The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The Ur-Quan Masters Re-Release => Starbase Café => Topic started by: Arne on September 29, 2007, 12:27:40 am



Title: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on September 29, 2007, 12:27:40 am
Just a rough, but t his is pretty much how I imagine it, kind of like super-soaker architecture. Maybe I went overboard though...

(http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/sce/spathi_bridge.jpg)

The balls in the ball sea are not all green, because that could lead enemy boarding parties to believe that it's exclusively Spathi peaking up. A large and top secret psychological study the Spathi made on the matter showed that a mix of differently colored balls were a much more effective scheme. To further confuse invaders, the Eluder has a decoy module (sphere) packed with just green balls.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: AngusThermopyle on September 29, 2007, 12:32:25 am
Pure awesomeness!


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Defender on September 29, 2007, 01:23:03 am
Brilliant!


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: meep-eep on September 29, 2007, 01:46:34 am
It does look like there's nothing there that could cause a Spathi stress. Though something probably will anyhow.

Very nice, as always.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Zeep-Eeep on September 29, 2007, 05:29:35 am
That's great. The slide is a nice touch.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Valaggar on September 29, 2007, 08:52:48 am
Genius!
That pink circular thing in the bottom right is yet another hide-out, I guess? *gazes ominously at the hide-out, as if he could see the terrified Spathi inside through the monster deterrent metal*

Though, doesn't that Spathi need some sort of protective barricade, just in case the monsters can shoot from the communication console, through radio waves? You know, ending just below the area we can see when communicating with them, so that the monsters do not know that the Spathi have a barricade and do not take it into account.

And I think that the walls need to be coloured in even more colours, so that the monsters get dizzy when looking at them.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Anthony on September 29, 2007, 02:14:38 pm
Awesome illustration.  I love the use of color :D


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on September 29, 2007, 03:24:26 pm
Thanks!

I think when the Spathi plans out their security measures, they tend not to focus on the overall picture. Instead they go overboard with one line of thought and completely forgets about other things.

The hatch in the floor could be a hideout or lead to an escape pod... although I'm not sure how the Spathi would work in respects to escape pods. Kind of ambivalent maybe? They may want to escape instinctively, but if they do they're all alone in space with the evil. On the other hand not being able to escape when something happens might give them stress too.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: RTyp06 on September 29, 2007, 06:05:52 pm
Nice Arne. I can't help but wonder if you were inspired by a Mc PlayPlace at a local Mc Donalds resturaunt? ;)



Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Draxas on October 01, 2007, 04:23:19 pm
Every ship should have a ball pit on the bridge. I especially love that one little eyeball peeking up out of it. :D

I think the only (nitpicky) thing I notice is that Spathi physiology seems particularly unsuited for climbing that ladder to the comm. Perhaps a small elevator would be more appropriate (though the thought of that elevator breaking down and smashing the passenger through the floor might give the comm officer some undue stress).

Also, I can't help but wonder where all those side doors lead to, considering the bridge is one of the side modules. It looks very much like the room takes up the entire sphere, but I suppose I could be wrong about that.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Valaggar on October 01, 2007, 07:56:56 pm
I can't believe I forgot to mention!
Spathi have a single foot which looks like an abalone. (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Spathi#Notes and references) See this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wecC2GWkulo) for a good idea of what it should look like.

May the Twin Gods (Blessed Be Their Holy Names) forgive me for this gross, sinful deed I have done... forgetting one of their celestial Divine Revelations! How could I do that!?


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on October 02, 2007, 06:10:04 am
uhhh... that ruins my biped spathi setup! ...or does it?

*makes desperate attempt to save design idea*

(http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/sce/spathi07.jpg)

Maybe it could climb the ladder with those legs ;)

Edit: It would be really silly (as in fun-silly) if they didn't have any natural arms and were just bare stalks running around. I always thought the exo skeleton arms looked a bit out of character for them, and my solution addresses this.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on October 02, 2007, 08:32:31 pm
(http://itchstudios.com/psg/sce/spathiwa.jpg)


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Defender on October 03, 2007, 04:34:03 am
COLOR IT! COLOR IT! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, COLOR IT!!!\

IT"S PERFECT!!! I LOVE IT!!!

I want this for my desktop wallpaper.

ok... I got that out of my system. I think if I ever write a Star Control childrens book I shall have you do the illustrations ;D



Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: guesst on October 03, 2007, 06:54:57 pm
You know, Arne, and forgive me if I've mentioned this before, but at this point, what 2 decades removed from the original project, a re-imaging of the project is not necessarily amiss. A while back I started a project of my own in my notebooks called Star Control Neo, my own reimaging. So you want to make the Spathi a symbote, hey, I'm all for it. Screw canon. Be youor oen canon. Your too good to be put off by things like continuity.

