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Submitted: December 2, 2009
Image Size: 910 KB
Resolution: 1983×1277

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Hopper Sketchesby ~povorot

Traditional Art / Mixed Media / Science Fiction

Some sketches of the hopper, both in color and b&w. Two versions of hoppers using a mortar and pestle.

I was thinking a lot about the types of 'clothing' the hoppers would wear - or even need. I ended up poking around, looking at the types of harnesses subsaharan africans put on their camels. I was thinking of having some of these guys as 'native porters' for a character, so I wanted to have the designs all ready.

~nemo-ramjet Dec 4, 2009

Quadruple wow! The way you can make your aliens into completely believable noble savages never ceases to astound me. A question - do these and the trilaterlally symmetric "amphora" aliens belong in the same universe?

Are these things on a different planet, or a massively alternate Earth?

~povorot Dec 4, 2009

These fellas are space aliens, along with the trilaterally symmetrical Amphorae (which kind of works, as a name...)

I'm trying to write a sci-fi story with a kind of western/frontier feel to it, and I keep flip-flopping between which alien species I want to play the role of aboriginals - the hoppers, or the squids/amphorans. I like the dynamics created by having sophonts considerably larger then humans, but the animalistic (to earth eyes) qualities of the hopper would also result in some very interesting tensions and culture shocks...

~labgnome Feb 27, 2010

I must say I like the idea. You seem to be going with the "apes and angels" argument for alien intelligences. Any species we encounter are likely to either be so far behind us to seem like "cave-men" or chimpanzees compared with our own technology at the time or so advanced to seem godlike in comparison.

Witch, conversely are you also planning on including as well? Someone as far ahead of the humans as they are to the currently "primitive" species they are encountering?

When I first saw the hopper I had started thinking bout how cool it would look with the Dinosauroids, but having it with humans

You could have both, and have their relations be different for various reasons, from the "temperament" of the aliens themselves to just who and/or why the humans have come to their planet. One species could get along with the humans relatively well, and the other could be more "antagonistic". They could also have different things the want from the humans.

Example: the hoppers might want weapons and the amphora might want narcotics on the negative end, but conversely the hoppers might be uninterested in getting narcotics and the amphora uninterested in weapons. The Hoppers might be interested in getting things like education or medicine, in return for whatever it is the humans want, but the amphora are uninterested in those things and are more interested in technological "trinkets" like computers and cellphones or whatever the current equivalents are.

On the disliking humans end, the hoppers might be territorial and not want to share territory with humans and the amphora on the other hand might not care about territory but be more agitated by cultural slights like the perceived desecration of objects of veneration.

You don't need direct analogies to groups here on Earth, and can and should feel free to make up your own interactions between them and humans. You can even have a planet where things do in fact go swimmingly between the humans and aliens because the particular humans did in fact learn the lessons of our history and were able to successfully apply them to a new species.

~nemo-ramjet Dec 9, 2009

Are the Hoppers and Amphorans on one planet, or two different ones?

~povorot Dec 13, 2009

Two different ones, for sure.

~souhjiro Dec 6, 2009

or both as species on different borders of a broad expansionist human sphere across space?

~povorot Dec 13, 2009

That's kind of what I'm going for, I think.

~zombieslayerjjj Dec 3, 2009

The hoppers are, right now, one of my favorite sophont races of all of my buddies that I watch. I love how they look alien, but still plausible. Some people go too terrestrial (I admittedly do, though only so that they are easier to cast as characters in stories and such), while others just try to make it as un-earth like as possible, thus making it ridiculous. Keep up the good work.

~povorot Dec 4, 2009

Thanks, man. I've been enjoying designing them.
The key, it seems, is definitely to think in unearthly terms, but with a consistent biology underlying it. Thinking about evolutionary history, reasons driving the development of intelligence, etc, make for the most believable aliens.

~bensen-daniel Dec 3, 2009

Something about the tentacle coiled around the top of the mortar doesn't look natural too me. What if the hopper held the mortar by a long handle between two tentacles, then slid the tentacles past each other, back and forth (like a person rubbing their hands together). Then you might get something like a firebow, which might be easier for them to hold on to and use.

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