Khasidel's Art Dump

Interesting limbs you have there.

I look at it and I'm very much reminded of some artistic elements of the color sci-fi webcomic named Outsider. Did you draw inspiration from the hair of one of the Loroi in the comic, as well as the Loroi armor?

You've got a very keen eye. Yes, I did base the face and hair off the character Arclight from Jim Francis' Outsider webcomic. The armor is also partially based on his design, though due to obvious anatomical differences I also referenced several other sources. Nicely spotted.

I'm going to re-upload the pic in a minute, I don't like how thick the lines are and am going to dumb them down a bit to make it easier on the eyes.

My feeling on the picture is that it has too much 'human' in it. The lower body is neat, the arms are interesting, but then you have the upright straight-backed amazonian-proportioned female torso with the exotically colored but quite recognizable humanoid head.

I would've liked the center body to dare to be more alien, and to have a posture that went along better with the limbs.

You know what? The face and hair reminds me of the Meltrandi drummer from Macross 7. Its a very old anime so I'm gonna suppose its just a coincidence but I couldn't help think that after I looked at the face and expression a couple times. Not that that's bad I just had one of those connection moments.

I wanted to retain a more human appearance around the face and torso after abandoning an earlier version with completely alien features; the first version was snake-like with three eyes and horns growing out of its forehead crest, a bull-like neck and armor plating all over the place. It came across as a wee bit too menacing in my opinion.

I might add the horns on again without making them look too evil... it would make them look almost like the Gargoyles from that old Disney cartoon series of the 90's... minus the wings. Or I could go back to the original face, but keep the hairstyle... what do you think?

(A piece of the early version just showing the head)

I kinda like the original-style face better than the humanoid one. Can you do a sketch of the full design for that version?

Fortunately I saved often when making the first pic. I've edited the image and changed it from having a humanoid face to the more alien one. It hasn't come out half-bad... I might actually prefer it myself.

So guys, cast your votes. Which is better?

I also fixed the tail luminescence in the second image so it doesn't just suddenly stop half-way.

EDIT: Re-uploaded the image again because somehow when I changed the face I managed to make the glow go all crazy and shine twice as bright. I've now toned down the glow. *shudder* It was coming across as a living neon sign.

Whilst I'm not planning on finishing it off... here's all I did of the abandoned original Vashurah concept. It was coming across as way too over-the-top muscular and it was taking me forever to draw because of all the detail going into the armor plates. I began to dread the thought of having to create multiple images based upon this one, like an equally muscular and detailed male version and having to do such detailed images in multiple poses. I can't draw all that fast by mouse alone and it would take me forever.

I'm posting a direct link because it might be considered NSFW on account of the nakedness (though there are technically no naughty bits visible as the torso is completely covered by exoskeleton). I was trying to get the general body shape and layout down before adding clothing and trying my hand at the races uniform.

The simple lines for the legs and tail were just intended as a guide as to the rough body shape I was originally going for, which I deleted as I went along. In this first version of the Vashurah I didn't intend to have the reversed bone-structure for the lower portions of the legs that the present version has.

http://img709.imageshack.us/i/vasurahprototype.jpg/ (Possibly NSWF)

These are pretty awesome.

Thankyou... I've just started work on a male character as well, based upon the second type which I've now chosen to go with. Both images I'll probably use as examples of the species within the Physical Description / Characteristics article in the wiki, as well as images for NPC or maybe player characters.

I like alien face more.

I personaly more like more humanish faces. Basicly before it is more easy to work with those in posts and also because they look nicer. But that is just me. I see problem that with alien-like face I would not know how to describe emotion well. Do they smile? Can they shift their eyes like we do? That is unlikely which is probably okay for any baddie-race but if it is intendend as player race I would see it hard for player feel and merge with the character. We are humans after all, we have no idea how to be non-human. Just saying.

ShotJon: I wouldn't say playing a complete alien is impossible, just difficult for most. Once a wiki profile on their biology is posted, I'd like to try writing a sample post for a vasurah character to see what they might do : )

Khasidel: The concept sketch looks pretty neat, I like your style. It's very clean. But I do have two hang-ups on the prototype (notes for future reference, since it's not applicable to the current design). I am making an assumption that the prototype is the "standard" form of a vasurah.