Deeeamn I'l love to see that spathi village animated.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Valaggar on October 03, 2007, 07:32:54 pm
You know, guesst, the Gods have said at least that "Spathi didn't naturally have shells, but based on their desire for safety, they might adopt them as a fashion." (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Spathi#Notes_and_references)
Though the claws should be their own, admittedly - they don't work if you simply tie them to your body, at least they didn't last time I checked.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on October 03, 2007, 09:15:58 pm
Actually, it's never stated anywhere that the claws are their own though? Anyways, you never really see their lower body on any of the well known art, ingame etc. The only image I know of is that slave Spathi fleeing from a 'Quan (and yeah, it has claws but no shell on that one), and then it's the IRC bits.

I am very concerned with not violating canon too much though... especially for some of my other projects. For SC I don't want to wander off too far... but I like tweaking, polishing, nudging. It's interesting to solve the problem of the in which direction to nudge to get a nice result. This is why I do so much fanart from older games, you're free to nudge without breaking anything since you're within the radius of freedom of interpretation. In next gen games everything is so crisply hi-def that you get no room to play.

I did this design while listening to the Spathi remix with all the BWA BWA BWA BWA AK AK AK AK sounds. It's a bit like chickens wobbling around in panic, but at the same time they're also slimy slugs/mollusks who slime around. With my approach you can have both mollusk and chicken.

I have a few deadlines so I can't color atm. It's a fairly complex scene so it'd take half a day do color. I might tend to it later though, who knows. In the meantime:

(http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/sce/Spathi_clay.jpg)


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Neonlare on October 03, 2007, 10:56:42 pm
Awesome stuff Arne! I'm still in debt to you for your fantastic Fjorn drawing :p, that's exactly how I imagined the Spathi except for the opened back of the head, keep the good stuff coming dude :).


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: meep-eep on October 03, 2007, 11:37:32 pm
Nice. It does look like claymation could work (http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=2676.0) very well for a SC2+1.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on October 04, 2007, 01:32:26 am
The good thing about both old 2D and clay animation is that the viewer knows that it's so obviously fake, so it's easier to do the whole suspension of disbelief thing. Even really bad clay animation makes it feel like the character is alive just because it's so absurd that the clay is moving by itself... it has to be alive.

We're so used to 3D that we put high demands on it, almost calling it names if it's only a few years old. 3D can feel really hollow and untangible, like a dead mesh... it's harder to breathe life into a 3D character I think.

Still, Team Fortress 2 looks nice and has a spirit, and TfB have some experience with Madagascar now.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on October 04, 2007, 02:39:43 am
(http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/sce/Carousel_clay.jpg)


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Shiver on October 04, 2007, 03:16:27 am
The good thing about both old 2D and clay animation is that the viewer knows that it's so obviously fake, so it's easier to do the whole suspension of disbelief thing. Even really bad clay animation makes it feel like the character is alive just because it's so absurd that the clay is moving by itself... it has to be alive.

We're so used to 3D that we put high demands on it, almost calling it names if it's only a few years old. 3D can feel really hollow and untangible, like a dead mesh... it's harder to breathe life into a 3D character I think.

Still, Team Fortress 2 looks nice and has a spirit, and TfB have some experience with Madagascar now.

Speaking of which, I was thinking about getting Orange Box one of these days. TF2 looks really fun. Fantastic artwork as always, Arne.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Lukipela on October 04, 2007, 06:38:47 am
Love the exoskeleton idea, it looks really great. And that village is just beautiful. Maybe it's time to start a new petition called "Let Arne do all the Artwork for the next SC game".


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Elerium on October 04, 2007, 12:54:43 pm
One word Arne:

Woah.

I love the bridge, and the village :P You've really captured the essence of Spathi civilization well, also I'm toying around with doing a SC CCG, do you mind if I use some of your artwork for use in the cards? I'll credit you totally of course ;)


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Amiga_Nut on October 04, 2007, 03:37:59 pm
Nifty stuff!     So soft.... So squishy... A truly spathi motif.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Dancing Fungus on October 11, 2007, 08:50:02 pm
This is almost like something directly out of Monty Python.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Toka on October 17, 2007, 04:43:34 pm
arne.. i love you 4 doing this drawings!!!

in the irc chan, fred and paul told something like:
"spathis have one leg, which is able to rotate to high speed"
but i like some of your ideas how the lower end of them
could look like more then this "one foot" idea.

the spathi bridge looks so funny, just like its meant to be :D

i want the spathi planetary scene as a poster!
...and i want it NOW!!!

hm.. say... you are not the arne who is one of my best friends
in my rl, that iam trying to convince to take a look at sc2 since
a couple of  years and who is only calling me a schmog
4 doing it? if this is the case, better dont answer this question ;)

damn man... you should earn money* 4 drawing this stuff!

* a whole lot of money.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Toka on October 17, 2007, 04:45:40 pm
Love the exoskeleton idea, it looks really great. And that village is just beautiful. Maybe it's time to start a new petition called "Let Arne do all the Artwork for the next SC game".

i sign that.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on October 19, 2007, 10:35:52 am
Actually my design has a single foot, but with a few knobby protusions. Maybe it spins back and forth (cw & ccw), with the toes moving up and down, rapidly grabbing the ground.

