Kaa

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by Skink

Scraps

I have a love-hate relationship with Kaa. Part of me loves him for being a major snake in animation, he's the one most people think of when they think cartoon snake. I love snakes and I love animation. His coils were animated in a way I wish I saw more often. He had weight and the appearance of strength and volume. Rare in snake animations! They're usually weightless, floppy, flat tubes.

The rest of me hates him for being SO key that he influences how people draw snakes when they pick up drawing. Kaa has that classic and completely incorrect face with brows, mammalian eyes that are far away, and a dog-like snout. Lots of people who try to draw snakes and are still inexperienced at drawing end up adopting this formula, often with Kaa in mind. That, and he's the poster boy for hypnotism and mind control fetish pieces. So if I see snakes in one of my favorite subjects, I end up with.. well. A derp faced snake. Combining one of my likes with one of my pet peeves is ASLDKGLAKDGKL.

Considering his range and mass, Kaa would be an Indian Python. He is absolutely HUGR by snake standards, so he would be one of 2 indian python subspecies, the Burmese Python. This is a terrestrial species, and not one you will find in trees. The only arboreal constrictor "giant" (it is small by giant standards) lives in Australia, the Amethystine Python.

Oddly enough, his simplified coloration actually puts him rather close to the burmese python morph called Green (which has taken on Patternless and Anaconda as a morph name in recent seasons.) Keeping that in mind I played with his markings minimally, but as for the face, well.. I drew a snake, not a kaa-thing.

Yay, snake facts! But no seriously, if you want to draw snakes, DON'T learn from looking at the design of Kaa. Because seriously, does this look like this or this?

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