Instigator, or "Hey look I did that thing I said I'd do"

As intended, I created a missing link architect. Took three tries though. Still not perfect, but good enough, eh?

The name's a placeholder. "Insitgator" isn't terribly inspirational. Trampler seemed promising, but it's not at all on-theme for the architects, so I just said "sod it" and moved on.

I like the implied shape of the thighs. The way they curve around and meet behind his lower back as a single piece.

The belly-plate's a little odd. I think the left hand side is too convex. And the shading is a little waffley. The hands turned out better than I deserved, but are still sloppy. Ditto the hoofs.

He'll do.

Achitect lineup

Down on the bottom right, you'll see that I fixed up the artisan. Fixed his awkward lean, gave him a more distinctive head and had a better go at colouring too. Lingering suspicions that the feet aren't right, but minor issue overall.

And having done that I felt like doing a lineup of all my architects to see how they work together. I like.

Now the two proto-architects don't quite fit (I played with the colour balance for this pic)but I don't think it would take more than trivial tweaks to fix that. If I was going to do just one more, I'd try and make one that bridges the gap between the potbelly pounder and one of the lither specimens.

When doing them I deliberately used slightly different shades on them all to make them seem more individual, but I'm not sure about that any more. Totally different would be cool, as would exactly the same. Slightly different sits square in the realm of not-right. I also wonder if I should have gone with the green, but I just can't imagine them as anything other than red and bone now.

This feels like a completed thing. I am happy with it. I have ideas for more stuff, and if I sketch something awesome I may make more, but these eight will be fine even if I never do.

Iterator

I think that's a snail-foot with teeth. That little bit of linework defining the hips felt good at the time, but it might have done as much harm as good. When I came to colour it limited how I could texture the area, so I did a simple striated fade.

This architect has a feminine aspect if you look at it the right way. Not entirely, thanks to the shoulders, but there's no escaping the impression of a backless dress.

I was deliberately careful with the nodecount. It would have been easy to bulk out the hands or wrists, but I decided to keep it sparse.

I did want to do something more interesting than a plain oval for the head this time though. That's a good shape there. I might (might) go back and do variants for the architects once I have a good library of suitable shapes. Certainly I want to revise the artisan - he's by far the least satisfactory to me, both in linework and colour.

I might have reached the end of good architects. But if I do one more, I think I'd emphasise the arms and legs for a change.

Surveyor

I think that makes three with legs, two that scuttle and two hovering. That explores most of the available space. I've another thing I want to try for the next architect though (serpentine didn't turn out right unfortunately).

This is a surveyor. He was a scrutator but I changed my mind. Surveyor isn't as obscure and sounds architectier.

The collar is weird, I like it. The other architects' "flesh" is mostly drawn tight. I tried something different here because I don't want them all gaunt and spindly. The head is also smaller and narrower than usual. I'm overusing the one-eyed look though, so I'll try and make the next one binocular.

WIP version of this had way too much shading detail. I think dialling it back was the right decision, though it was hard to decide which were the important parts. Shoulders, definitely to sell the texture of the "flesh" there. Collar, same reason. Belly because otherwise that area looked flat and blank. Torso so I could transition smoothly to the starker white on the head and arms (necessary so that they pop). Arms to ensure the spheres looked embedded. The fingers needed something but I didn't want more detail so they got a flat fill of the darker red.

Not sure what those spheres are. The purple stuff is obviously significant, maybe some kind of crystal? Since they're major self-modders they don't often need tools or props. That means the purple crystal orbs and green metallic stuff must be important. That's the sort of feel I want to give. There's no thinking like overthinking!

Inscrutable & Caretaker

Architects!  Two of 'em!

Side-by-side, it's striking how much more detailed the left-hand one looks. It's only slightly more linework and slightly more shading detail, but the aggregate effect is significant. I think changing the right-hand one's waist would eliminate most of it, but I like those waists.

I don't want to crappify the left-hand guy, because he looks cool. But I also don't want to sacrifice the style by trying to bring everyone to that standard. I guess I could call him a boss.

They have names. On the right is a caretaker. On the left is an inscrutable.

