15mm Sci Fi project: Eden- new painted figures 11/11

[CookAndrewB]

I have been kicking around the idea of writing a book (which isn't happening while I'm still working a real 9-5 job), and my 15mm sci-fi project is going to be based on that story line.

In my head there is a basic plot line involving humanity, dinosaurs, and little green men. For now, that isn't what I want to focus on, but rather just a little background fluff while I gather up my resources for the big project. A little like my post apoc world, there is a lot of wiggle room for my universe to grow and evolve. While I am intrigued by a "humanity went exploring and found...nothing" plot line. My story, involving dinosaurs and more classical alien tropes, requires there to be a big galactic neighborhood full of citizens out there. So this project will share more with Hitchhikers Guide than an absent-alien trope.

Factions, right now:

Saurosians (Dinosaurs, evolved and quite intelligent). From a planet Sauros, where they are one of the older and more august races of the galaxy. Saurosians landed on Earth some 245 million years ago, just to put that in perspective. Of course, the original Saurosians that landed on Earth were from a group that the Saurosians call the "Incomprehensibles." That simply means that they were likely to be impulsive, act without manners, etc. These are all things that the Saurosians detest, greatly. The people of Sauros are incapable of dealing with the emotion that we might call embarrassment, and find something along the lines of inconvenience to be excruciating. The society as a whole is well ordered, and polite (where any society exists at all). When inconvenience or embarrassment are experienced, Saurosians have been known to simply relocate themselves several light years away from the incident and never speak of it again. And, why would they? Having recently moved to an area where nobody else has ever heard of the day they were accidentally flatulent on a bus, or mistakenly said good morning to someone they thought they recognized but moments later realized that they didn't, or perhaps the line to get food was slightly longer than they had time for... pick up and move. It is easy to tell which Saurosians have had the most "incidents" in their life by just how far away from Sauros they are located. Earth is nowhere near Sauros. The Saurosians who landed on Earth were simply not their best, nor brightest, and when they relocated for the "n-th" time, nobody in the home empire noticed much. After all, they simply don't talk of it. Saurosians are almost immortal under normal circumstances. They are relatively loathed to reproduce as it is uncomfortable and inconvenient. Incomprehensibles tend to be breeding stock for this reason, and may often be impregnated through artificial means by a great leader, as a way to keep the bloodline going. But it also ensures that the Incomprehensible genetics are always at play within the Saurosian society. If you were to meet a Saurosian on a planet, chances are they are Incomprehensible, erratic, and possibly quite fun to be around. As a race that finds inconvenience quite intolerable, when they are roused to military action, they are typically ruthless and swift. Minimal deaths, maximal casualties, and the end goal of stopping the inconvenience is well defined. Anyone who serves in the military arm is almost inevitably relocated away from the empire. War isn't that convenient.
 
Duz (little green men, but in this case... also blue or pink or... they have colors the way we might be a few different variations of flesh colors). That would also be pronounced like "Jews" which really plays more of a role in my book idea than the table. Call them a middle-aged space faring race. Neither having been around as old as the Saurosians, nor as new to the galactic neighborhood as the Humans. Duz are ingenious and inventive, but also tend towards the lazy or the "surfer" way of life. Because of this, they tend to leapfrog along in life. Some centuries they accomplish nothing of note. Maybe even forgetting to clean their residences or pay the galactic mortgage until a race like the Saurosians come along and "turn the lights out." But, the Duz don't hold a grudge (most of the time), and no matter how lazy they are there is always time for reproduction. Fortunately for the universe, Duz reproductive cycles are astronomically long. A young Duz might be 1000 Earth years old, and gestation cycles might accurately be measured in "tri-centuries." Duz cellular splitting is very similar to the rest of the race's general attitude, and a mother may carry a single cell for sixty years, and then suddenly that cell will be 100 overnight. Everything with them happens in fits and spurts. Needless to say, Saurosians tend to give the Duz a wide berth as it is nearly impossible to tell when they might take action. Saurosians are quite happy to work with them when the Duz get inspired and do things. Many Saurosian technology advances have happened as a result of Duz ingenuity.
 
