Quillion Character Sheet

Quillion "Quills" Highglider is a character I've been developing for 's forum "Panthalassia" at [link] . He's a tempermental Microraptor courier who takes great pride in his work and abilities, so enthusiastic about his duties in fact that he's annoying to some. Microraptors had both fore and aft wings, thus the drawings detailing both designs.
The light yellow feather tips gradiate (blend) into the warmer golden yellow body instead of a straight border between the colors, like the purple to yellow and red to yellow.

The scarves Quills wears signals whether he's off-duty or on-duty, and what sort of duties he's performing, to those who watch him pass by. Though a red scarf means on-duty, a saurian can flag down a courier wearing a red scarf to deliver an additional message. With a black scarf on no saurian can demand a message be delivered until the courier removes the black scarf. There's a courier guild at each city in Panthalassia and any species can be one (though avians, gliding raptors, and pterosaurs are preferred as they move faster and can go longer distances than a runner). The Courier Guild acts as Panthalassia's postal service and, though not government run (which would be silly as Panthalassia is split into various feuding territories), is as reliable as one.
Because of Quills's small size and limited 'flying' abilities, he's restricted to local city-wide deliveries (though if there are trees and high points between one destination and the next he can move a little further out).

Microraptors weren't quite full-birds as they were incapable of powered flight (their chest muscles were puny compared to a pigeon's), but they are gliders and most likely lived in trees swooping down on prey. They also weren't very large, maybe the size of a chicken or turkey.

Regarding the ultraviolet bit, modern birds see in ultraviolet light (also known as "bee-purple"). If you had ultraviolet vision, like a parrot as example, a macaw's plumage would be ten times more beautiful. Other birds, such as avian raptors, use this ability to spot trails of mouse urine winding through a grassy field. Since the urine reflects UV rays, a falcon or hawk can visually follow a mouse to its destination. Since some dinosaurs had feathers and studies on their brain cases show they've vision like a bird's, I infer they could also see in ultraviolet. So Quills's feathers would shine a little brighter than iridescent purple to any dinosaur onlooker.

Created using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Illustrator CS2
Concept art of Quills [link] [link]