Alien Universe - Tumblr Posts
ALIENS (dir. James Cameron)
+ RIPLEY, HICKS & NEWT being a family
Ril'siiya
Yay finally a good picture of Ril'siiya. 8D I've been developing her a lot lately, she's my new pet project. XD Umm... Where to start with her. She's from my Aliens series, from the race of the Gaediens. Specifically she's a Vyren, which are plant Gaediens. She's the best friend of Sz'nami, who is the fourth main character of Aliens. Umm... I'll explain about her later I guess? XD Maybe I need another blog for Aliens blarg. Anyway. Yeah. So Ril'siiya developed into this hyper, chattery, spunky... thing. XD Who annoys everybody except Sz'nami. She is very proud of her Vyren-Gaedien heritage and culture, and is very bold and brash. She has no filter between her head and her mouth, so she's always saying things that are either embarrassing or insulting. XD Overall she strikes me as the stereotypical Spanish/Mexican girl, and she even has a Spanish-sounding accent (though actually I'm not entirely sure it would be Spanish XD it just sounds Spanish to me in my head). Soo yeah. I think that about covers it. More to come on Vyrens... Maybe. XD Someday, I dunno.
Humbled
So, Vrmylne (pronounced Ver-mill-n) here is @enjoliquej‘s fan character for my Alien Universe story~. The Herrs are a very prideful species, and Villy here is no exception. However, one day he got into trouble with the law. He had made four repeated thefts, and the punishment for such crimes was to have his tentorns (the ear things; his are curly, which is considered attractive to their species) cut. He later found that Syneid (Sin-aid), his best friend, ratted him out. Vrmylne, once a prideful Herr of high-standing, here was humbled. His beautifully-carved, smooth wooden cloak pin, which proved him as a Herr of status, was traded for a piece of charcoal, the lowest rank reserved for criminals. To them he was now less than a Herr- a servant as low as the slaves under their feet.
Random artz. Um. I know almost nothing about these two characters. XD They're two of the slaves that Naru and Shiido rescue in Naru-napped. And they're never even mentioned... >.>... *cough* Yeah. Uh. Anyway. I just thought I'd draw them because it's good practice XD;; And who knows I might flesh them or their species out later. Soo, yeah. Bye now.
(see captions for descriptions of each)
I made this a while back, but never posted it publicly. Some design work I did for Erians, a species from my project Aliens (working title: Alien Universe or Alienverse... haven’t really settled on a title yet).
One of my oldest Aliens species, dating back to 2007. Been bringing them back into modern day with a little more variety on the idea of of aliens with dark beady eyes, tree stumps (or other botanical structures) on their heads, clompy feet (see feet development first four images) and mostly green/yellow silky bodies. A revival of an old story involving the then-MC Eriol, his family, and the fate of his planet. Now a sidestory that ties into the main Aliens plot, which revolves around two who were then villains, Naru and Shiido. Funny how that works, right? So, yeah. That’s about it for these guys. Make sure to check the descriptions for details.
Continuations of captions I couldn’t fit the entirety of in the caption spaces:
Image 7: The girl on the bottom right with curly hair and a dandelion on her head I was thinking might have blue beady eyes and blonde hair, maybe a paler yellow shade on average in the face as well. Part of my experiments with creating different ethnicities in the Erian kind.
Image 8: Here I experimented with different ear shapes for Erians. Most probably have a simple, short elf-style ear, but I was also considering wavy ears (like that leaf-shaped ears elf meme I found on google) or sort of feathery looking ones. I have to account for an entire race, so I may as well have some fun with variety, amirite?
(and the rest I could fit snugly into the captions so go read the rest there~)
I realized I never uploaded these! These are reference sheets for the main characters of my story, Aliens. I recently made a page for it on my tumblr with all my tagged stuff from it, but I realize it’s pretty disorganized. XD So, step 1 towards organization, uploading the reference sheets for my MCs! These are Naru and Shiido. I never did color Shiido’s reference but then his outfit’s kinda complex anyway... maybe too complex XD; I did one of those things where I browsed pinterest and just kept adding stuff that was cool onto them XD; But anyways so yeah. Here they are!
