With great delight and no further fanfare, I present the following exceptional entries to Character Contest 51: Alien Nation!
First up is Abominal401's "The Shadow of the Demon", which I don't think qualifies as an actual "alien", but which I wanted to show you for the great use of silhouette and posing here. The use of just red as the lone color makes for a very striking effect.
I don't love Asder's "Avatar" homage here, but I do love the background. At first I couldn't figure out how he did the background, but it turns out to be as simple as it is effective.
I thought MMI's "Arachni" was a little more "super hero" than "alien" but I love, love, love the patterning of the spider web onto the smoke trails. That's an awesome look.
AJW's "Equithan" is a nice blend of different body parts to create a nifty looking alien-type warrior.
Cliff went for the ever-popular "Alien Squid Tentacle Guy and Hot Girl in Bikini" motif in his "Sixty Seconds Before" homage, and I liked the alienness of the creature.
DiCicatriz had the best "alien mech" type of entry with "The Unseen". I love the glowing headlight and the simple but elegant arrangement of the body parts to make a convincing crab-like creature.
I figure if Millar and Hitch can turn Samuel L. Jackson into Nick Fury, Galahad should be able to make him an alien as he did with "Samuel L. Zaxmar".
Kaldath put together a nice ocean scene along with a cool looking aquatic alien to populate it with "Pyronling".
I thought Kingslaughter did one of the best "scenes" I've seen yet in terms of layout and creative use of posing. I wish the coloring had been more cohesive and not so ... jarring? Regardless, very well done.
Another MMI entry is the neat looking "Drop From Above Alien". I thought the background in particular was cool, but the creature itself is also excellent.
I really liked Mr. Vampire's "Brain Spider" for the concept -- zombie-making space aliens in EVAC suits is downright scary.
Sutter Kaine's leonine alien hunter came out great.
Rozenstal made a comment on his entry that he thought there were too many "humanoid" entries, and he wanted to do something not based on our basic build. I agree, actually -- I was hoping for some really "alien" entries. So when deciding which of the great entries would win, I ended up narrowing it down to the following batch of "non human" aliens.
First is Rozenstal himself, with a nasty looking reptilian beast.
Watson Bradshaw's "Alien" looks like a robot I've seen before but I can't quite place it ... Still, nice job!
Our First Runner-Up is from Tango, titled "Mynzithrum". I love the reflected face in the glass, the water effect surrounding the alien, and of course, the alien life form itself. The design, coloring, and overall layout are all exceptionally well done.
Finally, the Winner of this contest is, as far as I can remember, a newcomer to these endeavors, and I think he knocked it out of the park with all his entries. While stories or explanations aren't necessary -- this is 90% a visual competition -- but I absolutely loved his. I mean, take a look at his explanation for the "Tateroids":
Tateroids are potato shaped, silicon based life forms that spontaneaously change sex if suprised or frightened, often causing the unexpected release of a single, nerflike egg. Tateroids are, understandably, sociophobic and don’t get out much.
And here's the image:
A wonderful combination of imagination, writing, and art. I loved it. Here are a few more, but do yourself a favor and check them all out, they're just great.
So for embracing the challenge of creating aliens both visually and texturally, and for doing such a kick-ass job all the way around, I am happy to pronounce PapaKrok the winner of his choice of any item or any portrait to go in HM3, or a "Sketch of the Day" style illustration.
Congratulations to him and to all our Finalists, and thanks to everyone who took the time to enter!
a lot of great entries this time around.
congrats PapaKrok to a great alien
Holly crap! Didnt see that coming! Wow, thanks!
Lovin heromachine!!!!
Actually, “Mynzithrum” inspired the hell out of me soooooo…..can I hand the item of the week request to Tango??? I am pretty satisfied with things and can’t, for the life of me, think of any additions offhand.
Looking forward to many more creations!!!
Guys, you outdid yourselves once more!
@PapaKrok: Congrats, I really dig the whump and rider.
How did I miss some of these?
My personal favorite is Tango’s Mynzithrum.
Quick rundown of others (in no particular order):
* borntobealoser’s Aliens Welcome: Color scheme, perspective, and the irony.
* Kingslaughter’s Azur Portal Guardian: I like the color contrasts. Poses are great.
* MrVampire’s Brain Spider
* Oquies’s ENP: You stole my idea! ;9 and Polyprogeny: the backstory of the race then I noticed the DNA double-helix in the background. Nice touch.
* rancid’s Stardust: Spiders from Mars
* WatsonBradshaw’s Invader: The patience alone to position the crabs!
@All: Lots of original stuff. Seem to be alot of alien sex slaves. Might want to tag a rating on your posts. ;p
Congrats PapaKrok!
PapaKrok (2): You can do what you like with your prize, although if you can’t think of anything, I do have a whole list of items that people wanted in the “replacement prize” polls that didn’t make the cut. I could just pick the next one on the list and add it to the “to do” pile.
Jeff, that sounds great.
I love what you have created here!
Keep it rollin!
You got it, PapaKrok.
Good job, guys. I think my favorites this time were:
1) MMI – I love the layout and colors, and the design itself. It looks like Aztec revivalists tried to summon a god and got more than they bargained for. 😀
2) Mr.Vampire – OK, that’s just disturbing. In a good way.
3) Watson – I’m not a huge Dr. Who fan, but that is one impressive design. That must’ve taken forever.
Congradulations PapaKrok; very original!
AJW, I think your Equithan had a LOT of potential. If you experiment with the shadows a little more I think this could have easily been one of the best entries. In particular making some of the line colors opaque and masking the shadows to the items would have made the most difference. The conceptualization was certainly there. Executing it just needed a little more work.
Thank you Imp (9) I appreciate the sentiment. I was pleased with that one as well. I figured that it having 10 limbs (4 of them winged arms) was far enough away from he “humanoid” standard to set it sufficiently apart.
That tentacled creature is one of the things I´ve always wanted to create via HM but always ends up looking too “scambled”. Also,I liked the Dalek-esque Alien.
That. was. fantastic! You guys are great with this stuff. I was opening things up and saying “wow” out loud almost every time.
Those are well done PapaKrok I liked the gremlin looking guy best. Also love the idea of riding a.,.thing? Not sure what that is called but that turned out well.
Oh and when I first saw Asder’s image I was like hey that is edited then immediately went oh wait nvm. That was just really nice.
Aw shucks!!! I totally agree with Master Batman…there is some amazing talent here and some really great ideas! Anyone ever think of getting together a think tank for some kind of graphic novel???? Bet we could do it from here….
@TheAtomicPunk thank you very much for your kind words about my design. You totally understood that I was actually going for that specific coloring contrast, additionally I also tried to make the creation as “alienish” and out-of-this-world as possible -and thus the specific colorization- facts that probably some people didn’t quite understand or liked in the design. For me it is a victory each time even one person among the other contestants find my works good.
I would also like to congratulate the winner PapaKrok for the amazing concepts and designs.
the name of the alien robot u couldnt place was the Daleks from Dr Who