brain just nitpicks over things like some kind of vulture. If other people overall like it, that's probably what should count more. I just feel the need to point these out in case any of them might ring true to other viewers. Or get the female adults foreleg fixed. Oh my god please fix her leg if nothing else please fix the leg proportions)

Just a quick side by side reference of the new/old art. So much improvement!
The male is far less stout and the antlers are just fantastic, the vines are much more recognizable and dont look like maybe they could be blood veins. I love how their eyes look now.

I'm excited to see what the genes and mutations look like.. though after the nyte revamp i am a bit concerned that the skull mutation may end up looking not quite right.

Overall, id say a nice upgrade for the species.

(edit: also love how the babies got even more spots than before!)

To clarify on the neck shapes, deer can look completely behind themselves. Their necks are very flexible, and she was made to match the pose of the old female. Perhaps the view without her petals will help clarify!







I am reviewing things though. ^^

^ now I want to see "no petals" as a mutation.

Or at least more subtle options. >.>


Edit:

Also going to comment that the "rumpled leaves" look on the male reminds me of succulents, so I actually don't mind it.

For example:
Ripple Peperomia


Even if the current one isn't kept as the default, it'd make a nice mutation! I really do hope that different leaves and petals will be an option for these; there would be so much potential!

ooh!

Ok, I'll get to a more thorough analysis later, maybe, but first I have to say that something about the face didn't sit right with me, so I tried making a edit:



It's slight, and I don't know if anyone else thinks it's necessary, but I like it better with the eyes and brow bone changed a little. (I also tried lazily smoothing the males leaves; it's not really a good improvement, I was just trying to see how they'd look.)

Edit: Ok, adding more.

I actually have no problem with the poses. I really like how the fur shading has been done: they look furry and detailed but still very smooth. Just what I was hoping! And the vines are greatly improved as well. I like how the tail looks more like a leaf now.
I do think the male's antlers are greatly improved (there's space for the ears now!), but I do wish they could be just a little wider. Maybe it's just in comparison with the old ones that makes them look a bit squashed.
I'm not really sure why the male baby has such a fluffy face? It reminds me a bit of a fox face. But that's not a big deal, just something I noticed.
I do think that the male and female adults seem to have somewhat different proportions. I don't know if that's something that's too late to change, but the female has a longer body.

Really, it is a great improvement. I just care a lot about how Faeloras are going to look!

They look really pretty overall, but here's a few things I noticed:

- The texture of the male's neck leaves looks... off. I'm not entirely sure how to describe or fix it, but it contrasts oddly with the other leaves. Sort of rubbery maybe? Too thick/bulgy? Not as flat looking as the others.
Edit: The indents on the male's neck leaves appear too thick and round, and the bumpy edges add to the texture issue.

- The male's top few neck leaves appear too high up compared to the others.
- The male's chest fluff doesn't blend very well with the rest of the fur. The sort of shape indicated in the 3rd sketch looks much more natural.


- The baby male's face looks very noticeably doglike. The baby female's face also kind of gives me dog vibes.
- The baby male's back is curved oddly, when deer backs are very straight. His stomach also comes out more than his chest, which makes it look kind of like he has a pouch.
- The leaf on the baby male's horn looks a little odd.


- The female's torso has an odd taper to it, and her rump sticks out too much from her leg.
- The close foreleg of the female should be pretty evenly split between the upper and lower sections, rather than a large upper portion and short lower portion.
- The female's neck/head may look less awkward with her head raised.
- The shading on the female's neck flower looks a tad too dark to me, and the shadow above her eye in particular is very dark.

Someone also suggested I adjust the bottom of the female's flower, so here's that.

Definitely agree with the suggestion to have more c1 show up on the tail. I also agree with Xav on making the tail match either the underbelly or neck foliage color.

My thoughts regarding the Faelora being a fantasy species:
Yes, they're cartoon fantasy animals on a square canvas, and things will be stylized and not match up 1:1 with real deer. That's to be expected. However, they are heavily based on real deer. Stylizations and other deviations from real deer should be intentional decisions to elevate the art's appeal. And even then, if those decisions end up very unpopular, it might be worth it to consider changing that. The female's close foreleg proportions, for example, are noticeably different from a real deer's, and not in a way that matches any other fae forelegs. Changing it would have little to no impact on gene visibility, nor make it necessary to shrink the image on the canvas. It looks like an error, not a deliberate decision. Something similar could be said regarding the baby male's back curve, and most of the suggestions in this thread.

These are gorgeous!!!

The only thing I would change is perhaps making their eyes a bit more like the current Fae eyes? I very much like that cartoony style and I think it fits better with the big eyes of the other Sylesties