Visualizing Redwall animals on two or four legs

[a crumb]

Oddly, I found no previous topic, let alone poll, to this perennial question.

Brian Jacques was of course himself ambivalent, repeatedly preferring to allow room for a given fan's own imagination to decide the question.
I do wonder about a couple things in regards to his writing, though. I am unsure of the exact timeline of Jacques' comments, so I wonder whether he himself had a preference in mind, and if so, if it changed over time, specifically after the first few books. In other words, I have previously had the impression that certain passages in the first few books implied a certain method of walking for different animals.

The main reasons I can think of against either visualization is that for two legs, it comes across as very awkward to imagine a cat or fox walking about on just two legs. But how does a cat fight with a sword if on four legs? Just one oddly forward, walking on the other three?

Now, as far as my own visualization goes, I have tended to think of cats, foxes, pine martens and sables as being defaultedly traveling on four legs. Which is odd, since I definitively saw Gulo as a two-leg guy, even though a wolverine would seemingly fit well into the same category as those other bigger creatures.
I make little real visualization of Redwall characters besides the most vague details, so this has always been rather important to my total seeing of the characters.

[Ashleg]

To me, everything walked on two legs unless it was something like the Gloomer (mindless and written as if it were on all fours) or certain kinds of lizards and whatnot.

Other species can go on all fours but it's not the default, otherwise the mechanics of the world do not work. Sword fighting, using arrows, holding maps, writing.

It is always said that the objects are held in the paw, not the mouth.

And the graphic novel, TV series, book covers (with Slagar as an exception on ONE book cover), and the chapter drawings within the books show the majority of characters on two legs.

I am sure if that was not how Brian envisioned it he would have asked for different art.
The quote may have just been to please the readers who pictured it differently.

(Re: pine martens on four legs. Whaaa? Ashleg's peg leg is made a big deal of and he's shown hopping when forced to run, which wouldn't be a problem if he was on all fours. And Ublaz...is definitely not the kind of guy to get his front paws dirty. Heck, he has painted nails.)

[The Skarzs]

Aye.
My visualization is always two legs, except on rare occasions. Lizards and frogs seemed like they would be on both two or four, depending on what they're doing, because they're  less advanced/savage species.
A couple other cases might be Gloomer, like Ash said, and the ermine from The Bellmaker.

Sunflash being forced to walk on all fours seemed like a mockery and humiliation.

[MeadowR]

What they said.

Not much else I can add. Four legs just... no.

[Krantor the Brutal]

I agree.
Next question: Are they humanoid? I don't think so.

[Maudie]

I'd say they're probably partially humanoid. I don't imagine them with headfur or anything like that, but if they weren't at least a little bit humanoid they'd look pretty awkward walking around on two legs.

[Krantor the Brutal]

Maybe something like this

[Ashleg]

Yeah.

Here's pretty much my mental image (Disney's Robin Hood).

Except less size differences between mice and other creatures.

[Maudie]

Aye.

[Krantor the Brutal]

I imagine them more CGI like in a live action movie.

[Maudie]

Like Reepacheep in the most recent Prince Caspian movie?

[Ashleg]

CGI. *cries*

[The Skarzs]

Maybe something like this

Pretty much.

The one thing that changes in my mind is the upper body and arm structure.
Animals have pretty narrow fronts proportional to their heads, as well as small front legs and paws. This picture is a good example of that.
In my drawings the body is probably the most human thing about them. The legs are pretty much animal, and the head I base off of pictures I look up for each species. The eyes can be a challenge since animals don't have human eyes, which convey a lot of emotion and intelligence. So I also change that from animalistic to human-like.

[Maudie]

It's interesting how our imaginations differ when it comes to just what level of human-ness the animals have.

[Ashleg]

What if I voted "other" and commented "all species on no legs".

Imagine that.

Redwall characters either float or slither.