Alien Artwork

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Phlogios
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Post by Phlogios »

I'm a bit late, but anyways,
And for St. Jack's logo. The problem is there is no ship of this model ingame. So, if anyone wants to model a capship of this design... or we could change the ship silhouette to something existing currently in VS universe.
I'm on it!, The ship will not look EXACTLY the same, I made some modifications (I changed the hole in the middle to something way cooler 8) and some other stuff), and it won't be a cappie. I'll post the picture soon.

About the Rlaan, are those eyes in the middle really eyes? Like orbs? In case they are, aren't they a bit too big? Both of them have to fit, leaving space for brains and digestional organs and so on.
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Post by Oblivion »

those eyes in the middle really eyes
No. Those are the "gills", the respiratory slits. The eyes are the little stalked orbs at the bottom immediately below the the large "eye" you described. (there are four of them, each eye divided further into four). :wink:
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uln addicted to liquid

Post by Fendorin »

it's just a uln big Chanbellans of royal suite
after congrees with human confederation!

surprised by cosmos-paparazi!
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Oblivion
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Post by Oblivion »

hehe. cool

he's naked, btw. Uln wear lotsa crazy patterned clothing. such that it would hurt the eye and sense of good taste of humans. lol
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Fendorin
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a quick sketch of aera

Post by Fendorin »

i drawn a sketch for a "my aera "

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Post by wanderer »

humm.... once i get my scanner fixed I may submit some of my sketches of the various aliens. it'll give me something new to draw for the next few weeks atleast.

funny thing is I was fed up the other day not having anything to draw and now I find this WOOT!!! atlast I can let my pent up creativity lose once more lol (ok I got to lay off the chocolate i'm starting to sound hyper lol)
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finished draw

Post by Fendorin »

Hello just a idée of aera (nude aera,maybe is a wild specimen, found in forgoten world)

tell me if is not correctly concept

Tchao!!

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Post by Phlogios »

Sooo cute! <3 ;D
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Re: finished draw

Post by jackS »

Fendorin wrote:Hello just a idée of aera (nude aera,maybe is a wild specimen, found in forgoten world)

tell me if is not correctly concept

Tchao!!
I've got some comments on this, but not enough time to articulate them all just this minute - if I don't post a reply within the next 20 hours or so, poke me until I do.
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Post by jackS »

*sigh*

Sorry, sorry.

It's 5AM and I didn't finish everything I planned to get done today... I'll try to send you an e-mail or post here or something tomorrow, but I need to sleep now. I haven't forgotten this thread.
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Post by Fendorin »

poke poke poke poke poke poke ....

also mein herr;

then what to happen, if I push you ?
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Post by loki1950 »

I gather that Le Minister is very busy with research ATM he whats to keep his job maybe :wink: so he may not have checked the forums today.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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Post by jackS »

Thanks for reminding me -- my schedule is a bit hectic these days (ASPLOS deadline is fast approaching (August 7th) ). Fortunately, I think I'll have some downtime today as I wait for my simulations to complete, so I'll be able to draft at least an initial response. I would not be surprised if this takes a few iterations before we're on the same page, given that I'll be primarily using text to describe something visual... we'll see if I can manage to sketch something, and scan it in, but I'm an abysmal artist :-/.
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Post by jackS »

So, this may not be entirely the best way to start things off, but I'll stream-of-consciousness this and we'll try to re-organize my thoughts later, so please forgive me if some snippets appear unlinked to a greater narrative (bit tired, running low on caffeine, simulations had to be restarted, batch queuing system had to be circumvented, all sorts of assorted "fun")

Firstly, please don't take anything said in the following as anything other than a detailing of my reactions and thoughts concerning to the differences between my ideas for the Aera and what has been drawn. I'm very pleased that this is being worked on, and I appreciate the difficulty that comes from working from the limited visually-oriented information existing. Generating the aforementioned has proven far more difficult than I ever initially imagined it would be.

