mattalliccolouredphallusinmybutt:
So I finally kind of sort of drew what my headcanon quarian looks like
you can call it tali and kal, or just two random quarians idek idek
but i referenced heavily from these two headcanon posts, as well as this one (more for the internal workings of the suit/external design of the suit, which I didn’t really get into,) and this other post that brought up a good point mentioning that Javik apparently says that quarians looked attractive to Protheans in their cycle? I can’t find the original post/reblogs of it ahhh but it’s there somewhere.
their faces look a lot more busy than was originally intended, because they’re done in all pen and I sketched the mask/helmet/head gear first and added the pen in later as a lighter colour SMART MATT
but yeah so they’ve got the markings on the face because there are many mentions of quarians being family-oriented, and very attached to their crew and the people they serve with, so they would have their birth ship’s “symbol” or letter tattooed on their face or sm like that
and then of course they come from a desert planet, right? So they’ve got the flattened ears from k4ll0, and the ventilation slits/cuts all over their body and their face
the tubes coming out of their noses and mouths are for vitamin supplements/their fantastic paste-food/oxygen (well the mix of chemicals found in the air on Rannoch/on the ships in the Migrant Fleet
and I’ve always fancied the idea that they have something on their heads. I imagine their skin to be tough because of the heat and just living in a desert environment and because Grunt makes that mention with quarians being “tough, you have to work the blade” and that sort of thing. Their skin is probably pretty pebbly for camouflage purposes and…. well, hot desert environment, rocky cliffs, as makanidotdot mentions with the lack of insect life the animal population on Rannoch is probably mainly large, tough animals and the quarians with the thinner skin would be easy prey and natural selection and blablabla
mmmmmmost of what I’ve done with the design is based off of what Javik apparently said about quarians being attractive and whatnot, and what would fit inside the silhouette of their suit helmets.
you kind of can’t see it too well (it didn’t work out too well on the female quarian/tali) but I intended for their jaw to be set forward more than humans, and their mouths to be generally wider. Wider mouths and a bigger jaw allow for bigger meals!
they also have slightly elongated heads (based on the prothean comment and what seems like it would fit inside the silhouette we’re given
and, while I love love love makanidotdot’s tendril/tentacle things, i also really love the head plates that are reminiscent of prothean’s head plate triangle thing! the female has fewer rows of plates that get bigger as they move up on the head, and the males have more rows (usually 2-4) of smaller plates. This allows room for more ventilation in the heads of the males, and I’ll just explain a little culture-headcanon right here
so, while the modern quarians are very family-oriented and all about groups defining the whole rather than individuals, it seems to me that quarians could have been a very matriarchal society back in the day. Not necessarily in the sense that women ran the joint (I believe that it was still a very equal, family-oriented thing and that ‘tribe’ decisions were more democratic than not) but in the sense that women were seen as the most important members of society and they stayed and cared for the children while the men hunted for them.
so on that note, the reason the female has thicker head-plates that are larger and closer together is that they would be spending their time, not necessarily sitting around but not really exerting a silly amount of physical effort and would need more protection from the sun than males, who would be running around, hunting and ‘sweating’ and doing a lot of things that involved physical strain and would require more ventilation for internal heat than straight-up sun protection.
and just a thought but maybe they would be partially nocturnal? most desert animals here on earth are nocturnal, and that might explain why their eyes glow (sort of like cat eyes)
sorry that everything’s got such a shitty explanation, like I said all the credit goes to the original artists and this is just my take on all that.
I’d really be interested in discussing this concept with people who have differing/opposing opinions so if you want to have a chat/want to know more please just drop me an ask or two!
OH I ALSO FORGOT TO MENTION that since they live in the bio-bubbles up until they start to reach adult age, I believe that their skin has a chance to harden slightly in that time period—it wouldn’t be as tough as it was when they were still living and thriving on the homeworld—but it would still toughen and wouldn’t degrade so much when they started living in the enviro-suits
