Me to kids: “Another animal for today — I want one of my characters to have a pet that is almost small enough to hide in her long hair, because she’s kind of a shy, quiet person, and was very sad and lonely for a long time, but now she has this pet-friend, so is doing better. And it should be a kind of combination bird-lizard, I think — it likes to sit on her shoulder and curl its tail around her neck, and if you weren’t paying attention, you’d think she was wearing a choker. That’s all I know about it so far — except oh, I think maybe it’s black, because her hair is black, and that’d make it easier to hide. But maybe it changes color sometimes, like a chameleon? Hm. Now it just sounds like a chameleon, but I do want it to be kind of bird-ish too. What would make it more bird-ish?”
Anand: I would give it a beak. And maybe it might be able to kinda fly. Like it’s learning. It could fly a foot but not much more.
Me: Yes, I like that. And a little bit of flying would be great. 😊 What about some feathers on the top of it head? There’s a bird in Sri Lanka called the ‘changeable hawk-eagle’. It has a crest of feathers on the top of its head. Lots of birds do, actually — this is the ‘Victoria crowned pigeon’ (sends image).
Anand: I would say more scaly. I would also say it shouldn’t be that big since it needs to hide in hair.
Kavi: I wasn’t sure how to do the wings. [sends image]
Me: SUPER-COOL. There are a lot of options. You could make them sort of like butterfly wings, maybe, sort of translucent, so they’d almost disappear unless you were looking at them right. Like these? [sends image]
Kavi: Okay I’ll try those, thanks!