Humans, of course. Well, we are what we are. Sadly, what makes us pretty cool also makes us inconvenient and viewed as a bit of a threat to be contained. Because of this, many races want nothing to do with us, and human expansion is almost always viewed as a cancer. While the Duz might migrate and colonize, it could be hundreds of thousands of Earth years before they have a substantial population. Humans can consume the totality of a planet's resources in astounding time. Once used up, Humans simply move onto the next, and breed, and ravage. We might do it with a smile on our face, and some might attempt to slow or stop that cycle, but on the whole, we breed and ravage. While the Duz may simply roll over when a Saurosian war fleet steps in and squashes an inconveniently placed space vessel (littering local space with trash that inhibits travel), Humans do not. Humans go to war. Annoyingly, Humans aren't half bad at war. The Duz can be troublesome, if they get a mind to be, but Humans are a real threat. 


More races to come. I'm considering sculpting some of these because I don't really want everything to be an anthropomorphic cat, or bug. I want some aliens to be out and out alien.

[CookAndrewB]

The Incomprehensibles of Earth:

245 Million years ago, a band of Saurosian Incomprehensibles landed on Earth. While typical Saurosian culture dictates that any awkwardness requires isolation, or removal from the source of inconvenience, Incomprehensibles operate on a different level. This particular group found that banding together, rather than spreading apart, was the preferred response to awkwardness. In fact, some of the elders on Sauros were beginning to wonder if they would have to exterminate this growing sub-cult in order to remove it permanently before it began to spread and corrupt society as they knew it. Before any formal war plans could be put in order. It is rare for Saurosians to have to kill one another, and so a great bit of debate occurred around the subject of whether it was more awkward to suffer the knowledge of their existence, or if explaining to their families that they had been destroyed because they were annoying would be more awkward. There were strong proponents on both sides of the aisle. Philosophical debate is not generally considered annoying so long as it attains some wisdom. Sometimes, to spare themselves the potential for awkwardness, Saurosians will start to place great importance on very trivial things so that the argument does, in fact, reach a level of attained wisdom. Saurosians can tell you which came first, the chicken or egg. They can also tell you whether your chocolate got into their peanut butter, or whether their peanut butter got onto your chocolate. No question can go unanswered, lest there be a need for someone to relocate.

Before the big question about fratricide could be answered, the whole lot of Incomprehensibles vanished. This is, after all, what Incomprehensibles do. They do the inexplicable, and the least convenient of times. Well, while some of the Saurosians were relieved that the decision NOT to destroy them was answered for them (all agreed for the sake of not wanting to relocate), one lone voice from a junior politician spoke up and asked "Where did they go?" Thus started another rousing debate regarding whether it was more inconvenient to not know where the trouble was, or more inconvenient to leave Sauros space and find them.

The Order of the Shrugs (OotS), as this group of Incomprehensibles would later refer to themselves (They found it quite satisfying to simply "shrug" whenever something annoying happened, and then carry on with whatever they were doing), had located some technology that allowed them to traverse great distances in the blink of an eye. Well, not any great distance, it turns out. It acted more like a homing beacon set to Earth. After activating the technology, the OotS found themselves in high orbit above Earth; a planet that had previously been unknown to the Saurosians. After some preliminary observation and testing, the Saurosians decided that it would be safe to land on the planet. Initial scouting teams reported back that the planet had higher than normal oxygen levels, but that the air seemed breathable by Saurosian standards. In addition, the planet was teeming with life of a variety and nature that had never been discovered before. At first glance, the OotS felt like they had hit the jackpot. An unknown technology transported them by unknown means to a planet that would sustain them, and their livestock.

A small side note about Saurosian livestock. While Humans would later decide that all descendants of the OotS were basically one "thing," being dinosaurs, that was not wholly true. See, Saurosian metabolism, cellular makeup, and other biological functions might have made them look like a bunch of dumb dinosaurs when looking back millions of years using primitive technology, but what we would later call "herbivores" were nothing more than livestock to the Saurosian people. A bit like a cow is a mammal, but all mammals aren't all effectively meat eating or grass eating cows (though several alien species would later find it quite confusing to determine the sentient life from herds of cattle). The real confusion can be traced back to about 100 years after the Saurosians get to Earth, when the OotS (being subject to rather whimsical and not altogether logical decision making) started to forego clothing. In fact, they found that the livestock had done so well adapting to the Earth environment that it took very little effort to track down and kill a meal. Food was plentiful, and fresh, and there was no need to refrigerate or preserve their kills. They even found that much of the local flora and fauna would also "consume" the leftovers, which made any further clean up efforts unnecessary.

