#sci-fi character design

[layaart]

ARCHIVIST WASP CHARACTER DESIGNS part 5

[described] operatives + the director.

this is the half of the operatives that are described! 

- in 33′s case this is literally just “tall” + assuming ethnicity from his name, lmao 

- I decided to draw 17 in the like, original little jumpsuits that the kids are in? rather than what he probably is dressed like in the media

- aside from drawing the remaining 4 operatives, at some point I’d like to draw like, the “game” versions vs this which is a mix of more real versions

-21 is my favourite in this

[phosphorescence7991]

So I had an idea to encorage myself with this “practice robot stuff” thing to put some work into a design idea I had but hadn’t  done... well. See I had an idea for a lacer PC I named Chesire and I had a cool idea to make her robotic limbs look like they were striped but well, as established I wasn’t confident with robot stuff so I just kinda left them in the concept doodle phase (whcich is what the full body image is)

AND OH BOY DID I NOT EXPECT THEM TO COME OUT AS GOOD AS THIS Please do not except these to keep being this good I don't know how I managed that XD [ID: Digital art of a robotic arm (from below the elbow) and leg. The leg is shown from the front and the side. the main bodies of both limbs are long, thin and made of layered purple and black shiny metal. There are a series of pink metalic rings, broken in the centre with pointed ends, levitating around the limbs, emulating stripes, the blue energy running inside them, seeming to keep them floating. The hand has long fingers with wide tips and long claws, with patches of pink metal on the palm and finger tips, emulating a cats foot beans. The leg is digitigrade, the foot is geometric and has 3, clawed toes in the same pink as the hands palms. Below these is A digital art image of an excited woman standing blow-legged and waving. She has robotic arms a legs, a much more simplistic version of the perviously shown images. She also has a matching tail. She is white and has thick ringleted hair in pinks and purples, tied into a large high ponytail. Her eyes are fully pink and glowing with black slited pupils. She is grinning with sharp gagged teeth. She is wearing shiney black throusers and a tailed waistcout with a high black collar. half the waitcoat is a gree checkered pattern, the other half a purple and red diamond pattern. There is an image of a card spade on the center with each hald coloured with the same patterns at the reast of the waistcoat, but swapped sides. next to her is tart of the same woman but with normal eyes (blue) no robotic limbs and in a very different style. She has short, straight, blonde hair brushed back against her head. She is wearing a pale blue and while sci-fi styled geometric suit, with shiney black shoes.]

[ex0skeletal-undead]

Greater Morula, Photoshop painting by Dariusz Kieliszek

[leidensygdom]

funny celestial-flavoured robot girl with a custom made shirt (because these pesky fleshbeings don't think about 4-armed people too much-)

I had the itch to draw Argyros again so this happened >:) enjoy!

[akm87]

SUDÄAN, The Nubian Empire

[transformersweatpants]

Since I haven’t posted art in a while I thought I’d show off what I think is my best work yet: PCs and NPCs from a sci-fi campaign I tried to start!

[sabworks]

Nureyev dresses like an 80s Star Trek alien

[dinodanicus]

A photo of the hyper evolved velociraptor, Beatrice Quill back from her extended stay off world. she works as a professor of dinosaur behavioral science at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. Since her tenure she has revolutionized mankind's understanding of the prehistoric world while also keeping the museums rodent population under control.

[georgiacooked]

The latest in my little TARDIS painting series. Featuring two Romanas, watching space go by.

Ngl, I'm so proud of this one. I haven't had a lot of time to draw non-bobbles recently, but I feel like my skills have levelled up a bit!

[gebo4482]

Arcane #2

[zephyrbug]

Elegant and Intelligent the architect behind her family’s success, Corona 🦋🥀💎 I’m baaaaaack!!! Officially free!! Finally got back into commissions and next up is actually the sister of a commission I recently did (she is Uri’s elder sister!!) Corona for  @//absent_lambeth on Instagram!! Sci-fi fantasy is always so much fun to design I really had a blast with her!! Thank y’all for your patience, I have a lil backlog of work so I’ll be able to post regularly again!

