Claws

[Silverclaw]

What do you think a gestalt form werewolf's claws should be like? Normal wolf claws, short and kindof blunt? Short and sharp? Whatever.
I personaly thing they should be longer and sharper than a normal wolfs. Nothing too big like bear claws or anything though.

And I dont think being clawed by a WW would transmit the 'virius' Unless the WW just fought with another WW and had their blood on their claws.

[Lupin]

I think the claws on feet would be blunt, but I don't think the claws on the hands would be unless the werewolf spent a lot of time walking on all fours, since claws typically get that way with constant contact with the ground. (The claws of a cheetah are blunt like a wolf/dog's since they can't retract them.)

[Wynd]

That brings up another interesting point...what should the paws be like? More handlike with claws, or pawlike, or paw/hands? I have to say I like Kyoht's designs...Golden's too. Handlike when using them, and when they go onto all fours it looks more pawlike.

[WolvenOne]

Longer and sharper then a reguler wolf's claws, infact because the claws are regrowing with every shift even the back claws may be somewhat sharper and longer.

As for the paws, well, I'm a fan of paw pads on the hand myself. Which would allow for at least some four-legged mobility whilst in the halfway form.

(Though I'm not sure we've even decided whether they would have the ability to switch between full and half wolf at will or not.)

[Lupin]

For the paws something in the middle: pads, and digits shorter and thicker than a normal humans hands.

[WolvenOne]

Hmm, how much shorter and thicker may become a problem. Go too far and the lose the ability to function as hands

[Lupin]

Yeah, I didn't mean that short, but nothing that you'd mistake for a regular hand.
Picking up things? Sure.
Writing? Maybe.
Brain surgery? Not a snowball's chance.

[hydrocarbon]

Make them too pawlike in design and you lose the 'were' aspect of the werewolf, and it becomes more of an anthropomorph, or a wolf walking on its back legs. I've always been more for humanlike-hands, with some padding. Besides, when you look at your fingers, the bones are pretty short already, making them a lot shorter would constrict movement, wouldn't it?

[Hamster]

Well, as long as it isn't just a long sharp finger nail, I'm fine.

But why don't you think a werewolf can't give it's "virus" from scraching? A cat can give you "cat scrach fever" (Yes, there is such a disease. Not only made because of the song) by scraching and cuting the skin. My sister was scrached by this dirty black cat at our old house and the next day all her glands swelled up and after a doctor check, he said she got it from the cat and was called "cat scrach fever" (Well, really it was called something else but the is the pubic name for it. I think you can catch something if the WW have enough genetic material on its claws.

[Scott Gardener]

I've always liked hands that had still well-formed and slender fingers, but with pads and claws--it's part of the sharp contrast against the clunky props of most cheap werewolf movies, where the hands are clearly rubbery, awkward, and pudgy.

Probably the main difference between my image of werewolves and the consensus, including the Goldenwolf illustrations, are the pads on the thenar and hypothenar emenance (the lower part of the hand, close to the wrist.) They don't appear on wolves, so I omit them. But, they're still physiologically plausible, since human glabrous skin--the skin on the hands, which lacks hair, stretches across the entire palm and correlates with the pads of a wolf. So, thenar and hypothenar pads could I suppose form and then vanish, the way in my werewolves claws and pads form on the first toe only to vanish when the toes do.

I don't mind a paw-like hand if it's not too bulky. But claws that are noticably larger than what a wolf has is getting into Hollywood-ism. The "razor-sharp" claws make sense for werecats, but not werewolves.

Edit: Whee! My 500th post!

[Lupin]

I think you can catch something if the WW have enough genetic material on its claws.

Yeah but unlike fluids, the cellular material in the nail is dead. Of course, the werewolf could always have a nail biting problem.

[Vilkacis]

Probably the main difference between my image of werewolves and the consensus, including the Goldenwolf illustrations, are the pads on the thenar and hypothenar emenance (the lower part of the hand, close to the wrist.) They don't appear on wolves, so I omit them. But, they're still physiologically plausible, since human glabrous skin--the skin on the hands, which lacks hair, stretches across the entire palm and correlates with the pads of a wolf. So, thenar and hypothenar pads could I suppose form and then vanish, the way in my werewolves claws and pads form on the first toe only to vanish when the toes do.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, this is an example of Goldenwolf's paw pad configuration. It's from 2002, so her design may have changed since then.