For a while this was a perfectly wonderful existence of clothes free, eat when you get hungry, and sleep when you get tired, kind of bliss. Then, over many generations, the Saurosians started to notice some drastic changes. They were getting larger, as were their livestock. The bounty of the planet seemed to allow an increase in body mass and dimorphism that the Saurosian people had never before experienced. Under circumstances on Sauros, this would have been cause for great concern, but even after noting the changes, the OotS felt little compulsion to do anything about it. Their life was fine, and the slow changes to their physiology didn't seem to matter much. At the same time, the lack of intellectual pursuits, over generations and generations, contributed to a devolution in other ways. The once technologically astute Saurosians spent less and less time maintaining their interstellar craft, and over time it fell into such a state of decay that no technology remained functional, save the device that brought them to Earth. Even that, its purpose and use having long been forgotten, simply became buried and obscured from existence along with the craft itself. From there on out, in the OotS story, Human scientists would generally confuse the entire order of events and relegate dinosaurs as rather dumb creatures wiped out because they lacked the skills to survive the trials of a maturing Earth.

Imagine humanity's surprise when they first encountered the Saurosians among the stars...

[CookAndrewB]

The Gruff: This race of... beasts, are genetically engineered by the Duz. Along with being rather ingenious in terms of technology, the Duz seem to view other life forms the way a human child might view a table full of Lego blocks. Now, while genetics in all their forms seem to just "make sense" to the Duz, it doesn't mean that every Duz genetic tinker is a brilliant one. As with humans, who made this:
 