TL;DR, probably-useless biology notes ahead.
First is the musculature, though I think that can be justified. Humans are designed for a wide range of builds running from strength-based to more dexterity/speed arrangements. I've noticed that, generally, there is a limit to muscle mass before it becomes more a hindrance to range-of-motion. If the prototype musculature was the 'default' design, then that would be a little out there but I figure that they could just have a different instinct when it comes to combat. In terms of no-tech combat, their natural armor plating would enable them to soak damage while waiting for the time to land a decisive or heavy-damage hit. Otherwise, that sort of muscle wouldn't be worth it, and it limits the variations (nowhere to go but down).

Also, a race's basic instincts related to combat could color their approaches to technology. Just a thought, there.

The second note concerns the armor plates over the breasts. I don't see the function there. If the plates are connected/grown directly from the skin that they cover and if there is no practical reason for the breasts then they probably don't need to be there, much less in that size. Either the breasts are like other humanoids, in which case the plates either need to be movable (ligaments, maybe? It'd be weird, for sure) or not there altogether. Or the plates can remain, but the vasurah either don't nurse their young or have another location for those ducts.

END TL;DR

Going back to the colored pictures: I really like the second one, it fits the body much, much better : ) And, as I noted to ShotJon, it has some possibilities to be made interesting. Maybe a niche race, but the interesting ones always are ^_^

The original Vashurah species was going to be polymorphic- that is it was going to have a number of genetic castes or breeds of Vasurah suited to specific roles. IE warriors, workers, hunters, leadership, etc. Each would have slightly different body configurations and capabilities, such as workers having additional limbs and hunters possessing wings, or warriors (such as the original prototype) which were stronger and more heavily armored.

Yet another reason why I abandoned this version; I would have probably ended up having to draw each and every variety.

As for the presence of breasts despite the armor plating, I was originally intending that the area beneath could be exposed around the segments where they aren't directly attached to the skin for the purposes of nursing young.

For the present incarnation of the Vashurah, I've begun writing the wiki articles but there isn't much there yet. I've just done some of the details about their general description with some biological justification for why they are that way (I can't do a complete evolutionary justification until I properly design their homeworld and its environments, which I'm going to do next before I work on writing out the rest of their physiological information).

I was also planning on partially basing their mentality upon a race from the 'Foreigner' science fiction book series written by CJ Cherryh, called the Atevi. They're psychology is mostly human-like but with significant differences in how they interrelate socially.

I intend that the Vashurah will lack certain human emotions and have emotions that humans don't have in exchange due to differences in their neural structure and the biochemistry which actually causes emotional response. The specifics of this I've yet to decide, and obviously it might make playing a Vashurah a bit of a challenge if a player character isn't allowed to express certain human emotions such as the ability to love or like something or show compassion or empathy. It would also be challenging trying to act out an emotional response that a human is not actually capable of experiencing in real-life, and I will have to thoroughly plot out the mechanics of any new emotions and explain how they should work.

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=species:vasurah (just in case you're interested in checking on my progress, though keep in mind I'm constantly editing and nothing is final. I technically can't begin to submit articles for approval for another 2 1/2 months or so.)

I'm probably going to have to prune what I've written so far drastically, I'm overly technical in my explanations and probably provide more scientific justification for species traits than would strictly be needed. Right now its way more TL;DR (unless you're a major-league nerd like me) than your post just was. :lol:

Hm. If they don't have human emotions, do they have analogs (emotions analogous to those of humans)? I am tending to think that, even if the expressions and motivations behind emotions are different, the basis for them is still the same. Love is displayed this way at its core, and has these benefits and detriments; hate is displayed this way and has these effects on behavior, etc. Those remain the same, but they can be felt to varying degrees of intensity and have different peripheral displays.