[physalian]

What No One Tells You About Writing #4 (100 Follower Special!)

Have you got any that deserve to be on these lists? Don’t be shy! Send ‘em over.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

*This list contains mentions of assault, #4

1. Zero cursing is better than censored cursing

I made the mistake in the early days of writing a self-censoring character, and every “curse” she said just took the teeth out of the rest of the statement. I’m talking gosh, darn, dang, etc, not world-specific idioms a la “scruffy nerf herder” or “dunderhead” instead of “dumbass”.

Look to any American TV show that so, so badly wants to use f*ck or sh*t but has to appease the sensitive conservatives who still somehow believe strong language is worse than graphic violence and horrifying psychological damage. For shame! Your characters can be angry without expletives, so rework your sentences to include equally damning insults that don’t resort to potty mouths if you’re concerned about ratings.

Or go full-throttle into the idioms of the world or the time period like Pirates of the Caribbean. Or just… don’t. There’s zero modern cursing in the Lord of the Rings adaptation and not a single sentence that censors itself. The dialogue is above vulgarity and feels more *fantastical* that way anyway.

2. “Yeah, you aren’t the target audience.”

It’s kind of hilarious seeing the range of reader reactions to two characters I intend to have a romantic relationship. Some will go “I ship it!” after the first page of them together… and another will go “wait, I thought they were just friends” up until they kiss. Sometimes you might be too subtle, other times it might be better to just accept that you can’t rewrite your entire book to please one naysayer.

When I’m pitched a fantasy adventure book that turns out to be a by-the-numbers romance where no one is allowed to be a peasant and every important character is royalty in some way, with a way cooler fantasy backdrop, I get severely disappointed. That doesn’t mean the book is bad, it just means I’m not the target audience.

3. There is no greater character sin than making them boring

Unless you live in the wacky world we find ourselves in where any flaws whatsoever are apparently harmful depictions of so-and-so and not at all written with things like ~nuance~. I will gush over your heinous villain committing atrocities because he’s *interesting*. I will not remember Bland Love Interest who’s a generic everyman with zero compelling or intriguing traits or flaws.

There’s another tumblr post out there that I cannot find that says something like this, and I believe the post goes “his crimes are fiction, my annoyance is real”. Swap annoyance for boredom and you get what I mean. So, I don’t care what your character does so long as they’re memorable. I will either root for their victory or their doom, but I do need *something* to root for.

4. The line between “gratuitous” and “respectful” is actually very thick

Less what no one tells *you* about writing and more what no one tells screenwriters. Y’all do realize you can write a character who experiences assault without actually writing the assault, right? Fade to black, have them mention it in their backstory, or have the horrific aftermath as they come to terms with it. An abrupt cut to this devastated character when it’s all over and they’re alone with themselves can be incredibly poignant and powerful. This goes with anything sensitive, especially if it’s not coming from experience.

If you want to write it or film it respectfully, romanticizing assault, for instance, is when it’s framed as if either character has earned or “deserves” it. If the narrative in any way argues that it's justified. The victim might have "earned" it for any of the BS reasons we use in the real world, or the perpetrator might've "earned" it because of temptation, desire, pressure to assert dominance, etc. Representation is important, but are you “representing” to shed light on a misunderstood and maligned topic, or are you doing it to satisfy a fetish or bias in yourself?

5. Don’t let your eyes get bigger than your stomach

Fantasy has no limitations, which means you can dig way deeper into the well of your worldbuilding than you realize, until you look up and realize you’re stuck down there. I have never seen a more obvious inevitable disaster looming than the pilot of GoT season 5. Why? Nobody has any plans. They’re all just led around by whatever side quest the writers throw them on, twiddling their thumbs until the writers deign to pull the trigger on the White Walkers.

