#sky uniima

[yellosnacc]

New sky unii ref

Two adult sky uniima. One is walking forward while the other stands with limbs spread to the side, showing one palm. Between them is a single plump larva.

You can see more variation between groups with the extra cere (nostril) skin creating fleshy caruncles.

Another thing to point out would be two mouth fingers on the top jaw and a single one on the bottom. These have bones, though the little "frills" on them are muscle.

Here is an approximate scale compared to a human. Important to remember- while slomen are humanoid, they are smaller than humans.

Species info:

Sky uniima are primarily an arboreal species that mainly lives on a single large forested land with many surrounding islands. While their range is much smaller than that of land uniima (a distantly related species of sophont), their specialisation allows them to occupy the more extreme parts of their biosphere and spread all over there.

Sky unii generally build smaller societies with unique languages/dialects and cultures, even when these settlements aren't too far apart. Still, in modern times, cooperation is highly encouraged in the more politically active areas. This isn't an issue for most, as uniima have an extraordinary sense for picking up languages. Sky uniima learn new tongues especially well, even in older age, and many more-traveled ones can speak over 10 separate languages.

Their way of speaking is through the crest, creating multiple 'simpler' sounds at once. Unfortunately, they can't mimic other sophont ways of speech very well like this. Writing is the best next thing.

Sky uniima also show emotion using sound. This tune comes from the base of the crest and can be heard over speech. To our ears, it might appear like a humming/rattling sound in a chamber, but we would have a harder time separating it from other noises. The secondary way of emoting is the stretching and inflating of the facial markings.

Yes, the censored region is their unsafe for work area.

[freshrranchfirefestival]

This vid was fuckin killing me and it also reminded me of them

OCs by @yellosnacc (Fueem & Algaechh)...........

[yellosnacc]

Is there something that describes why uniima are shaped like that, I want to know why Neal is 70% head or what environment conditions would make a creature like that

-various sky uniima individuals engaging in object manipulation

Uniima are visually a little top-heavy. And that is because the head is one giant hand (and it is very distantly derived from a limb).

Because they are arboreal, their arms and legs aren't always available. The trees most favored by them also aren't branched like those favored by apes, like us - imagine an alien redwood.

Because of this, their ancestors have had part of their tongue and their upper sensory organs turn into manipulators along with the beak, and their middle eyes move deeper into the mouth area. This way, they got to solve more complex tasks and get into more difficult food items. Any branches can also be grabbed by the big jaws to move the body elsewhere, and a practiced individual can use their head and body motion to launch themselves a great distance onto a different surface, ideally catching onto something with their beak for support.

The head, while large, isn't too massive. The vocal organs take up most of the skull space, meaning majority is filled with air while the rest hosts complex nerves, eyes, muscles, and mostly hollow bones (they are stronger in the jaws). The true brain is in the chest.

So these skulls aren't as heavy as they seem.

And about Neal- He's the worst example for the species because he barely has any basic knowledge of the species.

Being raised by slomen and being very insecure about his appearance and behavior, you will never see him actually use his head to do anything, and to him, it only gets in the way and frustrates him. It is probably his biggest insecurity.

He did use his jaws as a baby, but as a witch, he did get some motor issues, making him very shaky while holding anything in the beak and putting pressure on it. He now hides this well, but also has comparatively extremely weak jaws.

His actual way of manipulating the world is with his hands, like slomen. This is not unique to him, uniima can use their limbs for things, but discriminate less between front and back limbs. They do this more for support than the default though, none of their hands have opposable fingers, and their large claws get in the way (and heavily arboreal communities don't want to risk losing them).

Neal doesn't have functioning claws. They were gutted at a very young age. For the same reason, he's also missing some fingers.

His tool use causes him pain. But it would be really impressive to a uniima observer!

[yellosnacc]

What would the sensory homunculus of a sky uniima look like?

sensory uniinculus...

[yellosnacc]

What's the level of articulation/flexibility of an Uniima?

I've been getting this question quite a bit.

A sky uniima showing some neck movement, including sleeping position and stretches.

Sky uniima have some of the most flexible and strong necks of their biosphere. Their necks might be extra thick, but the contents aren't all tough fat and muscle. The neck bones fold into an S shape at rest in the back of the mass. On them, you have some intense musculature and a very girthy "spinal" cord. Still, the majority of the thing is air. Uniima have large air sacs from their ancestors, but most have remained in the neck. Some of them appear constantly inflated, while others visibly aid speech or respiration (their true lungs are in the main body).

Their skulls are quite rigid in comparison, but they can do a little bit of side-to-side, back-to-front movement with their jaws. Just wouldn't recommend doing it too often or while carrying heavy objects.

The biggest problem when moving around is their horrendous crest, making their compact living life difficult. Fortunately, they are very aware of it and have no issue avoiding obstacles (though disabilities that hinder this ability are not too uncommon). Many will enlarge their crests with clothing/jewelry or even 'realistic' extensions that can get hefty. But hey, fashion and exercise in one?