A lot of human social gestures are not emotional in origin, but practical. The chemistry and emotions behind the gestures are of no consequence and only effect when they are used, not why. It is all shorthand, in the end, and can be elaborated on to give a more specialized flavor, such as a military salute where the lower-ranked vasurah might place a closed fist over their third eye then their stomach in stabbing gestures as a symbolic blinding and gutting of themselves. "I see only your purpose, I live only to serve." Details like whether the third eye sees a different range of light than the others, the flexibility of the tail, and whether the bioluminescence is under conscious, easy control (instead of the less-easy control of the eye colors) can be used as further indicators in social interactions.

Practical displays aside, how would emotions be affected by chemistry? From where I stand, a lot of emotions are stimulus-response due to outside influence and learned behavior, not solely because of chemicals. Vasurah responses might be different than how a human would respond to certain stimuli, but there should be practical reasons behind those responses. In the end, the only reason an alien would be _truely_ alien (like the first and third stages of the piggies in the second book of the Ender Trilogy or the Vorta in Star Trek) would be because they have a wholly different form and thus a whole different set of practical issues to deal with. Vasurah are humanoid, so the differences would be in the details, influenced by customs, history, and personal experiences, not chemistry and the actual feelings. They might have lesser (or greater) emotional reactions than humans do in some situations, and they may not have the physical sensations we associate with love or any number of other emotions, but I think they have their own variants.

I was intending that the Vasurah have most of the range of traditional human emotions (or at least analogues of which that are for role-play intents and purposes essentially the same).

Many human emotions are closely tied to our physiology, body chemistry, hormones etc. Some are instinctual, others are the result of experience and are "conditioned" or learned responses.

Depending on their brains structure and the evolution of their endocrine system, there is no guarantee that even a humanoid alien life-form would have an emotional range even remotely the same as a normal human being even if they evolved under similar conditions; they could just as easily be a race of psychopaths utterly lacking in a capacity compassion, empathy, remorse and their sole emotional responses could revolve around basic fight or flight behaviors (though that would likely be improbable).

It depends how chance has allowed their body to evolve in their natural habitat to react with specific stimuli, what chemicals it produces, and what those chemicals and hormones do when they react with the brain. They could produce any of the emotional responses experienced by humans, or they could have no comparable analogue. Our brains might simply lack the ability to experience any unique mental process they might develop.

Here's a list of most basic human emotions, though admittedly there's some overlap:
Affection, Anger, Angst, Annoyance, Anxiety, Apathy, Arousal, Awe, Contempt, Curiosity, Boredom, Depression, Desire, Despair, Disappointment, Disgust, Dread, Ecstasy, Embarrassment, Empathy, Envy, Euphoria, Fear, Fretfulness, Frustration, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Hatred, Hope, Horror, Hostility, Hysteria, Indifference, Interest, Jealousy, Loathing, Loneliness, Love, Lust, Misery, Pity, Pride, Rage, Regret, Remorse, Sadness, Satisfied, Shame, Shock, Shyness, Sober, Sorrow, Suffering, Surprise, Wonder, Worry.

There is no guarantee an alien species could actually be capable of experiencing all of those mental conditions. They may be genetically predisposed to being loners or are natural sociopaths that are unable to form strong emotional attachments to anything. It would depend on how they evolved; their emotional responses would have been greatly influenced by their needs for survival and if an emotion wasn't needed, they might not have it. The lack of a human specific emotion may be supplemented by another that somehow fills the void and helps the race survive without it.

They may have emotional drives and responses that humans simply do not possess and only have rough approximations of- if any. An examples of which might be a compulsive hunger or addiction-like behavior manifesting as a desire to hunt and kill live pray daily. Another example might be an unbreakable "loyalty" towards "alpha" members of the race that once established instills psychological need to obey unquestioningly- a loyalty so strong that once in place the individual in physically incapable of contradicting it. Perhaps an alien might have an instinctive and uncontrollable urge to lash out against any perceived threats immediately. They may be capable of an emotional "bond" to their sexual mate that far exceeds the love humans can experience, perhaps bordering on obsession or even a psychological addiction- secondary behaviors may be inflated reactions of envy and an obsessive protectiveness which for the species is quite natural.

