quarian structure notes as requested. bigger image: here
like the others, these notes assume you know how to draw humans. don’t try to learn weird aliens before humans.
this is a simplistic breakdown of their body structure, and doesn’t cover suit appearances, or nude details. that is up to your own creativity. check the turnaround links for reference for suits.
leg justification: many people draw quarian legs the same as humans (plantigrade), while the models clearly show a bowed-back leg too extreme to not have a joint (see the second image). the shapes of their armored suits can make it hard to discern, so hopefully the bone demonstation helps clarify it. as further justification, in the citadel DLC, tali comments (with digitigrade turian garrus) confusedly how humans don’t tip over with their weird legs. jack calls her doglegs in reply. I don’t think this exchange would’ve been included if quarians had legs like humans.
useful turnarounds: tali, kal’reegar
another quarian reference I’ve made: here
turian structure here
geth structure here
krogan structure here
salarian structure is coming next!

The alien jerks are now taking questions!
Check out the character lineup, then submit a question.
Questions can be directed toward a character: “Halcyon, what class do you play in Galaxy of Fantasy?”
Directed toward a pair: “Baiya and Halcyon, who has more game hours logged?”
Or not directed at all: “Who is interested in video games?”Every answer will include art!
we decided to open an art-based ask blog for all our alien brats. throw them some questions, follow the blog! please and thank you

clickthrough to the full image!!
this is a line up of all most of my (and a friend’s) mass effect characters in their underwear, plus a little blurb about them. i started this image… months ago. but it was really fun drawing all the different species and body types. interspecies 4 life
if you’ve got any questions or curiosities about individuals or pairs, drop me an ask :)
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you wanted to see a bunch of unfinished boring ME OC doodles didn’t you??
part 1
sorry about no tali today. artblock something fierce
WAIT here is a quarian run cycle WIP from a while ago. before this, i hadn’t done a run cycle since i was like 12 sob sob
pretty crotchety but it’s a start!! digitigrade for life

sometimes when i’m drunk i just draw butts
and i’m never gonna settle on a naked quarian design. this is that butchish look from a few weeks ago.

geth structure tutorial. bigger image
again, this isn’t made to help you draw humans. learn that first. this is just some simple anatomy details for this weird alien robot.
for detailing, refer to these turnarounds: geth trooper, legion
working on a krogan one too. if you have other requests, lemme know!
turian structure here((Oooh this is brilliant! Some really helpful things in here, thank you!
But, hmm. I’m actually pretty sure Geth and Quarian legs aren’t actually digitigrade. They probably used to be, but the ‘second knee’ is in the process of merging with the first knee and the exaggerated bowing of the shin is a vestige of that. Or something. I’ve never seen them bend doubly, at least. Kal’Reegar came close when you first see him, with how he’s squatting, but I just thought they were bowed like they always are, not bent. That might be a silly animation limitation…? Idk. Can someone point me to conclusive evidence for or against? Now I’m curious. XDD))
Well, the armature that regular geth are rigged to is the same one all the other humanoid races use, including Turians who obviously have digitigrade legs, but that’s more for making it easier to animate them, since they can all use the same animation sets. However, quarian and geth legs don’t appear to have the musculature to bend at a second joint where the leg bows, where as Turians, for example, are obviously meant to bend there. They also don’t have any kind of spur or dewclaw or such that would suggest there being a joint there. As for canon, I don’t really know. I don’t think there’s anything in the games about quarians and geth legs specifically, and I’ve never read the novels.
There are geth that have a second joint. Hopper legs are meant to bend at a joint there and in the first game, are even rigged to their own armature, which lets them have animations that utilize the extra joint. That’s also why their animation sets were wildly different than the other humanoid ones. I’m fairly sure this is also a likely reason why they were ditched in the subsequent games, since they do require a separate animation set (I’m aware that elcore and hanar need separate animation sets as well, but their sets are significantly smaller because they never enter combat).
I don’t know if game mechanics can count as canon, though.
EDIT: As for Kal looking like he bends there, next time you do that mission, make sure to have the freefly camera toggle bound to a key and use it to get a good look at his legs. They do clip, but the camera angles you can normally achieve tend to hide it. What’s funny about this is that they apparently forgot about it in ME3 because I can very obviously see my geth MP character’s legs clip all the damn time.
EDIT2: Goddamnit, I need to stop doing this.
Definitions:
armature - the skeleton that the character is connected to. Most animations use the skeleton to move the various parts of the body (facial animations are very different)
rigged/rigging - Assigning different parts of a character’s body different weights which dictate how much a specific bone on the skeleton will affect that body part when moved
clip/clipping - You know how Aria’s collar sometimes disappears partially into her neck? That’s clipping. It drives me fucking bonkers.
seems like a debate happened! here is what I have to add about quarian legs. I made an image!
models from troodon80’s gallery, as usual
I’ve definitely struggled with the appearance of quarian legs, and how a quick glance and their animations seem to show a bowed back tibia/fibia rather than something digitigrade. but try as I might, I cannot make that look make sense. putting bones in there makes them look very structurally unsound, and not to mention unnatural.
I think that it’s definitely a limitation of the game’s animations rigs. krogan and salarian are also digitigrade, and have higher ankles than quarian and geth, but also use the same human animation rigs. no one is doubting their legs. kikaimegami points out the geth hoppers from me1, which do have a separate animation for their different legs. seeing the hoppers is one of the things that convinced me they must be extrapolated from standard geth legs, which where first modeled from quarians.
the smooth curving shapes of the quarian armor does have a tendency to disguise where their ankles could be (there are also no models of quarians not in their armored suits, while krogan and salarian both have casual clothes models). you could describe it away with some sort of fused ankle joint (with the tibua/fibia fusing with the tarsals/metatarsals) but they would still technically be digitigrade.
on the image I’ve pointed out some armor indications that the leg is meant to bend at that joint. if the leg below the knee is fixed, it might as well be a solid piece of armor, as seen on human/batarian/asari armor in game.
one last thing is occam’s razor when considering the design, in which the simplest answer is probably the correct one. would the conceptual artist create an alien leg after something familiar on earth in many animals, as well as many “familiar alien” type designs, or go for something unfamiliar and difficult to understand?
ok that’s all. quarian legs are serious shit.
I hope you mean these guys!
moglin is controlling, but protective. he gets mad when kazza spends too long out of his suit. their relationship… isn’t very healthy, no.
ugh click this to see it better. i just can’t win against tumblr sometimes
i’m growing quite fond of the official quarian look, even though i’ve been adding my personal touch. as seen here. the bottommost drawing is a pass at quarians if i were to design them, the head crest is supposed to be flappies like geth have, to emote.