#speculative biology

[jayrockin]

Simon Roy (@simon-roy) asked me to invent a guy (alien organism) for his newest book, Refugium, which comes with a guy emporium (alien life guidebook). There's a kind of radially symmetrical bug called pinwheels on the planet that will split into wedges as a defensive mechanism, so I Junji Ito'ed them into a eusocial spiral that workers snap off of once "ripe."

Refugium is out on Kickstarter right now and if you like alien ecology, failed utopias, and frontier stories I can highly recommend it. I've greatly enjoyed the previous books from the same universe.

[t34-mt]

not so interesting sketch dumps cause i feel guilty about not posting today, last one is mythological kyhuine dwarves ideas

maanul faces dump, trying to have ocs with difference faces lalala

sketches for a wip text about new infos around tahofahs and how theywork, concepts about "mind gates" and exchanging infos. its already figured, already yapped to some friends about it, i just need to redo my text to be clean and coherent for normal people here

shitposts

[lil-tachyon]

Hey everybody, go check out @simon-roy 's new book Refugium on Kickstarter! If Simon's reputation on its own somehow isn't enough to convince you to back it, there's a whole mini specbio guidebook with entries from me and like a ton of your other favorite artists probably.

Here are my little aliens without the text and weathered effects

[valdevia]

The Devilmask (Catacanthus diabolus) is a species of shield bug that uses humans as intermediate hosts for their larvae.

A devilmask will latch on to its target’s face, injecting them with a psychoactive compound. This makes the host blissfully unaware of the insect as they swallow its eggs. The egg-laying process is short, only taking a few minutes before the devilmask flies off, leaving the host with no recollection of the event.

Eggs have an acid-resistant coat to survive the stomach. They then hatch in the intestine, travelling down as they feed and grow.

[vcreatures]

Mermay 2024 is quickly approaching but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to participate much this year. But to commemorate one of my favorite challenges of the year I give you the Great Winged Sirenia. 

[yellydany]

Commission for @irazel ! Really love how this one came out! Was very fun to design a flying fish/shark inspired dragon 🐉🌊🐟 (not to mention dragons are my favourite!)

[simon-roy]

The first of several stunning entries from the insurmountably great Linnea Sterte (aka @turndecassette2 ) for REFUGIUM - a burrowing pentaped, photosynthesizing from a safely half-buried position...

Take a look at the campaign here

[lycanthrop-ee-art]

redesigned this creature from 2021 :]

[orcatnip]

NEW ALIEN

I call them Ocira. They're a sort of combination of seals and octopus. They're eusocial and very kind

That wrinkly thing on their chest are their gills, which they can use to express certain emotions.

Their "teeth" are truly spines that can be raised to eat meat, or flattened to chomp plants.

To communicate, they do a sort of drumming and pinching of their swim bladders for different tones and squeaks.

They live on an ocean planet, in shallow, warm waters around reefs.

I might draw them more and tell more about them 😸

[jayrockin]

The two main characters of my short story Airsled, Vrazi the diver avian and Piawii the pygmy avian.You can read more about their species here. Vrazi is holding the cord of money they used to buy Piawii's indentured labor, and Piawii is holding Vrazii's tea pipe.

The tea pipe was a funny compromise that turned into worldbuilding, because Vrazi felt like the type of character to smoke a cool pipe, but avian lungs are too delicate to handle the high concentration of airborne particulates found in leaf smoke. Smoke inhalation has a lot more immediately deleterious effects to them than to humans. I split the difference by giving them a steaming hot cup of [insert additive stimulant here] with a pipe-like handle for drinking on the go. 

This design got turned into stickers and put on the back cover of the new printed edition.

[troythecatfish]

[bayporwave]

Here's what utiks look like outside their shell. Just little brains in jars, workin robots. It was all they could do for themselves in their scramble for self-preservation.

They are able to survive outside their suits for around 12 hours, as it's usually long enough for the fallen being's comrades to come to their aid and be placed in a life-support pod until another mech body is provided. The small brains are also capable of sight, though very limited. As like starfish, utiks have small "eyes" at the end of each limbs. They have a slimy texture similar to jellyfish as they constantly secrete a layer of slime to protect their sensitive skin. The slime which the rakii would harvest. However, they are never to directly harvest the slime from the utik's bodies, as they risk harming the individual. Along with some mild ethical concerns. Instead, they pull the wiggly pilots from their beds and vacuum the leftover substance from there.

Another neat feature is the utik are capable of regeneration. As long as proper mass is still intact, the individual could potentially grow back as good as new. However, they are basically walking brains, as depending on damage, they may temporarily lose certain bodily functions, or worse, memory.

[ofowlsdinosaursanddragons]

Chimera Falin but she's a chimera with Uktan/Ghlanos traits

this was a sketch I made some time ago for fun and I decided to draw for fun!

[starstruck-critter]

ive posted about my aliens here before but i dont think ive ever posted my rover oc, so here they are! EXPLORER and its rhomboid friend :]

[simon-roy]

The incredible Sawyer Lee designed this marvelous creature for REFUGIUM's guidebook section - the Baro Grappler!

Take a look at the campaign here

[dedicatedfollower467]

speaking of megamind and weird alien anatomy, i was looking through some of my old headcanon doodles yesterday

i realized that one of my concepts was that instead of megamind's head actually housing an enormous brain (which irl would cost an ENORMOUS amount of energy to maintain with diminishing returns), he actually has a fairly human-ish sized brain.

instead, his skull is somewhat concave and most of the flesh in his forehead is actually adipose tissue similar in structure and function to a dolphin's melon. and also his sinuses are enormous and extensive and they have phonic lips similar to a dolphin's in addition to his larynx, so he can make dolphin-like clicks/whistles that sound like they're coming either out of his nose or through the center of his forehead.

the phonic lips are circled in red. as you can see i gave him quite a lot of them, so he can probably make a whole bunch of weird alien sounds.

i can't decide whether i want his melon to be squishy like a beluga or more rigid like most other dolphins. logically, the more rigid melon probably makes the most sense, but the idea of megamind having a squishy head is just so FUNNY to me.