There are many possible variations of normal human emotions that could be changed into something very different. The trick will be finding a good combination and working out appropriate limitations that will be acceptable and fun to role-play.

At this point, I'm open to ideas.

Khasidel said:

Many human emotions are closely tied to our physiology, body chemistry, hormones etc. Some are instinctual, others are the result of experience and are "conditioned" or learned responses.

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Tied to, but not reliant on.

From here down, all references to your species are in the interest of proposing possibilities, of course, not imposing my ideas for how you might decide they act.

MissingNo said:

[...]even if the expressions and motivations behind emotions are different, the basis for them is still the same.

Click to expand...

Expressions: We smile when we want to appear happy (even if we are not). They glow a brighter blue when they want to appear content to another of their species. (Note: "Content" in that sentence is not used to refer to an emotion, but a physical, objective state where a being's physical and mental requirements are currently satisfied and nothing further is needed.) We judge and incarcerate those who act to the detriment of the species. They could eat the offender alive on the spot. We protect cute things with infantile features. Their "parenting instinct" is to pick up and throw dark blue things because that's the color their young glow and the means by which they protect their young from predators. To us, it sounds ludicrous to do that to a baby, but they do it because they can very easily find the young later (say, by a scent or biological link that acts like a compass where their child is always "North") and their young is unharmed by the impact of the fall from the throw. Also, they have a natural fear and aggression toward things that appear "cute" to humans simply because their main predators have what humans call "infantile" features. Alien in the reaction, but reactions that humans can understand the reasons behind.

Also, they could be deceitful in their emotional expressions, or have actions with no emotional response behind them whatsoever. However, even humans are that way: A guy pretends to be happy, swaggering and hanging out with his buddies, so they won't know that he's heavily depressed inside; a girl pretends to be oblivious and bubble-headed even though she's sharp as a tack because she knows the boy she likes doesn't like girls who are smarter than he is. Human expression is a language, but it's a secondary one. Your race could take that further and make expressions their primary, or they could have feelings but no expressions. (I find it amusing and annoying that Vulcans, supposedly suppressing all emotion, still are emotional in their behavior, particularly in the recent Abrams movie.)

Anyway, my question was also unanswered by your post. How would chemistry affect emotional response in a way that it would make the emotion completely alien to a human? I realize that it could make the motivation alien, but not the emotion itself. Picking on two strong emotions and using an alien species I just made up as an example:

It experienced what a human called fear and lust, but for completely different reasons. The emotions were triggered by chemicals and the behavior surrounding those emotions was very strange to a human observer who didn't know the species, but the emotions are the same as those a human feels. The fear, though, was strong, and the lust was weak. But in the context of their biology it could make perfect sense: A female (to use the arachnid model of mating where the female is the dominant) emits a pheromone that arouses a certain male but freezes them in an emotion that we call fear, then the female seeks him out by the color he turned and mates, which then biochemically changes her pheromone composition and frees the male once the mating is complete. BUT...that is not a sentient species. Once you introduce conscious, self-aware thought into the mix then all chemical reactions and emotions are put into a secondary category. We have emotions, but they do not rule us unless we allow them (thus why people can overcome fears and why humans can resist the mating impulse). A variation on the alien scenario proposed above could be that the alien gets the headache and feels the fear, but resists the compulsion to cower in place and the only sign that he was hit with the pheromone are signs of discomfort and a slight change in his coloration (but not the total change that would have originally occurred). Basically...

MissingNo said:

From where I stand, a lot of emotions are stimulus-response due to outside influence and learned behavior, not solely because of chemicals.

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I would like to amend that statement: Just because emotions are triggered doesn't mean that the creature needs to act on them.

Khasidel said:

Depending on their brains structure and the evolution of their endocrine system, there is no guarantee that even a humanoid alien life-form would have an emotional range even remotely the same as a normal human being even if they evolved under similar conditions; they could just as easily be a race of psychopaths utterly lacking in a capacity compassion, empathy, remorse and their sole emotional responses could revolve around basic fight or flight behaviors (though that would likely be improbable).

Click to expand...

