The first (non-fakemon, I don’t count those) species I remember making was what turned into my current personal species ”Hexlan.” The original idea was basically “race of cat people that travel the stars and stuff.” I was a big nerd back then. Also boring, because I called it “Stellaran” at the time. Ahexlus was actually the name of a Stellaran colony at first, I later used it for the species as a whole. The “Stellaran” idea kinda ended up morphing into the lore of the species in a way.
Do you still use your first species at all?
15 Votes
Yes
12 Votes
No
4 Votes
I've never made any sort of original species.
10 Votes
It's complicated.
Pretty straightforward! What was the first original species you ever created? I'm not necessarily talking open/closed species, either; did you make up your own kind of animal when you were 6? Did you slap animal ears on an OC and give them their own species name? Did you combine two existing species and call it your own thing? Did you make a fan species for a game you liked? Talk about that first effort of yours, no matter how original or deep it was! Do you still use them at all? If they weren't that original, do you call them something more generic now instead of considering them their own species? Did you end up fleshing them out a bunch? If they were fandom-inspired, do you still associate them with said fandom?
In addition, if you're an open/closed species creator, feel free to talk about your first foray into making one of those!
I'd say my first species would be Imaginarys (sic)? When my little brother and I were kids - this was probably like 2003 so I wasn't even in double digits yet - we were obsessed with Neopets, so we wanted to create our own theoretical virtual pet concept. I think that's sort of where it started, anyway. We came up with the concept of a world where imaginary friends were real and lived out zany adventures and yes we were VERY indignant when Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends came out because they totally ripped us off.
Imaginarys (again, sic, even back then the misspelling was intentional) were all individual characters - Rainblob the rainbow blob, Googoo the blatant Chauncey expy who became president in the 2004 US elections (long story,) Happysad the... something, Strawberry the... also something, so on and so forth, but we all considered them to be under the same species blanket of Imaginarys. It was gonna be huge, there were gonna be movies! And CDs! But point is that was my first sort of species.
Imaginarys came with two more species that were more akin to Actual species: there were Mutans (sic again,) which were supposed to be mutated Imaginarys or Imaginarys gone wrong or something else that made them evil?? Or maybe they were just their own thing?? Idk, point is they were mostly brown little blob things with bumps on their heads; regrettably I lack any images of them on-hand despite them being extremely simple. There were also the Sirisis, which were pointy, shadowy figures that resembled seriousness and Those Mean Ol' Adults. They were created by Mr. E (who was literally just that one guy from the Kirby anime who sent Dedede monsters) and I think maybe recurring childhood villain the Mistress of Evil to go into Imaginaria (where the Imaginarys lived) and destroy imagination and creativity.
I technically still consider Imaginarys to be "canon" in that I include the characters when I make OC lists and whatnot even though I haven't done anything with them or thought much about them in ages. But they were The Thing for a huge chunk of my life and grew up along with be, so I have a soft spot for those little dudes! It might be fun to do something with them someday, especially considering it's probably the only kid-friendly series I have. At the very least it'd be fun to recreate that Imaginarys handbook someday!
After that I didn't really make up a lot of species since I've always mostly focused on humans. There were a few years where I made a lot of Paper Mario fan characters and some were just one-off "ambiguous Paper Mario species;" just a design that seemed like it fit the universe. You can see a bunch here: a lot are clearly existing Mario species, but others I just made up to fit my own stories. Pretty much none of them really see much use anymore; Ki was supposed to be the same species as Mimi from SPM and still sees occasional RP use where her status is Ambiguously Fan-Character Adjacent and Tayl is still an active OC of mine who I don't consider a fan-character anymore. Bunny was technically created for an SPM fan comic, but I never considered him a unique species or a fan character or anything.
I guess the first species I made completely on my own would be the Tested. Originally they were just a term for people who lived in that story's setting, but I kept making stuff up to make them Humans, But Cooler. I didn't want to address them having "imperfections" or bodily functions or genitals or any other things I didn't like, so they slowly became human at first glance only. As time's gone on I've doubled down on that sort of thing intentionally; their species functions based on the whims of their creator, essentially, so they're what said creator thinks ideal people should look and function like. Their healing factor is based on reverting to their base design instead of Actually Healing, they can't permanently change their appearance, etc. So they went from not really being a species to something I've put a lot of thought into, and now their species has a big impact on their characters, especially as they get exposed to other universes and realize they're not ordinary human beings after all.
...Well that was kind of a long ramble, but that's what discussion forums are for! So, how about you? What were the first species you made up and where are they now, if anywhere?
The first species I made up was a species for my fantasy novels I initially made when I was like... 7? They technically still exist but they've been so massively revamped so many times that the end result is not recognizable as the initial creation. I don't remember what their first name was; given my usual writing habits of the time, it was probably taken from a fantasy novel I read or game I played. ...Actually, I may have named them after the villain from Crystalis, Draygonians/Draygons sounds familiar. After the physical revamp (to sauroids) I think I named them bird-dragons in... some language. Probably Japanese, it would have been the right time for my weeb stage.
These days they have once again had a huge revamp, and this time I actually have a bit of (incomplete) writing with them to share. Hopefully I'll have the ability to finish it soon, but I'm not holding my breath.
Unfortunately I can’t remember if I made any “species” that actually had a name prior to 2012, save for that fakemon starter set (the name eludes me right now though)
—but 2012 was the year I learned about species (the dA kind), so I remember making a closed species called “Raburrins” that had two subspecies: “Tiffins” and “Liffins”. The difference between the two were how the ears were shaped and the tail, but they were basically bunny-like creatures with nubby hands and feet xD Surprisingly, I managed to find one of my old designs here on Toyhou.se! It rests in the Workshop folder for now, but man it was definitely nostalgic to look at it, since I didn’t get a tablet until 2015 so I had to struggle with the mouse.