It seems a bit unnatural to me, but it's certainly not an illogical design.

-- Vilkacis

[Lupin]

Probably the main difference between my image of werewolves and the consensus, including the Goldenwolf illustrations, are the pads on the thenar and hypothenar emenance (the lower part of the hand, close to the wrist.) They don't appear on wolves, so I omit them. But, they're still physiologically plausible, since human glabrous skin--the skin on the hands, which lacks hair, stretches across the entire palm and correlates with the pads of a wolf. So, thenar and hypothenar pads could I suppose form and then vanish, the way in my werewolves claws and pads form on the first toe only to vanish when the toes do.

I guess a lot of where the pads are depends on what would be in contact with the ground if the werewolf is on all fours. Does he walk on his fingers like a wolf, or on his palms like a person crawling? If it's flat on it's palm, then it makes sens to have pads near the wrist.

[outwarddoodles]

On the hand: Its a thing you really need to design to be inbetween. More paw like and they can walk on all fours better, yet use their hand less. More hand like and it can be used to pick up and other tasks easeir but not as well for the ground. Which is one thing to like the way Goldie has illustrated.

This goes for other things which poses my question. Are the werewolves going to have more a barrel chest or a human torso? The barrel allows more for walking on fours but the human torso allows for upper strenght and movement of arms.

[Wynd]

To Scott: Whoo....I think my knowledge of anatomy and technical terms just improved. But yes, you get the idea. Not too pawlike, with some leftover human and wolfen traits. I don't know, how likely is it that the 'dewclaw' or thumb would be present? I rather think it looks interesting, but don't know enough about biology or genetics to guess what would be the likely result.

Oh and totally off-subject...I know I saw someone post that they could reduce a picture to small enough size to use as an avatar so I'm beggin...help!!! I have a pic I want to use, but the PC here has no Photoshop *sob* and re-sizing in Paint isn't working!!! SOS...SOS

[Lupin]

Oh and totally off-subject...I know I saw someone post that they could reduce a picture to small enough size to use as an avatar so I'm beggin...help!!! I have a pic I want to use, but the PC here has no Photoshop *sob* and re-sizing in Paint isn't working!!! SOS...SOS

Well, you could always use the GIMP but how do to do it exactly I wouldn't know. I tend to use other stuff to resize images.

[Vilkacis]

Oh and totally off-subject...I know I saw someone post that they could reduce a picture to small enough size to use as an avatar so I'm beggin...help!!! I have a pic I want to use, but the PC here has no Photoshop *sob* and re-sizing in Paint isn't working!!! SOS...SOS

Feel free to PM me a link to it (if you need hosting, you can put it up at ImageShack), and I should be able to do something with it when I get time.

-- Vilkacis

[Scott Gardener]

The standard norm is for the thumb to form a dew claw in wolf form, while the big toe disappears. There are variants, as indicated by previous debates and discussions, including testamony from people who say that their own dogs have hind dew claws. Werewolves retaining hind dew claws is plausible--assuming you consider werewolves plausible. (See ton of other debates.)

If you have a continuous, smooth shifter, the hands / forepaws can be shifted as needed, depending on task.

[Renorei]

Ok, so I was wondering. I don't think we've talked about this yet. Oftentimes, we use the word 'clawing' in this forum. But I'm wondering, are these werewolves gonna have claws?

A dog (I really don't know about wolves, never been that close) doesn't have claws. He has thick nail things that are like claws, only not sharp. Granted, when a dog 'claws' you, it still hurts quite a lot, in fact moreso than the claws of a cat, IMO. This is because dog's nails are blunt, and blunt things generally hurt more than sharp things, regardless of skin breakage, because even if a cat does break your skin, it's a clean cut and therefore doesn't hurt as much. It's kinda weird, cause a dog and cat could both claw you with the same force, and the cat would break the skin however the dog clawing would hurt more.