The Duz have had their failures. The Gruff might be considered a half success. Something a bit better than the lego man above, but not particularly well inspired. The Gruff were first developed as a lazy Duz's lawn mower. Build a Gruff, send them out into a vegetated world (or a world covered in rocks... whatever) and just let the Gruff sort of eat the place bare enough that you can build a habitation building (depending on how lazy a Duz is feeling, their habitations can range wildly from a couple sticks leaning against a rock with a tarp, up to an underground super-fortress that would make the average James Bond villain feel quite inadequate), or a nice dance club (these are uniformly pretty decent). That was the intent, but the Gruff were created a bit too stubborn to be simply bossed around. The Duz, being quite quirky, and never in any particular hurry, found the Gruff's stubbornness to be quite endearing. Plus, they are almost always soft and fuzzy, and they smell a bit like warm chocolate chip cookies. The particular Duz who created the original Gruff posted his "recipe" on the galactic version of the internet, and soon Gruffs were popping up everywhere. They don't reproduce, but like a human child "discovering" The Beatles, Duz just seem to hit a point in their life where they stumble upon a Gruff recipe and start tinkering. This has resulted in some rather odd versions of the Gruff (like the awkward hairless Gruff. Nobody wants to see all that), but all share some distinct qualities found in the original. These are:
1) Vaguely smell of warm chocolate chip cookies. This is 100% how you can tell a Gruff from some other sentient fuzzy beast. It is, at times, the only way. Saurosians state that Gruffs taste like Chocolate chip cookies, with the texture of meat. Fortunately, Saurosians don't care for chocolate chip cookies, and the texture/taste combination is oddly off-putting for humans. Some humans will eat Gruffs, but on the whole it isn't considered popular.
2) They are able to digest anything. Seriously. ANYTHING. Fortunately, they don't seem to be all that hungry most of the time as they can eat whenever they feel like it, so they never really gorge themselves. Most of the time. Sadly, Duz space vessels have been lost due to a failure to properly account for the feeding habits of a Gruff, and they have eaten plasma conduits, ship hulls, warheads, crew... well, needless to say, you have to have some "Stuff" around for a Gruff to eat that isn't all that important, and the Gruff needs to be able to access that unimportant stuff. It isn't that Gruffs aren't intelligent, it is just that if you lock a Gruff in the engine room by accident and the Gruff needs to eat, it will eat. It may even know that what it is about to eat will kill everyone, but like humans can get hungry enough to resort to cannibalism, a Gruff can get hungry enough to eat plasma conduits. There are also rare instances where a Gruff is restrained, and then starved, and then unleashed. That is also bad, but only Humans tend to think that could end well. Digestion rate is also highly dependent on the material being digested. A wrench digests slower than a human thumb. You get the picture.
3) Gruffs are an interesting mix of infuriatingly stubborn, and needing guidance once created. The Duz use them for all kinds of menial labor work, particularly when a particular job doesn't need to be done immediately without question. Because the Duz are frequently not in a hurry themselves, this just tends to work out. The Gruff, while stubborn, tend to lose interest in being stubborn faster than the Duz lose interest in being lazy, and things just tend to work out. Humans rarely work with Gruffs because their overall attitude is roughly that of a surly human teenager. Gruffs tend to like humans because their surly teenager attitude tends to visibly agitate most humans. The Duz don't seem to get hot and bothered about anything, so the Gruffs find working for a Duz rather boring (it doesn't curtail their eye rolling or back talk, regardless). Mainstream Saurosians will not tolerate Gruffs. Being that Gruffs are Duz made, and seem to have no reproductive qualities of their own, Saurosians view the Gruff like a human might view a particularly annoying alarm clock. If a Saurosian is in a good mood (whatever that is) they will simply ignore or avoid a Gruff. If a Saurosian is in a bad mood, you can pretty much count on your Gruff being reduced to a bloody smear, with little warning.
4) Popular trades for Gruffs to engage in are maintenance (have to make sure they aren't eating tools), bodyguards (have to make sure they aren't eating the individual to be protected), and construction (have to make sure they don't eat as much building as they build). While tricky, it isn't impossible to get Gruffs to actually do an admirable job of any of these tasks. Maintenance work suits the Gruffs because they can be condescending once they fix something "simple" that the owner is too "stupid" to accomplish (insert eye roll and obnoxious levels of heavy sighing). If you can tolerate the passive aggressive verbal abuse, a Gruff is a fine mechanic and technician. Bodyguard work suits a Gruff in an entirely different way. Gruffs seem to relish making others frustrated. Duz scientists have actually pin pointed this to an odd gland in the Gruff's physiology that senses displeasure, and releases a flood of hormones within the Gruff that mimics the feelings humans get when they score a game winning goal in soccer, or win a big stakes poker hand. It is more than happiness, as it also incorporates domination and deep sense of success. So Gruffs are quite happy to bully and threaten. This is particularly useful against humans, can be dangerous against Saurosians, and the Duz are like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. Construction work is usually a question of feeding. Gruffs can clear any terrain simply by grazing, but they are also strong and durable when it comes to swinging a hammer or lifting support beams. Again, just be careful that they don't take bites of the beams, or eat the hammers. Excavation and demolition are their strong suit.
5) Gruffs are perfectly capable of talking, but rarely do so outside of mocking the person talking to them, or being difficult. If you can tolerate this, you can be assured that the Gruff is actually listening and will comply with your request. Because the Gruff gets so stuck mocking the person, and saying what the person wants them to do, it actually ends up being the thing the Gruff thinks about and does. The conversation (though typically MUCH longer) would go a little like this:
Duz: "Hey Gruff, can you fix my car? That would be swell."
Gruff: *tone of utter disgust* "You would like that, wouldn't you? Learn to fix your own car, dum dum."
Duz: *smiles and pets Gruff on the head* "Yup."
Gruff: *high pitched mocking tone* "Look at me, I'm a dumb Duz who can't fix his car... erghererrrrr" *arms flailing about spastically*
Duz: *smiles, yawns* "Ok then, I'm gonna go lay down."
Gruff: *with great disapproval* "Yeah, go on then! Useless. Can't fix the car. Why I was fixing cars since I was four days old." *pause, much something within arms' reach, blink... pause...*
Gruff: *picks up wrench* "This car needs fixed, guess I'm the one to do it."

Now, it should be said that a particularly stubborn Gruff could carry on this way for days and weeks before actually forgetting where his argument started, and starting to focus on the task alone. More Docile Gruffs might get to work within hours of the request. It doesn't get a whole lot better than that, unless the Gruff can immediately start making someone quite uncomfortable (see bodyguard work).
6) The Gruff have an unusual "off switch" in that they will pass out for roughly 5-10 minutes if you poke them in the belly button. Gruffs aren't born, so it isn't really a belly button at all, but rather a very sensitive nerve cluster that approaches the surface of the skin within an unusual dimple. This is a fairly typical mechanism that the Duz incorporate into their genetic tinkering. It helps to have a snooze button if you happen to create a particularly destructive or evil creature. For the Gruff, this is part of the recipe, though not absolutely necessary for safety reasons. The Duz that followed the main recipe simply never omitted that line of code, so to speak.

