277 replies to this topic

[Anglachel]

Another quick drawing while at work. A possible replacement for Reaper. The reaper was what sent chills down my spine, the chrysilid just made me think get the butter and garlic out we're have lobster (untill I saw a zombie created I did not have much respect for it) When I think of the reaper, the thing that comes to mind is a journal entry in the X-COM strategey guide mentioned a reaper finishing its lunch of human. This is similar to the creature I visualize.

The basic body design is from the reaper, the head is based off of old pics of the Nazgul flying creature in LOTR. The thing on its head is a large mind control unit. This beast has such a strong will, a massive device was implanted to gain control of it. The aliens can control it by a psychic link directly to its brain. It has two tusks sticking out it uses to take down its prey.

Well? What you guys think?

Attached Files

•  scan0002.jpg   49.88K   5 downloads

Edited by Anglachel, 08 June 2003 - 12:06 AM.

[mikker]

hmmm....It would proberly fell down farward. Máybe make it stand more streight, or move the legs forward.

[Anglachel]

I only spent about 3 minutes on it. I am only after your opinion on the look, I know it would fall over I was just to lazy to correct it.

[mikker]

okok. It is nice, and resambles the one in the original, without being the totally same. What it might need is more metal on it.

[j'ordos]

Nice, but I always found the Reaper needed a tail, and I think it might look better with one (something like Triscene Terrorist without cannons)

[Anglachel]

A tail? Yeah, that body type really does need one. Would help the creature keep its balance since it is a bi-pedal. What about making it with four legs instead of two? Where Mikker, complete body armor, some spots? I was thinking of this being more lizard hide, like on the back, kind of like the anklyosaurus dinosaur.

EDIT: Sorry bout pic size, best one I could find at the moment.

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•  Ankylosaurus.gif   802bytes   2 downloads

Edited by Anglachel, 07 June 2003 - 10:18 AM.

[Breunor]

For the reaper, I'm not a fan of the tail on it with 4 legs, here are two pics shamelessly copied from the D&D monster manual. Perhaps a reaper could use elements of these?

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Edited by j'ordos, 23 August 2003 - 05:29 PM.

[j'ordos]

This Reaper is beginning to look waaay different from the original, but not bad at all. Perhaps a wider mouth & bigger teeth though, like it could swallow a human in one bite (or am I misjudging the scale here?)
It also looks somewhat slow, a lumbering hulk. Shouldn't it also look like it's very fast?

Edited by j'ordos, 07 June 2003 - 05:33 PM.

[Anglachel]

Here are some pics of Star Wars creatures that some ideas might be taken from. I drew these from reference pictures, not my own creation.

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•  scan0003.jpg   53.99K   3 downloads

Edited by Anglachel, 07 June 2003 - 11:08 PM.

[Breunor]

So maybe Drewid's pic using a rancor mouth with a severe underbite?

It could have overdeveloped teeth poking up or down out of its mouth, and if the jaw is large enough it could wrap those teeth around your head.

[mikker]

"mmmmm, tastes like penut butter"

[Breunor]

Or we could just make an 8 foot tall English Bulldog with big teeth!

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•  english_bulldog.jpg   5.66K   2 downloads

[Anglachel]

I got lazy and did not really finish it but figured I'd show it anyways, a reaper concept again. I like the idea about the aliens jumping. That is why I designed the legs the way I did, it could at least stand on its hind legs to reach up. I was going to put a human skewered (sp?) on the horns but it would have covered too much IMO.

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•  scan0001.jpg   18.05K   3 downloads

Edited by Anglachel, 20 June 2003 - 09:30 PM.

[mikker]

I'll go with the english bulldog.

hmmm...about that reeper concept, yeah, its nice, but it does not resamble me moch an alien.



this one from dungeon keeper, the bile, has no legs. could this be used for the reeper?

[Captain_Simian]

I was looking at the concepts for the reaper, and i thought it was a furry dog like thing (fun to set alight )

Here's my attempt at a reaper that should be able to balance itself (but it probably needs bigger feet i just realised):

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•  reaper.jpg   34.99K   3 downloads

Edited by j'ordos, 23 August 2003 - 05:30 PM.

[mikker]

i would call that i 2 legged saber-tooth-lion!

But its great!

[Deimos]

You know with a bit of tweaking that might just work. Try beefing up the upper leg by about half again and make it squat lower (as if its about to pounce), move the direction of the body so it look more like its stalking and give the haunches a bit more muscle definition and I think that'd be a winner.