If they are psychopaths, born and bred, then they have no attachments and act rationally in the continuation of the species, but how would they get that way? The first of them to be psychopaths wouldn't act in the best interest of the species and the species would die out. Humans only survive because most aren't psychopaths and/or there are enough non-psychopaths that the psychopaths are able to discover and mimic behavior that help the race survive.

Being completely fight-or-flight kinda takes away from the possibility for rational thought. And rational thought takes away the impact of having the sole emotional response of fight-or-flight at all. Humans have it, but also have the ability to think around that dichotomy.

Khasidel said:

It depends how chance has allowed their body to evolve in their natural habitat to react with specific stimuli, what chemicals it produces, and what those chemicals and hormones do when they react with the brain. They could produce any of the emotional responses experienced by humans, or they could have no comparable analogue. Our brains might simply lack the ability to experience any unique mental process they might develop.

Click to expand...

You would need a purpose for an emotion with no human analogue. What would it be, and what does it do? And also remember that, if you can make it, then we can understand it. Therefore, it's a human analogue...what you're proposing is beyond the singularity of human ability to understand, so if you can understand it then it's not what you want.

Khasidel said:

Here's a list of most basic human emotions, though admittedly there's some overlap:
Affection, Anger, Angst, Annoyance, Anxiety, Apathy, Arousal, Awe, Contempt, Curiosity, Boredom, Depression, Desire, Despair, Disappointment, Disgust, Dread, Ecstasy, Embarrassment, Empathy, Envy, Euphoria, Fear, Fretfulness, Frustration, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Hatred, Hope, Horror, Hostility, Hysteria, Indifference, Interest, Jealousy, Loathing, Loneliness, Love, Lust, Misery, Pity, Pride, Rage, Regret, Remorse, Sadness, Satisfied, Shame, Shock, Shyness, Sober, Sorrow, Suffering, Surprise, Wonder, Worry.

Click to expand...

All can be boiled down to these in different intensities and combinations: Happy, sad, fearful, angry, attracted, repulsed, confused, confidant, bonded, detached. It's a color wheel for emotion!

Khasidel said:

[At first you said...]
There is no guarantee an alien species could actually be capable of experiencing all of those mental conditions.
[...then you said...]
There are many possible variations of normal human emotions that could be changed into something very different. The trick will be finding a good combination and working out appropriate limitations that will be acceptable and fun to role-play.

Click to expand...

In the end, you're saying what I said:

MissingNo said:

They might have lesser (or greater) emotional reactions than humans do in some situations, and they may not have the physical sensations we associate with love or any number of other emotions, but I think they have their own variants.

Click to expand...

When it comes down to it, humans have an incredible variation in what they feel. Even another human can be incredibly alien to you based on how they react to some situations. That's how we get serial killers and gender differences, people acting in a way that is alien to other people. Why did that person get pleasure from slowly torturing and killing? Who knows but them. Why does a woman react one way to her environment and a man reacts another way? And why are they confused at the difference? Because they have a different balance of what stimulus drives what response. Same emotions, different measures and mixtures.

There are no new emotions. Anything we don't understand can be anthropomorphized and remixed until it makes sense and fits an already-defined emotion or, in this case, until it seems strange enough that it can fit an alien even though it is, at its core, a recognizable human emotion.

Also, if you make a species too alien then you alienate (pun punpunpun PUN!) your player base. Truly alien species are best used on an NPC basis (the Mishhu were originally supposed to be that "Incomprehensible alien" type but were changed to make them more relatable); for a player-species you're better off creating a vastly alien culture around a human-based emotion set. Emotions are relatable, but the way people express those emotions can be varied.

Huh. Emotional hyper-spacialism. Now that's an idea...Are you ever in IRC? I'd like to discuss this in there sometime : )

You make a lot of good points, I'm going to have to give it some serious thought when I get around to deciding on the Vashurah's psychology. I'll keep what you've written in mind. As I hope the Vashurah might eventually be a playable race, I would want most of their emotional mix (or how they appear to react) close enough to human norms that it would be possible for folks on the forums to act out their parts. But I want enough differences to make them interesting... hmmm....

