anonymous asked over on Tumblr:

Guideline for Manuul colors? Pelt/fur, eyes variety and non-fur spots like nose skin or hands.
^ what's considered natural to have. I want to make manuul design that's closest to what's naturally occurring! They'll have unnatural pigment but likely from fur dye ect. It's more fun to experiment that way . For me anyway :3

Posted in july 2025

They don't have fur on them. Only feather-like structures that they shed yearly. Half of their face is just skin, and then they have scutes on limb extremities. Same goes for kyhuines and Mierthri, they're all feathered. And most of the fauna that have a type of covering are feathered too.

I do have doodles from a year ago, nothing spectacular, but a guide to myself that was never meant to be shared. There is no need to color pick or be 1-1 to the examples, variants happen, discoloration can occur, etc.
It probably isn't very clear because people don't have the current world map imprinted in their brain like I do.

People are often mixed, you can play with how coats would mix in someone with several heritages. These are not subspecies, although true polar bears can be argued to be one, but the gene flow between them and nearby groups like lue'wue'upeh are so common that they aren't considered as such. A better word would be regional variant

Most common feather dye are red, yellow, and brown. Uncommon colors are indigo and purple. Rarest and most expensive would be green. They would need to redo the dye every time they shed their feathers. Darkening the tips of feathers are common in nuinuk region, usually with non permanent dye like charcoal, as it also give a shiny effect and is a good repelent for some parasites. Feather bleaching involves toxic minerals that create toxic fumes, but fashion is more important, even if the sophonts have dainty lungs, so they do it anyway. Doing it in small quantities isn't life-threatening. Bleached feathers would look damaged and have an off-white look to them, so not something people would aim for unless they're into alternative fashion.

Maanul's eye colors are pretty restricted. While in humans brown is the default, for maanuls it is yellow. Maanul and kyhuines are born with brown eyes that lighten to a gold color as they age. Common spread out color mutations are orange and red. Some people may also never have their eye lighten (mutation), thus staying brown in adulthood. It is seen as a youthful trait to have.