My first two Gruffs:
My first two "done" figures are Gruffs. This is "Bubba" which is short for Bubble Gum, because of his color. In an unrelated coincidence, he also really enjoys eating bubblegum. Gruffs aren't picky about what they eat though, so maybe that isn't much of a coincidence.

Bubba is the start of my Duz interstellar exploration crew. Gruffs are often the handymen/hired muscle for the Duz, and Bubba has taken up the "Chief Gruff" role. He sports a cape that he made from the last Gruff who pissed him off, which makes him unusual amongst his species as Gruffs rarely find cause for irritation with their fellows, nor can they get a rise out of each other... most of the time. Bubba, however, is an anomaly in this way and it makes him a bit scary to the other Gruffs around him.

It is hot under a coat of double fur, which does little to improve Bubba's attitude, but... look at how nice that coat is!!! Worth it.


This is Antique. Mostly named for the archaic Earth weapon that he favors in battle. Ant, as his friends call him (Really more like a bleating "A-a-a-a-nt" noise), likes the way the weapon feels alive when it is firing. Like holding a coughing stick beast of Worgmar-9.

Ant actually has a penchant for collecting old things, and can frequently be found swapping trinkets with those that book travel on the Duz ship (name forthcoming once it gets built a bit more than it is).


Gruffs are from Irregular Miniatures.

[CookAndrewB]

So I've been envisioning a Calmian as a sentient plant. The body is roughly a cactus barrel, and seated on top is something like a clam shell. On the Calmian home world, they take on these clam shell items similarly to hermit crabs. Calmians don't have weapons in the conventional sense, so the clam shell is part decoration (mating, status, etc) and part minimal protection from some ancient predator that probably landed on the Calmian heads and pecked them open to get at the fluids inside... like using a cactus for water.

So the Calmian "legs" are part of a vine structure that grows from the base of the Calmian. If a Calmian is unable to travel, these vines get long and may eventually snap off, unable to bear the weight of the Calmian. By "walking" these Calmian roots stay worn down and take on a tough, bark-like, texture. This allows Calmians to wander around on surfaces that would harm or kill humans (white hot metal, strong acids, etc). So long as the Calmian can not sink into the "whatever" pool, and it doesn't rise above several inches on their roots, they are safe.

Along with the mobility roots, Calmians have four other grappling root structures. Rising up from the base, it is customary that two of the grappling roots are used to hold the clam shell in place (though one, or none, can be used for short periods of time). The other two are used to support the Calmian Pearl (object in front of the Calmian under the clam shell). Calmians can use their grappling roots to manipulate simple machines, but primarily rely on other races to do the really technical stuff.

The Calmian pearl seems to be the source of what makes a Calmian sentient. An exterior soul, so to speak. It is also the primary weapon and defense mechanism of the Calmians. It acts as a highly effective sensory organ, allowing for odd combinations of human senses like smelling textures, or hearing color. Sneaking up on a Calmian is very difficult because it requires something akin to not existing. No color, no smell, no noise, no texture... nothing. When around other sentient beings, a Calmian Pearl creates a feeling of calm. More to the point, it creates a feeling of being totally alone with your own thoughts, in your mind. You may see the Calmian, and speak to the Calmian, but the sensation to humans is a bit like having a conversation in your head with your own voice while standing next to a cactus wearing a clam hat. It would be disconcerting if it didn't feel quite so normal. This effect is also possible with non-sentient beings, but Calmians find it much more difficult to placate a beast driven by base instincts like hunger, mating, territorial defense, etc. As a weapon, the Calmian Pearl can be used to insert thoughts and ideas into a sentient beings head. Thoughts to harm one's self, harm others around them, and even causing a person to hold their breath until they die are all possible.

Calmians are prized as companions because of their wide array of useful capabilities. However, because of their ability to discern dishonesty, subterfuge, and attempts at concealment they rarely keep company with liars, cheats, and scoundrels. Calmians find deceit confusing, more than irritating or inconvenient. Similar to having someone follow you around, always trying to convince you that the sky was red, and not blue. You might not view it as threatening, but you probably wouldn't put up with it if the conversation were brought up, insistently, every time the other person was around.  That is approximately how Calmians view the human tendency to lie, even to themselves.

WIP, so far:


Depending on how this fella turns out, I may make a few of them for the game.