Some doodles from last night. Nothing like a streaming call to kick my artistic behind into action XD; The instant feedback is kinda nice.
First one: @chrystallink‘s character Tiger as a Herr, one of my aliens species XD;
Second: Ya boi Tsuname
Third: Aidren, from Torn Apart
Tsuname thinks he is a mer
I forgot to post this on tumblr... This was something I did towards the end of May for “Mermay” though Tsuname isn’t exactly a mer, he’s close enough to one I guess. XD; This was an overhaul of an old picture I did for Mermay in 2016, now with new and improved art. XD;
Sz’nami Front and Back
Wooo, a new reference for Sz’nami! It’s been years. XD Another one of the Wotren gang, she’s the mom friend of the team. She ends up helping out a very important character in the series, but the details are confidential for now. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) She’s close to one of my favorites, and honestly, her mom friend moments are so relatable. 😔 At least to me. Anyways, so yeah, this is her! Was hoping to get a few more angles in before ArtFight starts, but oh well. Make sure to follow me on ArtFight if you’re interested! See you on the battlefield~~
(The emoji is "🙃 - Someone to share their suffering with." Since it's just a box on my end I thought I'd make that clear. XD; )
What? A Kaze post out of season? It sure is!
I'm trying to drag myself out of this art hole and maybe actually. produce art that's showable. Instead of throwing lines on a page and then forgetting about them for 8 months. I'm gonna go to Lightbox this year and I want to try and throw together a portfolio. All I know is I want to start throwing myself at this art thing again to see if I can't like... find a way to sustain myself with art??¿¿?? I'd kind of given up after the pandemic hit but after a bad day at work a few months back I finally decided I want to work towards quitting. So... yeah. I'm trying to put more effort into art lately.
Anyways! This is Waizu. He adopts Naru in the story. He destroys planets for science and convinces Naru he's doing it for a good cause. Is he though? Well... he thinks it is.
17, 20, 29 for oc qs
😳 I did not expect such a speedy response to this. Okay here goes!
17. Favorite character: he's spoiler 3X but his non-spoiler version is Korosa. c:
20. Eriol's pet Shiro.
Shiro is a cattish doggish creature that I've thought of making kind of vine-themed to better fit into Eriol's planet. His species is also plant-themed so yeah. Shiro used to be a Kitonya back when JI and Aliens were the same universe, but now that they're two different ones, I want to try and find a design that better fits the vibe.
Quick pic for those who don't know who Eriol is:
He's a little guy, about 3 and a half feet I think, with light green skin that's sort of silky but also tough and plant-like. His face and hands (?) are more of a palish yellow with a softer skin texture, and his feet are sort of tree root-like. He has a sort of bark shard stump on his head and brown hair and dark, beady eyes. At one point he had hooves for feet instead but I decided tree root-like fit better thematically. He also used to have dot hands but I decided thin, root-like hands would fit him better.
Anyways XD back on topic here.
29. Yes! Aliens main story has a sort of Wonderful Life/deaths reversal AU where many of the characters who died before the story live but their counterpart dies in their stead, a la Sz'nami had died instead of Tsunne, Tsuname is killed shortly before the AU starts, Korosa doesn't exist or died a stillborn (or possibly died in the invasion when he was young?) but his brother wasn't killed shortly before the canon starts, Naru and Shiido are a lot more maimed than they are in canon and the villain succeeded even more in militarizing Naru's race. I can't give away too much more, but I haven't really touched the idea in a long time due to being unsure how to sort of link it up as an alternative canon thread. But, I guess that's why it's AU! I actually made a short comic about that AU as well as some art for it, but since it involves some pretty heavy spoilers I'm not too comfortable sharing most of it here. But! It does exist! Even if I haven't developed it in years it's there. Here’s some of the art I can show though of non-spoilers. Touched these up, the originals were from like 2013, haha. Some scribbles of messed up NaS/ideas for their alt designs. There’s probably still a lot more to consider for the story and how it would bear on their personalities, but I guess that’s the trouble drawing over old stuff.
January: A painting study from this pinterest pic. Full image here.
February: Theoretical design WIP for Virame, a side character from Tsuname's story.
March: Image of Lily for my Knights & Lilies PowerPoint.