I was concerned that the architects would be too samey since they have strong similarities and not much in the way of weaponry. I didn't want them all with weird guns like the purifier. Here especially, both have scuttly-bodies. Even if the caretaker's odd pincers, I felt the inscrutable might be too close. Floaty artifact was an excellent solution that I plan to use more.

Trivia: Despite their more complex appearance, the inscrutable's legs each have the same number of lines as the caretaker's.

Caretaker looks a little gormless. I think he'd be a grunt-type.

Infernal Purifier

Another inf... hmm. I'm calling them infernals but as they become conceptually distinct from the fire and brimstone that name seems less and less appropriate. Abyssal? Collector? Architect? Architect... that's got potential. I'll think about it.

I wanted the hell theme to have some weird technology, but that niche has been taken over by these guys. That weird gun-thing he's holding is almost exactly what I wanted the fire elementals to have. Maybe I'll come up with another look for helltech later. Or abandon the idea. Either-or.

I do like the gun. I'm not sure what it does, but I bet it's weird. I wanted it to be made of the same bone-porcelain as the "hard" areas of its holder, but it blended in too much. It made me want to give the gun a thicker outline for the sake of depth.

The shoulders and legs are quite similar to the architect. Shared style is ok, but if I want these to look like individuals I'll need to be careful to include more variety. Legs are a problem though. I could probably get away with another floaty body if the torso was different enough. Scuttling spider-legs? Those are hard to draw. Naga-style? I have a sketch that might fit the bill.

I'm liking where these are going. It feels good to be making something distinctive. I've four of them now. No variants though. I'd like it if I was able to come up with a reliable way to make variants. And now I've typed that out I'm seeing possibilities.

Something else to chew over.

Infernal Artisan

Ever since I was little, 90% of the time I draw figures from the feet up. I bring this up because I like this guy's legs. He had lots of names: Strange engineer, artisan of the strange and various permutations. Infernal artisan is the snappiest, but I do like artisan of the strange.

I'm getting more of a sense of who these guys are. They're a people who used strange sciences to alter their own bodies. They're from an older time, and the survivors are a little odd by now. They didn't used to be so alien, but they've engineered themselves into exactly what they needed to be. They busy themselves making strange architecture that shouldn't work. This guy's puzzlebox is meant to represent that. Very individual, though I think maybe there should be serf castes who are unfortunates altered by their betters.

I don't have a lot to say about the picture. Errm, I added the bifurcated arms mainly to stop him looking too humanoid. The torso's shading is unconvincing.

I'm experimenting with white backgrounds and grey shadow to make it pop. I like the look now but we'll see what I think tomorrow.

Fire elementals wear top hats now

Another fire-themed guy. He's probably an elemental of some kind. Initially he didn't have a top hat or even a head, just a plume of fire. He was going to be called something flue or a flue something.

This works much better. Fire elementals and top hats seem to have unexpected but excellent synergy, like werewolves and the colour green.I am fighting the urge to go back and pop a top-hat on my last fire elemental too.

I'm trying to dial back my fire effects a touch. While I like the look, it wildly outclasses non-fire areas in detail. I wasn't terribly successful at it here, but my goal is to simplify it while still keeping as much of the nice embery look as possible.

I have no strong creative direction for the "infernal" theme. Imps and fire elementals so far. A few sketches of ogres. I think I'm leaning towards "devilish" over "firey", since that means more variety - cute little imps and dapper suits - without excluding fire. For now I'm just making stuff and seeing what sticks. As always I can come back and fix things later.

These monstrosities were initially meant to be infernal too, but after working them they seem more "ancient biotech evil", especially if I go with the green versions. They may yet have a home in the infernals - a technological subtheme might be cool - but again there's no need to commit yet.

Obvious Phyrexian influence, but I'm not ashamed. I don't consider it close enough to be a ripoff. The thing on the left was originally meant to be an insect queen, but ended up like those funky things from Blame!.

I like the eyes. The circular lens with the weird track-line gives them a distinctive look I'm happy with. And it can easily be applied to a variety of critters. Zombies with prosthetic heads for example. Another good point are the bruiser's fingers. They were a happy accident. A weird combination of sausage-fingers and needle-fingers.