[CookAndrewB]

So my next bit of fluff is more about the nature of galactic exploration. While human science has long considered the idea of parallel dimensions, or something like a multiverse where multiple time streams diverge and converge, the reality of all of this is somewhat more chaotic. In reality, what we might think of as dimensions or parallel universes are rarely parallel and more often than not they are constantly crashing into each other like several hundred, drunk, 90 year olds trying to navigate a 7-way intersection with no road signs. Among the more traveled galactic races these dimensions or universes are simply referred to as realms. In the realm that the humans hail from, we might view these collisions as stars and black holes. As these realms rub up against each other some matter passes between, and there are enormous gravitational forces as play. So, where there is a collision, we see a star. The friction of the realms touching and tearing creates heat and gravity that collects "floaty bits" of reality that find their way into orbit. Where two realms are tearing apart again, the human realm shows a black hole. So basically, the biggest cosmic events that we can see are all "trading paint" between realms. An area, like the Milky Way galaxy, is essentially a cosmic crash zone with multiple realms crashing and detaching across a defined area. 

Some species can live in multiple realms, and find it perfectly comfortable to do so. Others, like humans, are more restricted. It is best to think of this in terms of something like an amphibian. Living in the water, or on the land is fine, and you can cross back and forth or stay for prolonged periods of time. But if you took a tortoise and threw it in the ocean... Well, they don't swim. There are many realms where humans "don't swim." Because of this, there are species who can never interface directly, but can communicate and trade by proxy, if you can find an "amphibian" species to do the leg work as a go-between.

Long distance travel can be accomplished by "slipping through" a point where realms are crashing together. It would be a little like trying to travel from home to work through a network of crashing cars, and you could only move from one car to the other when they impact. Once the impact has shifted cars, then you wait until the next impact and jump onto a new car. That sounds crazy, but because the "crash" of realms is so large in scale, the crash points are relatively stable and predictable. I mean, as predictable and stable as flying a vessel into a star in order to transition realms could be. With all of the realms travelling in different directions, a vessel might be able to simply jump in and out of realms to find themselves travelled a great distance. The older galactic species have spent billions of years mapping these jumps and can do so with great ease. Humanity is less practiced, and often operates off of old "maps" that the owner may not fully be able to read. Imagine trying to drive around modern Istanbul with a map that was made by a Greek explorer during the Ottoman Empire. There might be some bits of it that you can make sense of, but it would be dicey even if you could stop and ask for directions. For this reason, humanity primarily travels with other species. Galactic hitchhikers and taxi services. Very rarely will you ever see an entirely human crew. Most of us can barely speak 2-3 Earth languages, let alone 17 languages that are simply "smells" for lack of a better term. It is always better to travel with someone who knows what they are doing.

It is also worth mentioning that ships, as they are, are all very unique. The idea of vast shipyards that build hundreds or thousands of the same vessel just doesn't exist. No evil empires full of flying metal pizza slices, no thousands of ping pong ball fighters... ships are uniquely tailored to their tasks and their owner's specifications.  If you know that you need to haul a load of Plumbus, you commission the creation of a plumbus hauler with the right number of sleeping quarters for the crew, the right number of refrigeration units, the right engine for the payload, etc. Outside of humanity, the idea of utilitarian mass construction doesn't exist. Saurians abhor the inconvenience of perhaps building too many, or too few, vessels... and what if there is some awkwardness because the family who wants to use it doesn't end up with enough cup holders? Whole planets could move away from each other for those kinds of transgressions! The Duz are far more laid back. It is hard enough to get the Duz to build one vessel, let alone keep their attention to build two of the same thing. That is boring, and the Duz don't "do" boring. It should be said that the Duz do create some of the galaxy's finest vessels, but most humans don't have the lifespan to wait out the construction of one. Humans will gladly steal or otherwise obtain them though. The Gruff don't really do anything of their own accord, and aren't considered a Galactic Citizen species for this reason. The Calmians don't mind being off-world, and are one of the few species that seem to thrive in just about every realm, but they don't mind being on their home world (wherever that is), and are most frequently found tagging along with some crew because it suits them. Calmians really don't have an agenda that anyone can figure out, and having the desire to build a spacecraft requires some reason to go somewhere.

[CookAndrewB]

Calmian sculpt painted up:


The "bark lines" are a bit too contrasting. I'm going to figure out how to tone that down.


