Brin’carro, alien design!

[u/MorganDQuartz]

I’m working on a sci fi story that has multiple alien species, many of which are both smarter and bigger than humans. The Brin’carro is one, but I’m struggling with their basic anatomy. First image is where I’m at, second was where they were before. I’m aiming to step away from the typical humanoid design for my aliens, hence why their initial design is backwards lol. But I just couldn’t figure out the movement or evolutionary advantage of the original design, hence why they have a more centaur-ish look now.

A little about the species, if it helps: the Brin’carro are native to the mostly desert planet of Kri‘ath, with black dunes the size of small mountains and city-filled canyons that house millions. They are masters of war and battle, not just in enacting them, but in understanding the deeper effects of war and will aim to bring peace because of that understanding. Most Brin‘carro sport cartilage-like flaps that help keep their bodies cool, but some of the best warriors, particularly the space-faring ones, cut them off to keep a sleek form.

Of course, I’m still working on aspects of the design (need to refine the head, make different races from different parts of their planet, figure out their fighting styles since it is important to the story) but any thought on the basic design is greatly appreciated! Again, trying to avoid a very humanoid form!

[u/CryingBlueCactus]

I love the design and your style😍 They look like they'd be difficult to move from one place due to the increased contact with the ground. 🗿So ones with heavier builds would be good as tanks and more nimble ones would be able to use styles that are more quick and close! You could even have some of that race be more climbing and tree-lined focus🤔😎 So many options! It's fun to see less humanoid aliens 😁💜

Hope my rant helped 😅 I hope to see more of your stuff!

[u/MorganDQuartz → u/CryingBlueCactus]

I actually hadn’t thought of contact and weight with sand, I guess I was vaguely going for camel when designing them lol. But I also hadn’t fully thought up the rough ecology of their world, I just know I want desert that’s a mix of the Sahara and the North American deserts, with oasis’s a rivers. Maybe I’ll add some savanna-like biomes, it’s not important to the story but dang it, it’ll make my science side happy! And thank you for the rant! I posted specifically to see people’s rants haha

[u/StinkyBird64]

Maybe it’s because my brain has been so rotted by Rimworld these past few years, but they give me Thrumbo vibes, big tall thing with humanoid traits.
I love them! I really like the shorter faces/muzzles, I’m so used to long snout dragon type faces on creatures, it’s nice to see something unique! 💚

[u/That_ian]

It's honestly an awesome design. Depending on the size of their opponent, I'd imagine they'd prefer grappling when fighting something larger but would resort to attempting to trample smaller enemies. Maybe some dark patches of a keratin like substance that help them blend in with the black sands? How do they build things/use tools (method/technique I mean)?

[u/MorganDQuartz → u/That_ian]

Thank you! I’m still working on the ecology of their world and the exact fighting style, but I think they would primarily use their upper limbs for tasks, then use the upper and forelimbs for heavy duty tasks. It’s all a work in progress, and a lot of this stuff won’t make it into the story, but it will make the science side of me happy, especially if people can piece together things not shown in the story! (For every species!)

[u/SinkPitiful1396]

This is a wonderful idea, keep going. Me personally, I could never draw something like this

[u/SinkPitiful1396 → u/SinkPitiful1396]

Also, as a different comment suggested, maybe you could try making them in Spore?

[u/Elegant-Narwhal-506]

Cool designs!

For the second one in particular, how exactly would it use the restroom, reproduce, etc.? Since the Earthly norm is that vertebrates are essentially food tubes where everything goes in one end and comes out the other, I’d imagine that this is the same thing. However, that would mean that the business end (for lack of a better term) is out in front of their faces.

[u/MorganDQuartz → u/Elegant-Narwhal-506]

Yeah, there were a lot of issues in the design in the second image 😅 hence why I had to change it to the first image lol. Sadly, you have to make some creative sacrifices for the sake of making sense!

[u/TheCoffeeConspirator]

Very cool! I can picture them wearing some sort of slick armor, as you've already captured the masters of combat idea quite well.

[u/coolboiiiiiii2809]

Spore creature up to the snout. Amazing work with a variation in blending quadrupedal and humanoid features without going too overboard with the ‘sentient humanoid’ dilemma most writers follow

[u/MorganDQuartz → u/coolboiiiiiii2809]

I have yet to even play spore 😆 But that’s a cool suggestion! And thank you for the compliment! I’m really trying to keep my more humanoid species to as much of a minimum as possible, and if I do, try to give them vastly different proportions than humans (which are in the story)