El Indon - Buck Concepts (Patreon)

An awful lot of development went into Buck, but in the end a great deal of it won't be used in the story. He's always been a big blue theropod-like thing, but his face, size, and posture have changed a lot. I was going to give him a beak at one point, but that made him look too much like a traditional gryphon, and I absolutely do not want to use classical monsters in this story. No gryphons, no dragons, no krakens, none of that.

Buck was always a mute animal, though he's not a dumb animal. He clearly understands human speech, but can't express anything himself. For the longest time I pondered making him smarter than Duncan - but that would invalidate a lot of Duncan's character. I also thought of having him be an animal who wanted to learn to read, but there's very little a mute character can do to get that across. Other characters would have to remark on it, and that would distract from the story at hand. I do want to bring his corrective lenses back at some point, though, just for the cute factor.

He also had an original owner, that person in the bottom right, but I never developed them past that sketch. That's just not part of this story.