I've been having some trouble finding some artists to help me out with a project- is this place mostly about other people's art or is there any art done here?

gonna depend bro.......

Lots of talented people around. The trick is coming up with extra time to commit.

What kind of project you got going?

Well a couple of years ago I was introduced to how "earthy" all the aliens people imagine up are. The "everyone is shaped like a human with some different sized face parts" Star Trek style is obviously unrealistic (and people argue "maybe it's a just good shape!" but I can go into that...) but even when we've got a budget we still just lift some animal from Earth and exaggerate it's features (or sometimes straight up mix animals from Earth.)

So I'd like to do a light project with some people doing simple sketches of organisms and then modifying them step by step so there is a semblance of evolution and an actual alien world instead of just "Earth where things went different."

I think that this process alone would make things so different that starting with Earth's earliest multicellular life would be fine because it didn't have any of the shapes established. What I mean is that they would have the same types of cells- muscles, nerves, skin.

If this was a big success maybe I could do another with a world not like Earth and start into unicellular life but for now I want to keep it simple without need to go into chemistry or anything.

Dude...this just screams "SPORE" ( creature creator)...very cool. $10 at wal-mart and way cooler than the Spore game.

Have you tried it? Cause everything you are talking about falls right in step with it.

I donno dude.

Beginning with bacteria and building out...there will be similarities...unless you go geometrical and those just look like a child designed them.

Even gravitational variances or differing environs (fluid, gaseous, solids...will all produce reoccuring features.....sensory organs, locomotive methods, food gathering features)

Damn I am a dork. I did paleontology research and layout designs for the Museums of Natural History.

I'm actually in my last semester for a Biology degree so I hate how spore did things. There are never trade offs- you just build up to the fastest, strongest, best singingest creature instead of flight forcing you to be light weight, wrestling (with your legs & mouth style) forcing you to get tired quickly while running, etc.
Up in the civ stage at least the vehicles sort made you choose something to be good at -_-;

And none of the creatures in spore could be insects or other invertebrates- they started out with a spine and there was no other option. Likewise eyes were really trivialized and it was just a matter of if you had them or not- they could have made the world somewhat desaturated until you got better eyes or something.

If they had put a few more choice-steps into the middle of phases my educated side could bear it but any sort of evolution had to be self enforced.


Rant aside, there's a reason where I want this to be a collaborative effort. I know too much about how life on Earth did things. It takes a lot of effort to suppress that and so far when I do my creativity plummets as well. If I want life to use the same things it did on Earth I need other people to throw in some curve balls to keep me away from the stuff I know.

this forum was created for the artists to show off their work and talk shop really.. so thats what you'll find here.. artists.

but i dont know many who are willing to do collaborative work.

its to punchy with multiple artists with different forms and such.

I know a guy who did a painting of the evolution of man but it was the evolution of an alien. very neat stuff.

Well if he went from some alien fish to the alien that would be a lot like what I was after (but without the end being predetermined,) but if it was just from chimp-thing to alien not so much.

I'm mostly only looking for some sketches of the outside shapes of things and maybe once in awhile a cutaway to show some internal stuffs.

During I'll probably be a near endless fountain about how things work from genetics to physiology but I recognize artists are not usually exactly interested in that so people can take it as advice if they want but it won't be mandatory to follow or even listen to all of it :\

Ur conscience will guide u..,wishing u that way

Conscience has what to do with this?

So would anyone be interested in doing some pretty simple sketches of things / should I give some instructions?

He didn't start with a fish. he started with matter. and worked up from there. and he didn't go amphibian. he created a totally crazy creature. he was very uber nerd about it and it was a fantastic project. got him an A. ;p

Any chance of getting a link to it?

random sketch......

Nice.

If you'd like to do some non-random ones for this though we need a simple ancestor for things. If I asked you to put something together with mostly just muscles and skin what would you start with?
*basically I mean no hard parts like skeleton, teeth, or scales.

That one was loosely based on an arawana (amazonian river fish)

Actual science would dictate that the ancestoral critter you are looking for will either be spherical (diatoms), cylindirical (bacteria) or amorphous (slime mold)....those have been shown to be the extremophiles that can survive lethal environs long enough to evolve. The best I can come up with will be to blow my nose onto a hanky and throw a flaggella onto it. Not being a smart @zz. Just going with what I know.

oh i have no idea hon. it was years ago and i'm sure the canvas is buried in an attic. LOL

Oh I'm skipping past the overt microorganisms for a few reasons. The shapes of single celled organisms pretty well get lost in the move up to multicellularity anyway.

Even the early animal forms get contorted pretty severely when animals figured out how to take calcium out of the water so I thought I should start there-ish if only so people could recognize that steps were taking place.

So what sort of Cambrian life would you like to start off with?

Since we are steering clear of the pre cambrian norm.
I am thinking ambulatory quasi vegetation.

First things first. Atmosphere? Aluvial compositions? Hours in a day? I am assuming that we ain't doing primordial earth.

Screw it....


The Siftwhip
I am thinking a worm like critter. Moves like a sidewinder with gill like openings between the body scales to act as a bodylength filter mouth...sifting for nutrients within the top layers of soil. upper surface of the body would mimic feeding soils for defensive camoflague. having no eyes or ears it would use it's body as a receiver/amp for detecting movements/vibrations and would vibrate accordingly to summon potential mates or ward off smaller "Siftwhip" rivals....


To deal with predatory encounters the siftwhip would thrash violently throwing dust, sands, gravels ect...into a growing cloud as one edge burrows below soil until it is submerged well below ground. using it's body as a sensor...it would slowly burrow back to the surface when no vibrations are detected.



How is that?....no ridged or fully developed bodyparts required.