The first thing I think about is how this corresponds to the distant ancestors of the modern Aera, with forelimbs less specialized, and a hexapod gait. I am constantly regretting the use of the term "centauroid" in their initial description, as all I really meant at the time was "has two limbs that are used primarily as 'arms' and four 'legs' in the human sense of the manipulator/locomotor split between 'arms' and 'legs'. When I envision the Aera, I always start by thinking about them, not in their alert, active, somewhat upright posture for local manipulation, but in their nearly-parallel to the ground moving posture.

The legs on your drawing seem to me too short - as mentioned in the wiki, if a large Aera measures the better part of 3 meters from tooth to tailtip, then that Aera will be around 120cm or so high at the shoulder (we could call it a hip, if that makes what is being measured any more clear). The four legs are all noticeably stocky in comparison to the arms, easily differentiating the forelimbs as manipulators and the legs as primarily locomotors, but they aren't stodgy -- the Aera is not without agility. The midlimbs are the most stout, being capable of supporting an Aeran's body weight -- in a sense analogous to how a human can stand and, to limited degree, maneuver on one leg, an Aera may balance and shift on it's midlimbs. The toes on the midlimbs are the strongest, and least dexterous, but can provide a vise-like grip. Aeran hips are extend somewhat up and to the sides, interrupting their streamlined form. The hips for the midlimbs orient the midlimbs at minimal side-splay, allowing a primarily fore-to-back progression when running. The longer rear limbs are offset just enough to the side and splay that they may swing outside the midlimbs when running. The rear limbs are just long enough they must remain slightly bent when the midlimbs are erect, and the body parallel to the ground. The rearlimb toes have a coarse dexterity, but also the most prominent remnants of what were once impressive multi-tasked claws, still dangerous in anger and of utility in tree-purchase, if no longer vicious. The Aera are still prone to make use of their arms when running, not for propulsion, but as a maneuvering and braking aid (remembering that the Aera evolved amid the cluttered underlayers of vast, sprawling, mult-canopied forests, and even and flat terrain was extremely rare while undergrowth and above-ground roots and vines and whatnot were extremely common)

The somewhat upright stance of the Aera is more of a sitting affair than a standing one, with the tail and rearmost body touching the ground, and the midlimbs locked into a slightly foreward position, propping up the fore-torso as it angles up.

The bulk of the fore-torso is taken up by lungs that extend most of the fore-torso's length, although the two (primary) hearts (of the four total Aeran hearts) are also sizable and located in the fore-torso. The esophageal pipe passes through to the rear body segment. Aside from assorted glands, the hearts and lungs are the only notable organs in the fore-torso, the vitals being relegated to the rear-body. There are two lungs, but each is asymmetrically bifurcated.

The shoulders on your Aeran sketch, one might even say, the fore-torso taken as a whole, is somewhat anthropic, and this is not as I envisioned. The Aeran fore-torso, like it's entire main body, though not cylindrical, is not as broad and flat as a human's, and the arms do not sprout from the vertical terminus of the torso, free to twist up and in to frame a neck, but have a somewhat more lateral origin. This difference is heavily linked to the Aeran neck having to be much more significant in girth in order to support the Aeran head in a non-vertical position. The Aeran neck is nearly as wide as the torso, and the skeletal attachments for some neck muscles interplay a bit in places with the positioning of the arm attachment points.

As for the head (ever a mess of details)---
Jaw: Only runs ~2/3 - 3/4 the length of the head
Eyes: Further out from the rest of the head, orbital socket > 180 degrees & independent eye tracking => can both focus both eyes on forward target and glance backward with either eye with limited body movement (i.e. not breaking stride)
Tympanum-analogs: hard to see presence in current sketch
Vocal-rumblers: should be visible on the underside of the head-neck joint region.

I think we would be well served to move a little bit further from some aspects of familiar forms. We should remind ourselves that we don't have to work from the single-spine-with-ribs-and-head-and-tail form that terran vertebrates are formed around (admittedly, form and function are not unrelated, but there are more than fish in the sea (to mangle a metaphor). ). I happen to like thinking of Aera with three, hip-interrupted vertebra-esque columns (two dorsal and one ventral, with ribs from each partially overlapped/interleaved rather than fused), but it's not key to my vision of them. What is key is that, even if, as with the Rlaan, we cannot escape some sort of semblance of familiarity, even if only in chimerical form, the Aerans are visibly clearly alien, and appropriately unsettling in their alien-ness.

