Another Sketch, Haven't Drawn A Humanoid Robot / Cyborg In A While Wanted To See If I Could Apply Some

Afternoon sketches

Imsee Cuisine!

Imsee are opportunistic obligate carnivores so most of their diet consists primarily of meat and animal fats.  

Imsee lack taste, literally. During their evolutionary development  they lost the ability to taste all flavors except for salty and as a result imsee cuisine generally tends to emphasize, appearance, smell, and texture. Much of their food is very aromatic or pungent and is not always appealing to other sophonts. 

Imsee were kinda late to the whole using fire to cook things, mostly due to the difficulties of maintaining a fire pit close to their preferred living areas, i.e close to the water, and that their main appendages used to manipulate their environment sits on their face. Cooking gets a little dicey if you’ve got to put your face right up to an open flame. So cooking with a flame was not something that was done on a regular basis and was relegated to special occasions. Instead Imsee utilized either acid or parasite-cooking. Acid cooking works on a similar principle as ceviche, raw meat is soaked in a mild acid to clean it and to denature protein. Acids were typically derived from plants. In some instance food could be “cooked” in the harvested stomachs of other animals. Fire worms are small 6 limb vertebrates which spit acid as a form of self defense against predators and are a common source for acid in many imsee cultures. 

Now for parasite cooking:

Imsee are usually filled with parasites which they get from the food they eat. This isn’t particularly a problem for them as a healthy Imsee can live a long and happy life as they have a pretty strong immune system and advanced medical technology. Parasites are pretty prevalent among aquatic life on their home world and some are prone to breaking down their host tissues when they begin to proliferate making meat that is easier to break down and digest. They also provide a lot of intriguing texture that the imsee palette tends to like.  Early imsee farmers would purposely infect their animals specifically for that type of meat. Due to ethical concerns modern imsee no longer use live hosts for this but instead lab grown organ meat  instead. 

While fire stoves are pretty much non-existent in most Imsee households, they do utilize chemically heating pads. Sorta like a hot patch but gets hot enough to simmer water. Most heat pads can be reused multiple times but generally lose strength with subsequent use. 

Yet another alien

"They seemed very tired and lacked the desire to move this cycle. Today, this one felt no desire to feed themselves. The rest of the colony is in the same state. My friends, the brakken, are falling very ill and we do not yet know why" - Starmaker , They Who Drinks Deeply of the Clear Waters

The Imsee and their first encounter with BWD, or Brakken Wasting Disease.

The Brakken are unique uplift case in locale space as unlike other sophonts as when the Imsee came across the Brakken weren't originally sapient but were close to it. They were the Imsee's first attempt at genetically engineering an entire alien species and while for the most part the process was a success it did come at a cost.

Brakken wasting disease is the result of the slow breakdown of their cellular structure that first starts in the nervous system and spreads through out the body. The mechanisms of the disease isn't entirely understood as there isn't a viral agent but appears to spread through pheromones and results in the incomplete formation of many important proteins and metabolic enzymes. Its a very slow disease that is difficult to detect and often times when it is, its already too late.

It's first appearance among the brakken completely took the Imsee off guard and nearly whipped out the brakken species, but in modern times, while they still lack the technology to cure it they've significantly increased the lifespans of those who have it and their quality of life.

Work in progress illustration,

I'm slowly working on trying to get better at drawing backgrounds and i want to get in the practice of making more illustrations. There's a little story here, which i wont talk to much here other than its not a particularly happy one.

Old Art Roundup from 2020

This was my art submission for the artbook "Girls Who Love Monsters". The kickstarter didn't succeed but the book was still available for print on demand. Either way it was a cool project to contribute to.

Slowly working on developing some aliens for a extra-firm scifi setting. These guys are the brakken (wip name). They were uplifted by another alien race and evolved from a species which originally had radial symmetry. I took some inspiration for their colors from manuls.

Funky Meal Machine

A rough sketch of the Dram, another alien species from my worldbuilding project. I wanted another group of aliens which can be considered the closet to humans in terms of biology and body plan. They're built a bit like bears, but are comfortable walking on either four or two legs. They're sort of the new comers to the setting as they haven't spent much time in space and are supposed to have a sort of modern tech aesthetic.

Although I'm not sure if i should make them even more alien in appearance with out moving to far away from the "like-bipedal-humanoid-alien-but-also-not-really" vibe they have at the moment.