Your proposal of differing expressions from humans is also an idea I'll have to think more about.

As for being on IRC, I haven't really been sticking my head in the channel before now, but I probably should. Perhaps I'll chat with you there.

Work-In-Progress image for a single 'Shelahk' collective consciousness (Probably a major character in the race). See below for explanation on Shelahk... The two female portions of the line-art are mostly done less a few touch-ups, but the male's face is the only bit of that section complete apart from the body guide. Still haven't started two other individuals i've got planned for this image.


LOL... I must have completely lost my marbles... :?

Decided to completely rebuild the alien race i'm designing from scratch. They're called the 'Shelahk' now; a species evolved from pack-hunting animals not unlike Earth wolves. This species will be different from other races in the SARP setting, because the Shelahk and many other species on their native planet have developed a kind of innate 'group intelligence' or 'group awareness'. Other than this particular mental trait, they won't be particularly special; human-level strength, small stature, and some elevated senses, etc.

When they were developing, the Shelahk gained the ability to transmit perceptions and sensations between pack-mates with a kind of mental bond. Rather than evolving separate, individual sentience, this shared awareness continued to evolve and change until the ability allowed the Shelahk to acquire sapience when part of a group.

How I envision the Shelahk functioning is like this; A unit or grouping of 3-6 Shelahk functions as a single organism whose thoughts are shared by each member, effectively creating a single gestalt, human-equivalent consciousness. When individual members are separated from the mental bond (either by distance or the death of most other members of the group), they lose intelligent consciousness and descent to a primitive and more animal level of intelligence (possibly becoming temporary NPC's). A group of individual Shelahk needs to pass the minimum number of three to gain full sapience, however, the group can be extended up to around 6 before the natural networking ability between Shelahk ceases to be able to handle the amount of information transmission between individual bodies (sensation and perceptions). The average number of bodies per consciousness will be 4-5.

A player character of this species would essentially be one mind or 'soul' controlling several bodies in proximity to each other at once (a hundred or so meters- possibly extended through some kind of cybernetic implant which augments the range); these bodies would usually be related to each other and can be of either gender, and of any age above a few months old.

Memories are shared through the mental connection from the point it is established- any memories recorded in a bodies mind from before bonding to a collective can be accessed, but are not copied into the other bodies. Once a body dies or is severed from the collective the memories and traits unique to the body are gone with it. This means that though a Shelahk 'soul' can be effectively immortal and persist for centuries by adding younger bodies to the collective, a Shelahk must eventually loose earlier memories over time as older bodies which carry unique memories succumb to old age or are killed off. Skills such as talking and writing are constantly performed by all bodies and never end up lost (Kind of like how most humans can't consciously remember their original lessons on how to talk, write etc. but because they constantly put those skills into practice they effectively never forget how to perform the tasks even though the memories are gone- kinda subconscious knowledge).

At some point a few months after birth an individual Shelahk body (with a maximum potential intellect equivalent to a very smart dog) will become mature enough to join into a collective. They will instinctively reach out and try to join with other Shelahk they come across- both those un-bonded, and also with already established groups. A pre-established collective can consciously choose to deflect or deny the bonding process. If a shelahk individual becomes separated from their group, they will usually try to rejoin their original collective by instinct, or if that is no longer possible after a period of time they will try to join with others, carrying any skills or memories they possess with them.

A Shelahk souls personality can change depending upon the memories housed within the bodies that comprise it- if a body with a life-time of memories and experiences within it joins to a new collective it can fundamentally alter the nature of the Shelahk- too what degree depends on the nature of the memories, and the personality traits carried.

The exact mechanics of this I'm still working out so that if could function in role-play. I'm mostly basing this after an alien species in a book called 'A Fire Upon the Deep', written by Vernor Vinge. Even if this particular mental concept ends up being rejected, I can probably still use the images I create for individual characters in a more traditional kind of species.

EDIT: I've been misusing the word sapience; I was under the impression thatt it was just another word for sentience so I used it as such in the previous text- unfortunately that was an error on my part. Substitute 'sentience' for 'sapience' in what I've written above.