In the Definitely a Real AI, the hardest thing by far has to be picking finalized alien descriptions for Skizz, Gem, Scar, and Impulse.
I’ve been trying to imagine those 5 as aliens before I even started writing and let me say, there has been many ideas.
General Goals
Designing Skizz, Gem, Scar, and Impulse as aliens was somewhat challenging. So I set up 3 goals for myself.
Alien yet not Alien
Embody the Character
Simpler the better
1. Alien yet not Alien
When designing alien designs, it can be very easy to get lost in the rabbit hole of alien designs. I could come up with hundreds of designs.
However the more alien a design gets, the more it loses focus and too complicated. I did not want to over complicate the design and lose the character.
2. Embody the Character
Another key thing I knew I needed to do to make the designs good was embody the character.
I can’t just throw darts to a wall and see what lands. No, what I wanted to do was pull elements that had prior connections to said character.
Example: Skizz and angels. He is commonly associated with angels in fan arts.
This way, people can read the descriptions along and have a good chance of figuring out who’s who without seeing the name.
3. Simpler the Better
Alien designs can get out of wack quick. So many cool features could be added. But with all these cool features, the easier it is to over complicate things and get lost.
So without further ado, let me stop blabbering and start talking the reject concepts. I have rejected whole concepts and also rejected single features that at the time felt cool but ultimately threw away.
Impulse
In all honesty, Impulse had the fewest changes. Going in I knew I was leaning towards a dwarf-like alien.
Concept 1:
4’10 creature with 4 arms, tough circular padding on knees and elbows, with a haircut resembling season 10 HermitCraft skin, complete with a purple visor.
Rejected Features:
1. Curling into a call like a Goron and rolling around.
2. Charcoal black cracked hands that ran up to arms.
Gem
In the beginning I had Gem look more like her dnd character. It worked for a while and helped establish the baselines.
Concept 1:
Dark purple skin, dark red hair, purple/pink crystal antlers that could blossom crystal flowers, with normal legs and, 5 fingers. Also had her left hand with crystal like scar and left eye a dark blue/black.
Concept 2:
Dark purple skin, dark red hair, purple/pink crystal antlers that could blossom crystal flowers, with normal legs and, 5 fingers.
Concept 3:
Dark purple skin, dark red hair, floppy deer ears, with normal legs, and 5 fingers. Could see in dark with red pupil eyes and with black sclera. Felt like a retextured human.
Rejected Features:
Tail like a tiefling
Triple small horns
Deer lower half (I did not feel like a space centaur)
Skizz
I’ll be honest, I did not want to make Skizz an Angel design at first. I don’t know, I just didn’t feel an angel in space at first.
Concept 1:
Large brown and orange tone alien with big belly, Shrek like ears, no hair at all, snout nose, and beady eyes.
Concept 2:
Tall stone grey alien with 6 white wings, 4 earwings, 2 eyes, and geometric markings running across body.
Concept 3:
Bluer skin alien with 4 grey wings, 2 wingears, 3 eyes, and still had the geometric markings at the time.
Rejected Features:
Bird feet
Bird head
Scar
Scar was by far the most challenging. I kept making a design, disliking it, making a new one, and then disliking that one.
Concept 1:
Light green skin alien with 3 fingers, had frog like padded fingers, long neck, elegant features, and no hair.
Concept 2:
Aquatic sandy yellow alien with 4 webbed fingers, webbed feet, with fins on arms, thighs, and head, and bioluminescent markings.
Concept 3:
Half aquatic blueish grey alien with retractable fins and could breathe on land and sea. Long and lanky. Webbed 4 fingers but dropped the feet. Fins were actually orange at the time. Bioluminescent markings.
Concept 4:
No longer an aquatic alien anymore. Greyish blue skin, fluffy white hair, green eyes, 4 non-webbed hands, had gliding wings like a flying squirrel. Pink scars as well for some reason.
Rejected Features:
Did not want an aquatic tail
Bonus: Jelly
She’s a cat. You think that it wouldn’t be that hard. No. Did a few designs.
Concept 1:
Actually jelly cat that looked like a cat but could walk through bars as the alien’s body move around the bars. Like jello.
Concept 2:
Big rounder face cat with a paintbrush tail. But this just looked like a retextured cat. Jelly is not a retextured cat.
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