The Calmians, being some form of symbiote plant, has green vine arms which are represented in green as if they are growing, and the primary body is meant to be bark.




The pearl actually has some pearlescent paint on it, but that might be a bit hard to see.


Top down view of the clam shell armor:


This is alien #1 of my "aliens should be alien" project. More to come.

[CookAndrewB]

I've started working up my sci-fi frontier town. Nothing painted yet, and mostly just test builds. Here is the first test. A small shop of some sort.


Doors and some other laser cut items are from Iliada Game Studios.


The wood pieces are beads from Amazon. I think they came in a 100 package. About 5-10% of the beads are irregular to the point of not being useful for building.





I'm in the process of building 2-3 more buildings, and then I'll sit down and create some uniform paint scheme. The beads above I'm thinking of painting up as windows, perhaps? Almost like a glass structure? Not sure yet, but that is the plan I have in my head.

[CookAndrewB]

Thought I would post some WIP pictures for some 15mm sculpts I'm playing around with.

Here is the DSO (Deep Space Operations) suit after maybe 3 sculpting sessions adding little bits here and there:




Over the weekend I got another two sessions done:


I need to massage the wire into a better position. This was mostly to fit for length and get it fixed in place.


Need to fill out the trunk and torso a bit.




I'm still learning, so at this point my "big win" is that the figure is the right size!


I have a couple new aliens on the sculpting block. I'll get some updated pics later in the week.

[DivisMal]

Starting to look really interesting! Nice sculpt.

[CookAndrewB]

I don't know if any of my sculpts will be worth mass producing, but I do feel a great deal of satisfaction in turning out something for my own little world. Something that *fingers crossed* won't look like hell when I'm done 

Got a few more figures painted up. This is the last of my three Gruffs. Meet Decaf.


Why Decaf? Well, because when given a choice, nobody wants Decaf. The Duz that name their Gruff creations rarely have an understanding of something like a human naming convention, but they are enamoured with human media. Decaf's creator, after watching several decades worth of intercepted TV signal, noticed that everyone grumbled about getting Decaf. The Duz don't have coffee, and have no context for it in their day to day lives, but he knew that Decaf was something that people always groaned about. His Gruff gave him a similar feeling. Among a species that are known to be recalcitrant, Decaf was one of the harder Gruffs to control. When Decaf took a liking to the ancient war machine known as a 5P-1N gun, his attitude only got worse. Decaf seems to know that nobody wants to argue with a being toting around enough firepower to take down a Saurosian tank.


Next up is the Duz, Super Salad.


Again, having no context for human parlance, Super Salad took on his nom de guerre after listening to many hours of radio commercials which bombarded him with messages like "your choice, soup or salad", "comes with soup or salad", or "served with soup or salad." He instantly knew that he wanted choices of where to go, he wanted people to come with him and serve with him. It was like those radio commercials were speaking to a growing desire to get out and adventure! Since that day, Super Salad has operated a ship-for-hire venture, with a small and faithful crew who wear matching patches that read "Served with Super Salad" on them.


The cape comes from the misconception that "soup or" was the same as super. Superman has a cape, so it makes sense that Super Salad would too. The other remarkable thing about Super is his robotic arm. While the Duz are experts at biomanipulation, Super has eschewed any regrowth of a natural arm. Preferring the mechanical tinkerings of his faithful Chief Gruff, Bubba. With an integrated auto cannon, Super finds that the 'Salad Shooter' (as it is known among his crew) gives him just enough intimidation to be referred to as "Mr. Salad."

[Skullhamma]

Wow, nice sculpting skills, Andrew ! 

[CookAndrewB]

Thanks Skully. High praise coming from you!

A couple more personalities:

This is Bucket.


Bucket is a humanoid bounty hunter of an unknown species. He originally got his name from the written bounty list he carries in his pocket. While others utilize brain implanted cybernetics, wrist mounted data terminals, or ocular heads up displays, Bucket likes to do things the old fashioned way; pen and paper. Because everyone on the list eventually kicks the bucket, well, it became known as the bucket list and if it is the bucket list then the owner must surely be the 'Bucket.'