April: Six of the Torn Apart sisters, plus another, snoozing in a library. (The bookshelves are full of references to me and my friends' stories as well as OCs, webtoons I like, animes, and even a manga magazine.) Full image here.
May: Shiido work doodle. I put his name through google translate and wrote down his name in as many unique scripts as I could find. Bonus points to whoever can pick out the script(s) that are actually from one of my constructed languages. :3
June: Sz'nami in water form. It's a thumbnail edit of this pic from June 2021.
July: @crystallinkcreations's Penelope for ArtFight! You can find the full image in this post.
August: Waizu, the pontificating scientist-philosopher father figure to Naru and Shiido. He teaches them that evil must be destroyed from the worlds he purges. You can find his post here.
September: @a-random-cc's character, Tares, from Torn Apart! I'm sorry I never finished this. :') Full image here.
October: A little running animation I did of Paria from my story Knights & Lilies.
November: A visual representation of a certain Herr's sound perception, based on my experiences in a crowded lunch room. I have a couple extra frames where he's walking, but I decide to save those and freeze him on the frame I showed in the summary of art since the animation isn't finished. :P
December: Part of yet another animation WIP, this frame of Sz'nami. I decided to render it in the summary of art picture at the end of December to make it look even nicer. :P
Lots of WIPs and sketches this year, haha. Sometimes I really need somebody to kick me to finish things. XPP
*crawls out of hole* Hello everyone. I'm finally released from a long project and I plan to start posting art again! Been eyeing that WIP game that's going around but I figure first I oughta actually post some finished stuff here.
Anyways! This is Logolas. She's a character that shows up in Naru and Shiido's late teen story arc and she's a total menace, even to her colleagues!
She's a tech wizard-scientist from an organization Naru and Shiido get roped into. There's a lot more I'd like to say about her but I gotta keep some things a spoiler. XD She's gained some notoriety between a few people I've shown her to, which has encouraged me that she might be popular with tumblrinas who have yet to see her too. :) Anyways, enjoy this art! I hope to be digging up more gems in the future to show you all!
Gonna space this one out a bit so Logolas has a chance to shine.
This is actually from back in September... 😬 I was going through a bit of a dark night of the soul back then with my job, so I guess it makes sense I wasn't up to posting much back then. 😅
Aaanyways. This suave business lizard you are beholding is Nell. He's a major player in the main Aliens story with Naru, Shiido, Korosa, Sz'nami, Ril'siiya and Tsuname. There's not a whole lot I can say about him without spoiling stuff, though I have mentioned or talked about him a handful of times on the side blogs, so there is that.
He's something of a philanthropist who's helped out Tsuname and some other Gaediens get back home. Tsuname has mixed feelings about him. On the one hand, Nell helped him out, but on the other, Nell is kinda... weird, from his perspective. But then, Tsuname's from some technologically-primitive island and hasn't been around many business folk before, so what does he know, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Tournament, Page 1
Made a thing and decided maybe it's decent enough to post. Links to refs, the blank, and rambles under the cut.
Flora: Flos adonis. "Painful recollections" in flower language according to Catharine Harbeson Waterman's Flora's Lexicon (1840).
Fauna: Flying fish. I use these as symbols for Wotrens in general, but Tsuname in particular has a scene where he glides over the ocean and enjoys a moment of freedom, so I think he best exemplifies the whimsy that is the flying fish.
Object: Marble. In hindsight though I should have picked suncatcher, that would have been a lot more symbolic, especially considering I have an old picture of him trying to catch the last rays of the sun. Well, marble will do in a pinch I guess. My thinking was a silly pun involving losing his marbles, also it being a lone marble to imply "where did the others go?" Also chose a clear one as part of the symbolism too. I went through a number of objects for him before settling on marble. Originally I was going to do "window" but couldn't find a ref I liked for it. Then I thought of "tide pool" but that's more a place than an object. Then I thought maybe one of those epoxy resin arts, but there's something really artistic and delicate about those that felt a little bit off to represent Tsuname. But yeah. He's transparent but also shallow some ways. So that's why it has to be a marble or something not that deep. Shallow in the sense that you don't have to reach very far to see what's going on inside. That's why I was thinking glass at first. Window because you can easily peer inside and see what's going on. Tide pool for a similar reason. It's not that deep, you can scoop up some crustacean crawling around in there and look at it. Also sea-theming is very important for him.