For the skin, it would be nice to see some lenticel-like patterns (like those seen on a birch tree http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... h_bark.jpg )

... my apologies for not writing more at this juncture, but I'm very tired now and I'm trailing off. I'm sure we'll continue to chat about this over the next few days as we (both) try to figure out what exactly I (might have) said.
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Human artwork

Post by Fendorin »

just for a wiki or manuel of style ( i think is important,
it is a unification question ) or fixer( in my computer just a top are visible in bar ;(it's bug???)

a shaper concept:
Image


and andolians officier or another (why not hackers or link-TV-celebrity in transit!!!)
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Post by jackS »

I'm about to go to sleep now, so, 2 quick comments.

Your Shaper is wearing too much clothing. Shapers tend to wear extremely minimal clothing. What clothing they do tend to wear either
A) has utility (pockets and loops and other such things are very useful)
B) is something they grew themselves and wish to show off
C) much to Shaper annoyance covers up portions of their bodies for the sake of interacting with more restrictive cultures (The Shapers think their bodies are works of art by default)

Your Andolian --
A) Isn't sufficiently covered (hint: if you can see skin, it's not a prototypical Andolian uniform).
B) Has augmentations that are too macro-scale and obvious.
C) Is wearing brightly colored, patterned clothing

Please take a look at an earlier post in this thread
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... c&start=94
for something much closer to an Andolian uniform (it's pretty spot-on except for the eye & mouth visibility).
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new drawing for human

Post by Fendorin »

an other solution

find a good placement (or not) for the character

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Post by Phlogios »

I like the pictures. The yellow one does look a bit like saddam-goes-fighter-pilot though ;D
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Post by Deus Siddis »

From jackS:
I happen to like thinking of Aera with three, hip-interrupted vertebra-esque columns (two dorsal and one ventral, with ribs from each partially overlapped/interleaved rather than fused), but it's not key to my vision of them.
Just a question on this, wouldn't it be kind of a structural weakness for the the rib cages to not be fixed to one another? Couldn't this make it so that a rib might intrude on the opposing vertebrae if the Aera was hit by something or fell from the canopy?

Also, on more of an art note, you might want to give the Aera just two cages/spines instead of three, to better set them apart from Mishtali in appearance and avoid any possible confusion between the two.
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Post by Oblivion »

deus, this is unofficial ok, lol,

but imo, i think overlapping ribs/plates would serve to shield the lings and internal organs as well as keeping the aerans remarkably agile.. anyway, its not as if they designed themselves, hehe. Tho aerans do establish a sort of artificial evolution through their sheer bloodthirstiness. :wink:
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Post by Oblivion »

Aera:

:wink:

Image
A Step Into Oblivion

Dreams of things that will never be,
Songs of thoughts only I can hear,
Leave me be to sleep forever,
To dream my dreams,
And sing my hymns,
Of things that will never be...
Fendorin
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Post by Fendorin »

hello !!
new artwork for....andolian protectorate:

a quartet of venturer 1 andolian "duo" and 1 spaceborn& "Fixall" the funny guy of the group (klkk...)

Image
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Post by Phlogios »

Haha awesome!
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Post by Fendorin »

why not push it some approved artwork in the wiki part like the Oblivion's aera?
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Post by jackS »

Fendorin wrote:hello !!
new artwork for....andolian protectorate:

a quartet of venturer 1 andolian "duo" and 1 spaceborn& "Fixall" the funny guy of the group (klkk...)

Image
I like the Spaceborn :)

While I can appreciate that the drawing is stylized rather than photo-realistic, the Andolians are either a bit under-dressed or very unevenly detailed (namely the groin area appears much more defined than the rest of them) -- while the trademark environment suit is more or less form-fitting, it is not itself insubstantial (it has varying thickness, and differentiation - there's a lot of equipment thinly spread out over the environment suit to make its interior capable of sustained residence).

One high-level fix for the Klk'k: The feet need to be much, much longer :)

For future Klk'k reference (though perhaps not so much this sort of drawing): There should be some more indication, even from this angle, of the soft tissue surrounding the rear-facing nasal passages
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