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vii-spider · 15 days

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doing a mermay-style thing focused on bugs this may! so...

may-fly 2nd: hatsune michura

i'm the number one "crustaceans are bugs" proponent, so, what better way to start off may-fly than with a crab? more info n stuff under the cut!

michura is, obviously, based on a crab! she isn't any one specific species or clade, i just kinda took the general look of a crab and put miku into it. her name comes from miku (duh) and brachyura, which is the infraorder under decapods that all so-called "true crabs" fall into

the idea for this came from when, a couple days ago, i just Completely misinterpreted miku fanart i saw on twitter, and thought she had crab eyes. immediately fell in love with the idea after hastily scribbling this out on my phone at like 12:30 in the morning

so! i had to learn crab anatomy for this. and it is. fucked up.

first and foremost: understanding how the hell their faces work. surprisingly, it's not as complex as you'd think. those rectangular "jaws" you see?

yeah, those are a pair of modified legs, neatly folded up, called maxillipeds. all the other mouthparts (including two other pairs of maxillipeds!) are tucked away behind those. so, thankfully, i only needed to give michura one pair of maxillipeds if i wanted to be particularly accurate!

something else i've learned that people tend to get wrong is how crab claws work. most people draw them opening from both sides, with a jagged and sometimes even hollow inside. but if you take a look at them on a real crab...

see that divide between the lower and upper "fingers?"

that's because only the top part of a crab's claw can move! the bottom part is just an extension of the "wrist" segment!

as for what's up with her arms... well, it's simple, really. i wanted to keep the claws because that's what crabs are known for, but i also wanted her to have more dexterous grasping appendages. originally both pairs of arms were on the torso, which was... more than a bit cluttered. i almost completely ditched the second pair, until-

"why not do two smaller front legs?"

in reference to how people give spider characters those weird stupid chelicera/palp/leg things. while i despise it on spiders... it's actually pretty in-line with how crabs are built, given their claws are just modified front legs! so, naturally, instead of putting the claws down there, i moved her hands down to where her frontmost legs would be, because i thought that would be kind of funny. i think it was a good call, honestly! since, i'd argue it's better for the more precise and dexterous grasping appendages to have the wider range of motion, and be able to reach the ground more easily, and i think it gives the design that "fucked up kind of weird" factor i really really like

uhhhh tldr, crab miku. i learned some stuff about crab anatomy in drawing her and now you have too

#my art #may-fly #hatsune miku #miku fanart #crab #crab girl #hatsune michura #cw bugs #sorta #crustaceans #brachyura #vocaloid #vocaloid fanart #btw may-fly isn't daily #i'm gonna try to do something once every ~4 or so days #since i have finals next week and don't want to be totally unable to draw when i “should”#so expect the next may-fly post around like #the 6th or so

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