To the point that what should be a major character can skip an entire season because his arc is meaningless. Everything in the last half of that show was one big “eventually” while the story toiled around in an ever-expanding cast of characters and set pieces (seriously, it’s hilarious how jarring the extended version of the theme music became compared to the pilot episode to fit all these locations).

When you have too many directionless characters, too many plot elements, too many ideas you want to fully mature and get their due spotlight and then somehow combine them all together for a common foe in the end, writing can get tedious and frustrating very quickly. Why, I imagine, the book series remains unfinished. Fantasy is great for being able to create such complex worlds, but don’t be the snake that eats its own tail trying too hard.

6. No one cares about your agenda if you insult them to push it

This deserves its own post but here we go. Peddling an agenda is a paradox: those who agree with you won’t need to be preached to, and those who you want to persuade will instead reject you further because they feel belittle and disrespected. This is why so many recent “strong female characters” fail on both sides of the aisle. Feminists see an annoying caricature of the movement they’re passionate about. Antifeminists see an insufferable, shallow, liberal mouthpiece when they just want to be entertained. You have failed both sides, congrats.

The answer? Write a strong, nuanced, well-developed character. Then make them a woman. I know this has been said before but this BS keeps happening so clearly the screenwriters aren’t listening. Entertain me first. Entertain me so well I don’t even realize I’m learning.

7. Today’s audiences won’t react the same way as tomorrow’s

Sometimes genres or tropes get oversaturated and need a few years to cool off before audiences are receptive to them again—teen dystopia, anyone?—that doesn’t mean your story is inherently bad because it’s unpopular (nor does it mean it’s amazing because it is popular).

You should always write the book you want to read, not the book that chases trends. I can pick up a well-written teen dystopia I’ve never read before and enjoy it. I can continue to ignore Divergent because it has nothing to say. Write the book you want to read, but then accept that you might make no money because no one else wants to read it, not because they think it’s bad. And, who knows? You might get a boom of chatter months or years down the line when readers stumble upon an uncut gem.

8. Your characters don’t age with you

Depending on how long you’ve been working on your world and what age you were when you started, the characters, concepts, morals, and story you set out to tell might no longer reflect who you want to be as an author when all is said and done. Writing can take years, some of which can be incredibly turbulent and life changing. I wrote the first draft of my first original novel in my freshman year of college. Those characters and that draft are now unrecognizable and has left a world I’ve poured my heart and soul into in limbo.

I’ve slowly creeped up my characters’ ages. My writing has matured dramatically. The themes I wanted to explore in the height of the 2016 election are just demoralizing now. That book was my therapeutic outlet and, as consequence, my characters sometimes reflect some awful moods and mindsets that I was in when writing them. But nothing in that world grows without me tending to it. It’s not alive. Despite all the work I’ve done, there’s still more to be done, maybe even restarting the plot from the ground up. When I think of what no one told me about writing, staring at characters designed by someone I’m not anymore is the hardest reality to accept.

—

If you think I missed something, check out parts 1-3 or toss your own hat into the ring. Give me romance tropes. Mystery, thriller, historical fiction, bildungsromans, memoires, children’s books, whatever you want! Give me stuff you wish you’d known before editing, publishing, marketing, and more. 

Also, don’t forget to vote in the dialogue poll!

[ex0skeletal-undead]

HR Giger Tribute by VentralHound

[leidensygdom]

In the same way the gods created angels to serve them, so did humanity with robots. Now, in some strange twist of fate, an artificial construct bears the same holiness given to celestials: And surely, they wish to be of assistance.

Meet Argyros! She's a new character for a coming campaign (an Aasimar/warforged Cleric on DnD5e, and an Aasimar/Automaton Oracle of Life in PF2e). I had been wanting to scratch the itch to design a robot, and she was the perfect fit for it. I hope you'll like her! I can't reveal too much, but feel free to ask, I'd love to shape her a bit more~

[prokopetz]

1990s sci-fi television makeup is like "is this character supposed to be a space alien, or just old?"

[clambuoyance]

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