I drew in this rotary muscle. The stalk is probably a long (sweet) muscle, with a nerve going up the back. The top eyelid is kinda like a flexible cap. Brain and organs (some also sweet) are in a bunch at the bottom. Maybe there some kind of small primitive 'appendix' or 'reptile' brain in the cap. Perhaps they only grew the larger brain as means for coming up with more elaborate escape plans, but the primitive brain is still very dominant, despite the academic potency of the larger brain.

(http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/sce/spathi_anatomy.jpg)


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Koowluh on October 19, 2007, 11:02:56 am
Perhaps they only grew the larger brain as means for coming up with more elaborate escape plans, but the primitive brain is still very dominant, despite the academic potency of the larger brain.

Ergo, protecting the larger brain with the clawed biped armor and thus feeling more at ease as well (as much as a Spathi can for that matter) ?

Loving the work by the way, I still would like to see them in their housing (in the "living room" for example). Would probably be a chaotic mess with lots of hiding places and hundreds of Spathi already hiding. Much like a "where's Waldo" picture.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Draxas on October 19, 2007, 08:24:03 pm
While the design and artwork are both incredible, one glaring flaw jumps out at me: If the Spathi have no way to manipulate objects without their shells (which I assume are artificial constructs), how did they manage to create those shells in the first place? I suppose they could use their "foot" as a grabber, but not only does it seem unwieldy, but it also forces the Spathi into the very vulnerable position of lying down, something that they would not likely be willing to do since they have no means to escape from danger.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Valaggar on October 19, 2007, 08:33:12 pm
Well, Arne said that the Spathi are, in his vision, in a symbiotic relationship with those shells...


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on October 19, 2007, 10:50:45 pm
Heh, I thought about that a little. I suppose they took over used shells from some crab species which somehow sheds bodies rather than skin/shells... and maybe the Spathi did some selective breeding on top of that. It's not like those clumsy claws would add much extra manipulative precision though. I think the Spathi might be doing a lot of collaboration and team work. Sum is greater than the parts, etc.

The real question is how the ZFP works with tools. I'm thinking they have tentacled hover robots which does the work for them while they kick back and relax.



Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Valaggar on October 20, 2007, 06:50:30 pm
But they still need a way with which to have worked before they invented those robots. With a bit of an imagination stretch, we could imagine that the green ones griped objects between their "neck" and their two "hips" and/or maybe even used telekinesis (see quote: "[...]Remember that time you said you could fix our broken chronometers with your `sympathetic psionic waves'?[...]" - rest of quote omitted to save space, see here (http://www.sa-matra.net/quotes/zoqfotpik/) for the full version). It was certainly slow and laborious, though.

The blue ones probably hit objects with their spring-like bodies to move them; faster, but with little accuracy (thus complementing the green ones' work).

The brown ones might actually have some tentacles or limbs below their brown "skin" (which looks more like a "cloak" or shell to me), thus rendering the contribution of the other two superfluous (though this begs the question of why did they stay allied with the other two races, if they were so useless). Or, to expand on the teamwork idea I used earlier, maybe they acted as overseers and planners.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Koowluh on October 20, 2007, 10:47:47 pm
The ZFP might have just gotten the technology of another friendly race. It wouldn't be a first you know...


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Censored on October 23, 2007, 11:08:23 pm
Good work Arne!

I always liked your art, and though I've been rarely checking the forums lately - I'm glad to see you've added more Star Control masterpieces to your collection and to our enjoyment!


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: FalconMWC on October 31, 2007, 04:36:55 pm
Wow Arne - Just cruising through for the first time in a while and your definitely one of the best SC artists I've seen. (love the Spathi ship)

When's the Vux beast coming up? Love to see your impression of that.... (or have I missed it?)


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: RTyp06 on October 31, 2007, 10:51:56 pm
Arne, how good are you at landscapes.. particularly alien landscapes?


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: meep-eep on November 01, 2007, 12:02:00 am
When's the Vux beast coming up? Love to see your impression of that.... (or have I missed it?)
You missed it. There's an image on his site here (http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/main.php?id=scelife). I think I saw a larger version of that too, but I can't find it anymore.


Title: Re: Welcome aboard the Spathi bridge
Post by: Arne on November 01, 2007, 12:28:10 am
Re: Landscapes, I guess 2/5. Architecture, probably 1/5. I mostly do pinups. With alien landscapes the viewer tend to be less critical though, probably because s/he has no experiences seeing any.

Re: My SC stuff... It is beneficial to have an iterative method when doing (character) (re)design. I'm constantly redrawing stuff. Some might remember that I drew a lot of Spathi variants earlier. The VUX beast could probably be improved a lot, or atleast explored a bit better. With such a tiny sprite, the possibility space for (faithful) redesigns is quite large.

I suppose iteration a luxury I have since I don't have to publish a final design on a deadline. It's also a curse since it means I can work and rework until it's perfect, which will never happen.