Finley Redesign sketches, and thoughts (REPOSTED)

For those of you who arn't in the loop. I had some ideas for a medieval fantasy world last year that I'm circling back on. I'm sort of craving something new apart from the Blossom family farm.

Originally Fianna and Finley were going to be the stars of the show. I'm making some changes to the character composition, relationships and design of Fianna and Finleys story, it is now, Fianna, Finley AND Phoebe's story. Fianna is completely perfect in my opinion, so I wont be changing her much apart from armor choice maybe.

Finley's original design was a small striped hyena. But honestly, I felt the hyena design was a little repetitive, a cop out almost, when the whole point of this new world is to test the limits of my creativity. Sure, hyena is in my name and in my nostrils, but is that all I was ever meant to be? all I was ever meant to smell?

Ahem, ANYWAYS, the somewhat closed relationship Finley had with Fianna was limiting to Fiannas character overall, a beast of a woman like that simply shouldn't be contained or owned, so we're axing that whole plot point. Another issue with Finleys old design is that the character simply doesn't stand on its own, he's all about USELESS in a combat scenario. Meaning in the grand scheme of things, in comics, illustrations and animations, he would basically devolve to a shitty side character that would be more of a nuisance than a pleasure to look at.

So I thought, lets make him all of those things that Finley is, smart, educated, writer, etc. AND a wizard that specializes in healing. WOW, so original (not really, but at least its FUNCTIONAL). Then came the idea of a pine martin, a cute little weasel like creature long and thin, pointed nose, easy to bully, and great for fitting into tight sweaty spaces. But then I thought, I have a grand total of ZERO humans in my worlds, even though technically they exist, and it would be nice to have a simple design without all the fur patterns and crazy body types, and just have a good ol fashion HUMAN to look at. But I'm still a furry at heart, the pine martin is cute to look at, but the human is fun and easy to draw.

The characters in this world are going to get fucked by all manner of fantastical beasts on their adventures. Do they really need a fantastical beast in the party to fuck? Or do they need someone that will just "do for now" until one of those sexy creatures comes along to give them a wild ride?

Personally after writing all this, I think I've come to the conclusion that he should be a human, and if I really what him to be an animal of some sort, I could just make him a shape shifter. In addition the new relationship Finley has in the party is that he's been bullied or coerced into joining the party. The idea of a timid regular joe, outlier kinda guy being trapped with these relentless stinky animal women is pretty sexy to me and I'm almost certain people might enjoy someone they can relate too more easily. 

BUT THEN I HAD AN EVEN BETTER IDEA

Keep the pine martin, name him Fitz, make him a little scribe or whatever. Shrink him down to slightly bigger than pine martin size, which will make him great to be worn as underwear by the ladies in the party.

Keep the human as Finley and now we have a party of FOUR.  

But I still want all your thoughts! Go ahead and vote on it.