Bucket never takes off the helmet, and the hoses that lead to his helmet cause others to believe that perhaps he isn't breathing standard planetoid air (Oxygen/Nitrogen mixes of various types). Bucket wears a heavy void suit, which offers limited protection from attacks, and the ability to space walk if necessary. Still, the limited defensive capabilities don't seem to slow bucket down. He has chosen a strong offense in lieu of a strong defense. His offensive weapon of choice is the Multi-barrel Offensive Pacifier, or MOP. As Bucket is fond of saying of the MOP "it will wipe anyone off the battlefield." Yes, MOP and Bucket certainly are a sound pairing. 



Because Bucket is so sure of his abilities as a bounty hunter, he has actually put a price on his own head. Known throughout the Realms as the "Ice Bucket Challenge" anyone who can kill Bucket will inherit his considerable fortune. He's still here, and few have been dumb enough to try and take on Bucket. It probably doesn't hurt Bucket's chances that anyone accepting the contract means that Bucket also knows exactly who is out to kill him 😏. In the rare instances where Bucket needs backup to complete a job, he calls in a few compadres who make up the Bucket Brigade. Hard to call them a gang, but more of subcontracted contract killers.

Next up is Mel.


Mel is your average deep space salvager. Armed with his trusty plasma saber, Mel is more of a "cut it up and sell the pieces" type of guy than a "take it to galactic pawn and see what it is worth" sort of fella. Normally, that isn't a big deal, but Mel has a tendency to chop first and ask questions later. Many a landing party has returned to their orbital vessel only to discover that large sections have been hacked off while they were away. If Mel was born on Earth (he is human enough) you might call him a hillbilly or a yokel. He isn't very bright, and mostly he is interested in collecting junk. 



He's not a bad guy, and he doesn't really mean any harm, but Mel figures that if he knocks on a ship hull and nobody answers, then nobody is home. That isn't an altogether unfair assumption, considering how many intergalactic and inter-realm ships are out there in the void. It isn't uncommon for a ship to pick up a bad case of the xenomorphs, or suddenly transition in from a realm that isn't compatible with human space. Within a parsec's scan, there are typically hundreds of vessels plying space, and dozens of those are legitimately abandoned, void of life, or otherwise spoils for the taking. It also goes without saying that within that same parsec are quite a few ships that "seem" abandoned by way of crews in cryostasis, planetside on a mission, or even making a deep space boarding of another derelict vessel. Mel is just bad at figuring out which is which, or maybe he would rather ask for forgiveness than permission.

I have it im my head that I'm going to work up Mel's space tug a bit like the old beat up scrapping trucks that drive around my town on trash day looking for metal they can drag in for a few bucks. I'll probably try and find a couple suitably alien crew members to accompany Mel on his exploits.

I did a few updates on the DSO suit sculpt as well. Stupid primer bubbled up on me. I'll have to go back and clean some of that up before painting. It will be a bit hard to see, but I added a stock to the weapon and a sight. Also, I think it got a tool belt since the last pictures.


Stock and sight are a bit easier to see from this view:


I also reworked the pack. It felt too small, and the wire was barely holding on, so I really packed it deep inside some green stuff. It won't be budging now.


And a little better view of the tool belt:


I have been working on a few other sculpts over the past week as well. I'll post them up through the week. After I clean up some of the primer issues on the DSO suit, I'll start getting paint on it this week. Hopefully that will make the whole thing come together a bit more.

[War Monkey]

Nice work, I hope to see more of your work.

[Brummie]

This is really impressive, must be quite handy being able to create your own characters, helps make the setting all the more unique! Look forward to seeing your work progress!

[CookAndrewB]

I will admit that the sculpts have been turning out better than I had originally anticipated. Maybe not retail worthy, but like you said; it is nice to have some figures on the table that are unique to the setting. I had ordered a number of alien critters from various online stores before I settled on just making my own aliens. It will be a mix, I suppose. There is definitely a gap between the aliens I want to see and what exists. Aliens shouldn't always be humans with different heads in my mind. I want some weird stuff, and I think I can just make that if I'm willing to take the time for it. If anything, the humanoid stuff is a challenge because you all know what that should look like .

At lunch today I started working on modular spacecraft pieces so I can start laying out some deep space dungeon crawls. I figure that I can create a mix of engine rooms, shuttle bays/cargo holds, crew space, Bridge, and Command and Control (or Combat Information Center) spaces. Each created from a, 8x10" foam core board with half walls for ease of access. I figure that if I make it modular, I can either create large ships with lots to explore, or smaller boarding actions. Hopefully I'll have some of those builds ready for display by early next week.