Being arboreal, they have more flexible limbs than most terrestrial fauna with "belly" spine. But using them as active manipulators isn't as practical unless you are a trained professional body-dysmorphia-alien-raised gentleman. Their claws can't be pulled back much, and their flat, rough finger pads have a bad grip when handling small things with no thumb to help.

Didn't show much of the limb movement or inner beak, but might do that another time.

[yellosnacc]

what are the beauty standards of your sophonts! (Also I love ur art and ur brain Ty for sharing ur pieces with the world)

Hi and thank youu so many masses

Let's start with land uniima. With how very separated they are and how many traits are native to specific groups, it's hard to give a general answer, so here are the traits they focus on a lot in the beauty judgment.

other species and such under

Horns are quite obvious. They are imposing structures and size is consistently admired among land uniima as architects (the possible stage after adulthood) have bigger stature and larger horns and are attractive to most. Architects are also the ones who build and commission unique "nests" that are meant to draw in interest. Most land adults either find large, strange architecture mesmerizing or straight up attractive. Secondary traits that highly vary around the continent would be skin and fat distribution. The wattle on bigger uniis chin is an ethnic trait and is thought to be very beautiful in many places, even where the trait is a rare sight. Similarly, there are other skin features like bagginess on the neck and around the front lungs. Proportions of body parts, facial shaping, colors, and such are either too personal or cultural to speak of. Either way, lands definitely find strangeness and uniqueness pretty. You could say they don't fear the unknown as much as humans either, because of their size and strength.

Sky uniima Similarly to lands, the cultures are rich and with strong seperate identities. There are also ethnic traits that other groups may not even be familiar with (as with lands).

But in contrast, sky unii care a lot more about sound and color (but still interested in proportional differences like beaks, crests, etc). Someone who's bright and rich in contrast is going to look at minimum very interesting in any place. Freckles, piebaldism, or other differentiators are a beautiful thing. And even more beautiful when combined with a loud, flexible voice. A lot of places will be impressed by a large, interestingly shaped crest, but the same might be unappealing in the neighbouring culture (little rare, but it does happen). Sky's can also find nests appealing, but it's generally less passionate.

Slomen Bright feathers, also with good contrast. Popular or interesting facial and body marking patterns...

Male and female bodies are under very different expectations, and those differ a bit by region, as in some places women are actually larger than the men, and that is more desired. But then there are also the many types of men and women, and the beauty standards given to them in the family structure, one might even think of them as a gender of their own, constructed for different smaller roles. The beauty a society sets up is often one of a large, high-ranking family, making their traits admirable by influence, something you don't really see in the other species. These tighter "rules" may be applied to patterns, feather lengths, and such. Not very often, it's the classic attractive stuff, like a thick thigh. Though the set standard doesn't always align with what is seen as beautiful, at times, it will be just family politics.

Place holders That's hard! Not so much into looking at others to ponder their looks. They do get inspired by other looks to decorate their own central body. It's less of a social show and much more of a self-care measure. The holders don't actually feel sexual attraction towards one another, so that type of concept of beauty is hard to understand for them.

But there is beauty in numbers. Admirable wasteness of a person and their reach. And the more spread a person is, the more interesting their way of speech and movement can be, it really is something to be jealous of. Sometimes it's so beautiful you just want to become one with the dance.

Uh, nothing for mole stars. I don't think they concern themselves much with bodies or standards of anything.

[yellosnacc]

doodle packet

stylization- imagine- animation *dead*

@filurig's and @wind-tied's characters transformed into yucky shapes

How to hold tutorial

Basics

a struggle

[yellosnacc]

idk if it’s been asked, but what is the structure of uniima eyes? How do they see compared to humans?

Their eyes are a type of compound eye mixed with a cone-shaped eye that gives them better vision in those sections. Sky uniima are one of the few species with two of these sections in one eye, which is what gives those eyes the oval shape. The green areas are low vision areas, best for detecting movement but terrible for reading or even recognizing sources of movement at times, especially for colorblind Uniima, as their brain tends to fixate on color to spot specific subjects, with shape often being secondary at least for this vision type.

The eyes inside the mouth have each a single acute point right in front of them, and the eyes on the back of the head are barely useful. Most uniima learn to ignore having them covered since these eyes have very little to give in terms of color or shape. They detect light and don't have a focus section.

Their acute vision is somewhat comparable to human vision, with more colors available. However, it's not as good at focusing targets, and of course, it's lacking in some in-eye space; to them, the vision isn't warped, but we wouldn't find it comfortable. The focus points all have different sight-lengths as well.

Fueem wears reading glasses for their mouth eyes, since they are a little farsighted on them.

It's a lot to process. The vision center of the brain packages it in multiple ways. One helps the immediate reaction in the head brain, and one sends a better readable package to the thorax brain. The thorax brain uses the package to program the head. This doesn't take as long as it sounds, but there is of course some small delay between eye and decision-making compared to a single-brained little mammal with only one vision to tackle.

Some animals have gone much further, where their head does act seemingly separate from the body, having a different view of the world altogether. Uniima have put more of their evolution points into a very thick, powerful neural cord.