I honestly can't remember the species I made as a kid, especially given I had a lot of fake digimon I made for myself and everything just kinda blended into one. I have also had a lot of species that are their own thing in their universe, but what I wouldn't call original species, like personal takes on werewolves or angels or stuff like that. I think the first species I consider sort of original is this still unnamed type of what I just broadly refer to as demons, as they live in a demon realm, but "demon" refers to all species including original and existing ones in my setting. They're very cat-like in their behavior and enjoy playing even as an adult, and they have fast reflexes and a very humanoid-typical appearance of being basically a human with horns, tails and sometimes sort of funky eyes lol.
Back in like maybe 2015 I also made this sheep based species I also still haven't named because I suck at species names, but I do have characters like Morgan who are blood tied to the species but they have another parent. They're very satyr-like in appearance and honestly I always find myself focusing more on culture and behavior than designs. I did make a bunch of non-humanoid species for my worldsetting and RP group Taros though!
Nowadays I also have vetehi, but since they're basically a subtype of a dragon I call them subspecies rather than original species
I had a concept of cats there were on fire like parts of their body had fire "auras" next to them but when I posted the concept of it people told me it was too unoriginal (that hurt little 10 year old carlo's heart)
Then in my teens (so sometime in 2014 maybe??) I had these humanoid neko girls with cat ears that were similar to The vocaloid SEEU and they had normal cat tails
I made a few of them and people on deviantart really liked them but of course I gave up on it because I didn't like the idea anymore
I'm definitely gonna have to draw a concept of what they looked like
The first species I can remember making was vorox. They were originally based of the bionical species which were also called vorox, however I have added and changed so much I feel like they are completely different at this point and view them as an original species of mine. The only similarities now is the name and their tail.
I have had these species for about 8 years now and there is a massive amount of info and lore and characters and everything and I have yet to write everything down. They are very important to me.
My very very first species I made for a story/comic i was writing when I was maybe 10 or 12! They were a race of dragonoids who lived in a dimension parallel to Earth. They lived high in the mountains of a desert area, and their life source was a literal fire that burned in their bellies! They had dark skin, warm coloured hair, and were tall...and I remember the way their bodies process energy made them very fit, so they would've had a tendency to think chubbier people are blessed (that's little me dealing with insecurity about her body //). This species was just for the story and I never named them or anything! My main OC of this species, Rhett, is one of the very very very few characters from that time that I still actively use! He's no longer a dragon but he is a reptile!
My first closed species was a species called Gemfoxes! They were shapeshifting fox anthros who's powers came from rhe gemstones they consumed. I stopped using them because their lore was based in a story I was writing at the time called Dividia, and because I had an impossible time writing Dividia lore, I had an impossible time with gemfox lore too. I am reusing some concepts for a species I'd want to turn into an arpg tho!
I still use most of the species I created! My species creation process for the longest time has been to first use a generic species I liked, then over time as I used them more define them more and more and decide what sets them apart as "my world's [x]". As a result, many of my species ended up being "this variation of [x] that is intrinsic to my world", in the same way that you have dogs and then you have Bedlington terriers, and while Bedlington terriers are definitely dogs and share common traits with them, not all dogs are Bedlington terriers and the breed brings its own unique features to the table no other breed combines!
So most of my species are like that, but I still consider them species because of how far I went in developing them. Defining their physical characteristics, their culture and behaviours, and for many even coming up with their own anatomy and physiology. One of my oldest examples is my demons, who by all means are pretty standard demons but I consider them to be a species on their own anyway. I mean, they can't interbreed with your standard mythological demon so biologically speaking, they indeed are their own species! I don't know if my dragons or my demons are my oldest, so I'd say they tie. That would age them both at when I was around 11, so they're from 2007!
My first newly designed species has to be my familiars. They're based on a type of cat-monkey-ish thing I used to draw a lot when I was 14! They haven't been as important, but are definitely present in the world.
All of the aforementioned species are still in use since they form the basis of my characters and my worldbuilding. The fun thing about changing a creature's physiology and anatomy is the worldbuilding aspect of it, and since my world has always been a project I built further upon over time, it would be strange to just randomly reject a species because it's too old. It'd be like ripping a gear out of the center of a delicate complex piece of machinery. The only species I didn't continue with was my shades, which were some kind of Enderman-like creatures who possessed a body and who generally lived by vampire rules. They were created for a comic with a friend that we ended up not going through with.
My first species in which I could call it any sort of species that were my Palmies! [Kaede] [Suzuha] [Ichi] [Toppu] I was going to release them as a CS years ago but then I realized no one would want to draw them because of how needlessly complex they are. Hundreds-thousands live in any single forest on my world, and the few characters I have of them aren't horribly developed and instead are just NPC level. I have a bunch of lore and rules and variants but the forest near my main town only has the maple variety, so I don't actually have any variants as examples lmao.
they are awful to draw which is why I've only stuck to these four lkasjdg
these guys were my first speices i still kinda like them but not many others seemed to but i'm kinda itching to revamp them maybe making them into tiny naga species. like hand holding size with sweet elements
It's a toss-up between Corowulves, Florofoxes, and Draconines. I think I made them all around the same time, buuut...if I had to place an estimate on absolutely which one is the oldest, I think it's Draconines- the "flagship" species member, Xander, is VERY old and I've had him for a looooong time. There's also Hesperus technically, but I don't have a feral design for him yet (most characters in Drakhallios have both feral and humanoid forms).
They're not very interesting and I'm sure other people have made very similar designs to this but they still hold a spot in my heart lol