[red knight]

As if it was so easy to write a Fur Pixel Shader... Well I can find some documentation on it, but that is out of the scope of the current milestone

Greetings
Red Knight

[Deimos]

Isn't there one in DX9? Or am I thinking about the xbox dev kit. I know there is a fur shader somewhere as it's been used for grass effects too. There must be an open source one out there somewhere

[Captain_Simian]

Well i dont know about any of that programming stuff but i think this version looks like it has a chance of actually standing up

(its a bit crap cause i drew some of it with a mouse, something that i'm not great at - but you get the idea)

Attached Files

•  reaper2.jpg   33.87K   2 downloads

[miceless]

i would call that i 2 legged saber-tooth-lion!

I think what Mikker says still applies. Can you somehow change the head to make it look less lion like?

Apart from that it looks good.

[Captain_Simian]

that was the look i was going for actually - cause i cant see an animal with teeth the size of modern day cats and dogs being able to bring down prey in one stroke. An animal with two legs and no arms can't go wrestling with its prey so this is the only option.

And i was watching a documentary on the way its believed sabre tooths took down prey and they had to do it without a wrestle as well because they would need to avoid sideways movement against the teeth so they wouldn't break. So they would take down their prey with one stroke by severing major arteries or the trachea with their teeth. The two seemed to work nicely together.

But if you can think of another way for the reaper to look without making heck for the person writing the ufopaedia entry i'll happily change it

[miceless]

Its not the teeth I dont like, its the fact that it looks like a lion's head. Im not a drawer at all, but can you make it look, well, different? Ummm... Perhaps raise the forehead a bit, or lower the jaw. Maybe mess with the ears.

Any chance of a front on view? Or even a half and half front/side view?

[mikker]

If i were you, I'll make it more.....dragon/dinosaour skin. Make it look prehistoric, like a wannabie T-rex.

Edited by mikker, 08 July 2003 - 06:48 AM.

[Captain_Simian]

I'll have a go at it, i'll mess with the ears and forehead a bit (maybe its the whiskers too?) and see where it goes

probably won't get it up until tomorrow morning, its getting a bit late here

i'll try doing the front on but that'll take longer, cause i'll have to get the proportions balanced (and i suck at front ons of things like this)

Edit: (After mikkers post) I dont think a reptile can get enough warmth to have the energy to stand on two legs - unless it was restricted to equatorial missions, in which case there should be two forms of the reaper that appear in the different zones - a hairy one for the areas north of the tropic of cancer and south of the tropic of capricorn and a reptillian for in between. But that is getting ahead of myself.

[Captain_Simian]

Okay so my insomnia is more severe than i thought...

I changed the head a bit, let me know if this is the direction you think i should be heading... (or were you looking for something more severe?)

I was going to change the jaw structure but it looked wrong when the mouth was opened wide enough for the teeth to be used.

Attached Files

•  reaper2a.jpg   34.76K   2 downloads

[mikker]

hmmm....it looks less like a lion, but it does not remind me of a reaper

[miceless]

Better, slightly.

Perhaps go with the less fur idea. It doesnt have to be reptilian, just less furry.

[Breunor]

Perhaps the issue has to do with having all the various aliens invading, and they're using a mutant cat as part of their forces? Since none of the other aliens have fur, it makes this design stick out a bit. I know it's possible for it to work, but I agree that something more reptilian/scaled/smooth skinned might fit better.

[Captain_Simian]

Yeah the reaper was more of a tailless two legged dog - that would have been one of the most impractical predators ever (apologies to the original x-com creators)

Balance would have been near impossible, so running would have been a no go - falling over would happen too much and getting up without arms is a challenging task

The original reaper would have had to be an ambush hunter, and i dont like the chance of a herbivore missing a 1.5 metre tall animal in the bushes

So i thought it a little more feasible to go for something mother nature could breed up herself, by mixing a sabre tooth with the body form of a t-rex

I think i need to stop watching discovery channel

[Captain_Simian]

yeah that's true the furry thing is a bit out of place - but the reaper celatid and silicoid are the only non humanoid aliens we see, and humans are the only land based predators that i know that are largely hairless - and if the back story is staying the same as the one started by the ctd then the aliens were originally from earth so would be somewhat similar to us (higher vertebrates).

And i know if i was invading i'd want to have a psycho terrorist that wouldnt suffer hypothermia on my terror missions to serbia and canada. But then shouldnt the aliens wear clothes on those missions for the same reason? maybe their psionic abilities sustain their bodies in those situations?

[miceless]

yeah that's true the furry thing is a bit out of place - but the reaper celatid and silicoid are the only non humanoid aliens we see, and humans are the only land based predators that i know that are largely hairless - and if the back story is staying the same as the one started by the ctd then the aliens were originally from earth so would be somewhat similar to us (higher vertebrates).

And i know if i was invading i'd want to have a psycho terrorist that wouldnt suffer hypothermia on my terror missions to serbia and canada. But then shouldnt the aliens wear clothes on those missions for the same reason? maybe their psionic abilities sustain their bodies in those situations?

