An old description text remains for the history:
Or more exactly face to nape - breathing down to each other’s neck. My purpose is to portray both genders of both races for easy visual comparison. It was exciting for me, because different information sources (including Blizzard) never gave clear view about it. Wiki, wowWiki, and reference sections of official resources – all tells different things. WOW legends and references are numerous, but there is no such thing like comparative schema. Those guys - orcs, sometimes they are portrayed being just a little bigger then humans, but often you can see them as huge doubles of "green Hulk" with arms three times thicker then humans has.
Set of WOW races is just slightly modified set of classical fantasy nations. But taurens are something outstanding. After all, I just like them (despite that fact I am fanatic technocrat and feel my affinity to dwarves). So I desided to portray taurens and humans standing close to each other to let visual comparison to be easy. But please, don't forget - it is just my personal view, no more.
I have paid tribute to realism. Really and truly, if taurens and humans fight each other in melee combats competitively, then advantage in physical power must be in reason. My taurens still bigger then orcs and trolls, who are in turn bigger then humans. But not two times bigger. I equated common tauren males in height to the tallest of humans - from 7' 1" to 7' 3" (I leave 8+' acromegals out of account because of their uniqueness). But taurens are not just tall; also they are extremely muscled as the most brutal weightlifters in professional sport. Tauren ladies are far smaller, being slightly larger then human males, but has soft smooth body built and little muscle mass, possessing consequently the same strength as them.
My taurens are not as bestial as original. For fun, I have thought up an explanation. Imagine that outer appearance of hornies was recalled from memory of few eyewitnesses. It is human nature to exaggerate what they have seen in far past. Imagine memoirs of these non-existent witnesses, where taurens described as nation of giants with goat's legs and bull's heads. Then imagine some historians, who construed tauren image as classical minotaur from Greek mythology, and interpret words "giant" and "towering" as "nine feet in height".
Bestial features are developed to different extents in dependency of tauren's gender. Guys has large and sharp horns, while women, as a rule, has little underdeveloped horns that are strongly arched backwards, but long and well-developed tails in oppose to male's short neat tails. Male's limbs are long and extremely muscled, female's limbs much shorter and weaker. Girl's arms are slender and tender, having no relief muscles, and no such brutal strength, but much better for manipulations with breakables, or with bow and arrows. Legs are not as bent as male's legs, they are almost straight, and visually resemble human's legs. While tauren gentlemen walk "crouching", tauren ladies walk "tiptoe". Spectacular hips and rears of taureness'es are big even for such big girl, but it is indispensable for them to survive at childbirth, because bearing lasts 1,5 years and child weighs at least 20 pounds. In whole, despite such significant gender differences, tauren girls are vulnerable only in comparison with tauren males, while for other races tauren femmes are strong and hardy creatures. By turn, tauren males are much more agile and nimble, than at first sight appears. Despite of their utmost conservatism, some of them use simple body "modding" like original "shoes" for protection of little and fragile girl’s hoofs from crumbling and abrasion; and "thimbles" for thick man’s fingers, which allows manipulating with smallest items.
Hornies got creamy and low voices, и and in spite of alleged primitiveness and crudeness of their language, their enunciation is melodic and nice after their fashion. Girls speak in a singsong voice, amusingly turning from powerful chest voice to the tenderest, which sounds like little bells. Expression may easily change from the sauciest into the most affectionate. Men can vary their voice too, from mighty roaring bass to gentle and melodious baritone. Many taurens develop this talent and make use of it for impressing on people around. Researchers admit that tauren’s language is not so primitive as the world goes in consideration of rich palette of expressions. Because of restrained and consistent temper, exceptional cleanliness and good sense of humor, towering taurens are much more prepossessing, then other gigantic races. As a rule, after conversation of short duration, any sense of preconception completely vanished. But if tauren feels some deeply alien inside soul of interlocutor, then he or she become icy and unfriendly.