You know what I just remembered... 'bracelet' is an object that has more significance in-story. I guess it less represents him though and more his devotion to Sh'zkai...
Song: The Name of Anger by Rurutia. I also could have picked Meltdown by Lollia, but decided they both exemplify Tsuname in different ways, so I didn't need to swap it out. For the one I chose though, it's chock full of symbolism that I think really fits Tsuname well. I think of it typically in the broader context of the invasion he experienced, so in some ways, Meltdown feels a bit more personal than The Name of Anger does for Tsuname. Meltdown I associate more with his ongoing mental battle, whereas The Name of Anger deals far more with the past and how it contextualizes the present. The opening line translates to something like "The ladder of light collapses." This 'ladder of light' I think of representative of hope, but also with like a tractor beam. The light is 'collapsing' which means the beam is disappearing, and with it, any hope of getting back those that were taken by it. "Innocent live sink to the mud." . . . "Overflowing from the ark are the tears of lost children." That last one I associate with the Gaediens who were taken. "My hands transform into swords; my ventless anger continues to spiral" Feels like a fast-forward to present day Tsuname, who has become a weapon against his will and his hands are now swords, and his pent up anger from the horrors he endured spills out everywhere. Lastly I love the picture painted by this line: "The jet-black sea winds whirlpools." There's not many good translations of the song online but you can find the original lyrics here: (x) I am for sure taking some creative liberties in my associations but XD that's the rub.
Feeling: Kuebiko. I abridged the definition quite a bit on the picture to get the text to play nice.
And yes, I did ref the Ocarina of Time scarecrow because it was simpler to draw than trying to figure out how to abstract a proper photo of a scarecrow. XD;
There's a lot of interesting gems in the etymology of kuebiko as well that fit Tsuname:
Kuebiko comes from kueru (崩える), an archaic verb meaning "to break down; to become shabby and disordered", plus hiko (彦), an old epithet for "boy, young man", in turn from hi ko (日子), literally "sun child".[1][2][3] The meaning could be translated as something like "shabby young man".
Yamada no sohodo is formed like an old-fashioned formal name, from surname or literal noun Yamada (山田, lit. 'mountain + paddy'), genitive or possessive particle no (の), and sohodo (案山子),[4] in turn from soho ("sopping wet") + -do, a contraction from -bito, the compounding form of hito (人).[5] The meaning of this name could be construed as "soaked person of the mountain paddies", a euphemism for "scarecrow".
As for the kami aspect of the etymology, at first I thought he had nothing to do with folk wisdom, knowledge and agriculture, but if you think on it, maybe a little. For one thing, when he returns to the island he has a lot of knowledge of how things work out in space that no one else has, so in one sense he is sort of this oddity. Folk wisdom could be turned on its head because his devotion to what he grew up believing is a big part of his character, but he lacked the proper nuance about the belief, so this "folk wisdom" doesn't exactly pan out when he doesn't understand how it applies to the real world (or doesn't). Agriculture was the one that I thought... no, not at all, but thinking on like... the connotations of agriculture, like "living on the land" -> "devotion to the land" -> "devotion to one's home and native land" could be something.
But anyways, the TDoOS definition definitely pulls more from the latter half of that opening sentence from the wiki:
"Kuebiko (久延毘古) is ... represented in Japanese mythology as a scarecrow who cannot walk but has comprehensive awareness."
Going back to the literal meaning, "shabby boy/sun child" really fits Tsuname well. Broken down, made shabby and disordered by his past. I often associate Tsuname with the sun in a lot of ways too. His original sunny disposition, overshadowed now by the horizon, making "sunset" another potent symbol for Tsuname's present psyche.
The second name for Kuebiko in Yamada no sohodo I also thought was kind of interesting, since being a fish boy he often does drag himself out of the ocean sopping wet, but also the connotation of sopping wet with "pathetic" feels of portent. XD
Hmm. Knowing what I know now it feels kinda weird to associate him with this word, but, I guess TDoOS is useful for describing feelings!
Anyways here's the link to the blank: (x)
Thank you if you've read this far. XD