Anyway, so that was just me pointing out a difference between nails and claws. However, there are issues to consider.

A dog's nails are probably blunt because he cannot retract them. If he could, they would probably be sharp. So if the nails on a human grow rapidly and result in much larger werewolf nails, they could (hypothetically) be sharp because they are practically brand new (except for the bits left over from human nails) and haven't been ground down. Basically, the human form could serve as the retraction of the claws.

That was just an argument to show that sharp claws could easily exist on a werewolf.

So a choice must be made here. There are logical reasons why either claws or nails could exist, so it's really just an issue of preference. So I'd like to hear some opinions.

IMO, if a werewolf grabs a limb (not tree limb) and squeezes hard and digs his nails in, he should be able to pierce the skin, and it would hurt like hell. This could occur with claws or nails.

However, if a werewolf had sharp claws, he could slap someone (not like b**** slap, more like claw slap) with his hand and claws and it would easily cut their skin and bleed, much like when a cat claws at you. If he did this with nails, it realistically would not be able to break the skin (and if it did, not very much), but would still hurt like hell.

It's possible that none of this is relevant, as there may not be any claw/nail action in Freeborn. But who knows? Anyway, I'd like your thoughts.

[Black Shuck]

I like your reasoning for why their claws/nails would be sharp Excelsia I think the nails on their toes would be more blunt because of the contact with the ground. If a dog walks on something like asphalt or anything else hard enough, it wears down their nails. Although the regeneration and transformation thing would kinda cancel that out. I guess if they walked around long enough their nails would eventually blunt a little. With my thought, a wolf in gestalt form would have pretty sharp nails because he wouldn't walk on his hands a lot until he shifted into a full wolf. When that happened, if he walked on concrete a lot, he might wear his front nails down a little bit. And then they can shift back to human form and the next time they shift into gestalt form, their nails would be pointy again, assuming that whatever growth was needed to make them pointy would happen when the human grew his nails normally. I just guessing that dogs' nails can be pointy because I remember my puppies have sharp little nails before they learned to walk. Of course, maybe they only get so pointy, like the canine teeth. They're more rounded on large animals, but they still convey pointy-ness Okay, maybe that was cheesy. Anyways, I think you're pretty much right about the nail issue Excelsia.

[vrikasatma]

I've seen taxidermy wolf claws. They're fairly curved and a little blunt, kind of like scraped-down badger claws. They seem pretty strong and yeah, could slash. But wolf forelegs don't work like that. Cats can slash pretty easily because their shoulders can open out and they can swipe across, the same way a bear can; wolves don't climb, they're runners, so they don't have a lot of side-to-side play in the shoulders (like cats, primates and black bears). A wolf could slash but it'd be top-down, not across.

Another analogy...cheetahs are runners, too, they have blunted claws, but their dewclaw is as flesh-hooky as any other cat's. Maybe have blunted claws on the tips of the werewolf's digits but the dewclaw/thumb is sharp enough to slash, hook and rip with?

Of course, for a gestalt with collarbones like us, all bets are off...

[Renorei]

Of course, for a gestalt with collarbones like us, all bets are off...

That's really more of what I was referring to. But you are right about regular wolves, there's not much slashing going on.

I think (and this is just my opinion) that the makers of Freeborn will probably have gestalts in this movie a lot more than just regular wolves. I would think wolves would mainly be more of a fast travel form, or maybe a form to scare humans (but not REALLY scare them) with, not so much for attacking. IMO, the gestalt form would be best built for fighting, not the wolf.

[Anubis]

i think we did do this already

anyway i think werewolves would have reteractible claws in thier gestalt form.

[Vicious]

Claws are claws. I'm pretty sure all animals in order carnivora have claws capable of rending flesh to some degree from sharing an evolutionary path. Wolves and dogs though simply aren't desxtrous enough to use them on prey, but they can still tear at things when they need to.

Think of a pet dog scratching at the screen door to get in. They can rip those up pretty good.

Our more dextrous werewolves, being capable of walking on hind legs and having hands of a sort, would likely bring thier claws to bear on prey, simply because they can.

[Lupin]

There was a short thread on the gestalt's claws here