As always, character’s clothes on my picture turn out bad. Obviously, WOW characters don’t wear such crap. Moreover, nobody wear such rubbish, never. What to say… I always failed this component.
Tauren lady on picture named Waffa Khalme. You can read full character description.
Set of WOW races is just slightly modified set of classical fantasy nations. But taurens are something outstanding. After all, I just like them (despite that fact I am fanatic technocrat and feel my affinity to dwarves). So I desided to portray taurens and humans standing close to each other to let visual comparison to be easy. But please, don't forget - it is just my personal view, no more.
I have paid tribute to realism. Really and truly, if taurens and humans fight each other in melee combats competitively, then advantage in physical power must be in reason. My taurens still bigger then orcs and trolls, who are in turn bigger then humans. But not two times bigger. I equated common tauren males in height to the tallest of humans - from 7' 1" to 7' 3" (I leave 8+' acromegals out of account because of their uniqueness). But taurens are not just tall; also they are extremely muscled as the most brutal weightlifters in professional sport. Tauren ladies are far smaller, being slightly larger then human males, but has soft smooth body built and little muscle mass, possessing consequently the same strength as them.
My taurens are not as bestial as original. For fun, I have thought up an explanation. Imagine that outer appearance of hornies was recalled from memory of few eyewitnesses. It is human nature to exaggerate what they have seen in far past. Imagine memoirs of these non-existent witnesses, where taurens described as nation of giants with goat's legs and bull's heads. Then imagine some historians, who construed tauren image as classical minotaur from Greek mythology, and interpret words "giant" and "towering" as "nine feet in height".
Bestial features are developed to different extents in dependency of tauren's gender. Guys has large and sharp horns, while women, as a rule, has little underdeveloped horns that are strongly arched backwards, but long and well-developed tails in oppose to male's short neat tails. Male's limbs are long and extremely muscled, female's limbs much shorter and weaker. Girl's arms are slender and tender, having no relief muscles, and no such brutal strength, but much better for manipulations with breakables, or with bow and arrows. Legs are not as bent as male's legs, they are almost straight, and visually resemble human's legs. While tauren gentlemen walk "crouching", tauren ladies walk "tiptoe". Spectacular hips and rears of taureness'es are big even for such big girl, but it is indispensable for them to survive at childbirth, because bearing lasts 1,5 years and child weighs at least 20 pounds. In whole, despite such significant gender differences, tauren girls are vulnerable only in comparison with tauren males, while for other races tauren femmes are strong and hardy creatures. By turn, tauren males are much more agile and nimble, than at first sight appears. Despite of their utmost conservatism, some of them use simple body "modding" like original "shoes" for protection of little and fragile girl’s hoofs from crumbling and abrasion; and "thimbles" for thick man’s fingers, which allows manipulating with smallest items.
Hornies got creamy and low voices, и and in spite of alleged primitiveness and crudeness of their language, their enunciation is melodic and nice after their fashion. Girls speak in a singsong voice, amusingly turning from powerful chest voice to the tenderest, which sounds like little bells. Expression may easily change from the sauciest into the most affectionate. Men can vary their voice too, from mighty roaring bass to gentle and melodious baritone. Many taurens develop this talent and make use of it for impressing on people around. Researchers admit that tauren’s language is not so primitive as the world goes in consideration of rich palette of expressions. Because of restrained and consistent temper, exceptional cleanliness and good sense of humor, towering taurens are much more prepossessing, then other gigantic races. As a rule, after conversation of short duration, any sense of preconception completely vanished. But if tauren feels some deeply alien inside soul of interlocutor, then he or she become icy and unfriendly.
As always, character’s clothes on my picture turn out bad. Obviously, WOW characters don’t wear such crap. Moreover, nobody wear such rubbish, never. What to say… I always failed this component.
Tauren lady on picture named Waffa Khalme. You can read full character description.
Date: June 2008.