Im not against the fur itself, im against the fact that it looks like a lion's head. If you can make it look a bit different in another way, then by all means keep the fur.

Also, i think we should draw the thing and then worry about the desription later. I think we can justify a furry one or a non-furry one either way, but we need to get it to look right first.

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

Didn't the orginal reaper have a beak-style mouth? Maybe try something like that...sort of squid-like. Or maybe just a maw, like the cyberdisc concept (less the plasma cannon, of course ).

-The Captain

[Breunor]

I posted a pic for a cryssallid a while back, but it might work uf modified here... it had 4 walking legs, plus two attacking arms. The upper torso/head looks a little like the hybrid alien from Alien 4 I think, not sure. I could see it in a more muscular form here, but then my opinion might be biased, I admit! I'll see if I can find it and put it here.

[Breunor]

Found the pic, it obviously would need to be made bulkier/stronger looking, with big nasty claws, etc. Whatever design is tried, we can easily texture fur or scales to it.

By the way, grizzly bears can ambush deer and elk, and they certainly qualify as big creatures. It's just a matter of the terrain and ambush technique, so as it was said before, don't worry too much about how it would survive in the wild. It's a bred and trained killing machine kept by the aliens. Consider how most domestic dogs would survive on their own, if there were no trash to eat... although seeing a pack of Chihuahuas try to take down larger prey would be HILARIOUS!

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•  dude.jpg   4.98K   3 downloads

[mikker]

hmmm...I don't know what to say to this one, but if it got arms, why don't it carry weapons then?

[Deimos]

I've had a play with Cpt.Simian's design and changed the head. It definitely is more alien now.

Attached Files

•  reaper.jpg   20.26K   5 downloads

[Breunor]

It could have arms, so long as there's no opposable thumbs. It also is very animalistic/stupid cognitively, so giving it a weapon wouldn't help any. It would eat the gun as soon as shoot it. I agree about the black eyes. Perhaps a large central eye with several more that are smaller surrounding it?

[Breunor]

Merging reaper posts here.

Edited by Breunor, 22 August 2003 - 08:54 AM.

[Breunor]

NOTICE!

As a general informal announcement, we're asking that the various concept threads for the aliens focus more on posting concepts right now, rather than requesting tweaks to other artist's concepts. Rather than taking each concept and tweaking it as it comes in, let's leave it up to the artist to present their idea, and if you'd prefer a change to it, either modify the posted image to show what you mean (and that becomes another concept), or PM the artist about getting the files if that would make it easier to do. Some threads have lots of posts with tiny tweaks to essentially the same concept pic, which makes the contect very cyclic.

Thanks!

Also, please read:
http://www.xcomufo.c...?showtopic=2355

[demich]

This reaper looks like combination of zergling, hamster and sabretooth tiger

[mikker]

zergling: exterial.
hamster: cute.
sabertooth: sharp teath.

reaper=big cute exterial killing machine with sharp teath!

I think the furr is ok, but for a game like xenocide, i would lean more over to shell, or "plateskin". They seam like a more.....ideal choice for exterial beings. Though it certainly looks exterial.

[demich]

Repaer should have arms. It can have something like t-rex's arms. This will make it looking more realistic. If Reaper is going to be a fast, deadly beast it shouldn't have any plates, armor or shells. However his fur can be made from allien alloys and will provide some protection. It can also have some horns, fangs or other sharp things on his body. Reaper can attack like rhino - by charging and trampling enemy or like dog - it runs at full speed then jumps and reaps its victim

[Cpl. Facehugger]

How can the reaper's fur be made of alien alloys? How can we justify that without making the reaper have an irridium sheen like all the alien alloy stuff? Us ctd folks have rights too! Ok, rant over.

I would like to see some t-rex arms on him, but I feel the fur is perfect for a reaper. They were vlunerable to incindiary ammo after all weren't they? A reaper who jumps on his target, and mauls him like a pitbull would be cool imo.

[j'ordos]

I don't think arms are necessary, no arms makes it more special, definitely a 'not of this earth' feeling, whereas the same creature WITH arms would look like a furry T-Rex.

[Breunor]

I think the ams were left off to match the original reaper as well IIRC. Remember the mouth of the Predator, where the sides flared out to expose the inner mouth? That would really good here, as I think the front arms would be useful for holding the prey. The reaper could have muscled pincers that clamp onto the prey as the inner mouth eats. It would make a good animation as it attacks, the mouth flares open as it lunges at the target.

[j'ordos]

Hmmm... a mouth shaped like the front legs of a praying mantis
Better stay clear of that

Such a mouth does give a more insectoid feeling about it (which is always good for aliens, maybe a bit overused but still...). It certainly would give a weird combination with the fur: the first mammalian insect
But it would make sense, there are lots of insects that use some sort of 'claws' on their jaw to impale and hold prey.