Aliens Don't Exist

So it's been awhile since I've gotten around to doing my Alien Drawings. I originally took a break because I was moving into a new apartment. I think I'm finally getting settled in the new place (actually have a office now to work on art and other projects) but I think I'm gonna call off the Daily Alien drawings.

Even though I have only been doing them for a few months I'm already feeling the drag of the project much sooner than I did when I did the 365 Cyborg series a year ago. I'm really happy with how a lot of the Alien pieces have turned out but I think if I forced myself to continue I'd end up posting a lot more lazy pieces with greater frequency, and that's not doing anybody good.

Hopefully this means there will be a lot more pieces of quality and not just quantity. I want to be able to work on projects not involving strictly aliens and not things that take just the span of a day. Also just being able to have a little more free time is nice, it seems like years since I've sat down and had some serious videogame time.

I'm still posting various other art projects over at my deviantart page if for some reason you can't kick that Denby art addiction.

Thanks for bothering to stick around this long.
See ya!

Z

You remember how I mentioned I felt like I missed out on Pokemon because I was just a little too old when it came around? Well reverse that feeling for the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, dodged that bullet.  Man did I hate the little kids running around during recess playing power rangers.

Anyways, this is Lord Zedd who replaced Rita Repulsa as the series main baddie for the 2nd and 3rd season. He was easily a lot more menacing than Rita but many people thought he was too frightening for a kids show. As a result as the show went on he became a little more bumbling and goofy much like Shredder in the TMNT cartoon show.

Though as an adult the Japanese shows have a certain charm for me.

Dum Dum

The term "Jumping the Shark" refers to when something popular starts to loose steam and ends up trying something zany to draw people back in but is actually the shows death rattle. It originated on the show Happy Days when the Fonz actually jumped over a shark. The Flinstones (an older version of today's King of Queens series) eventually jumped the shark with the introduction of the Great Gazoo.

The Great Gazoo was a little green man from the planet Zetox who got stuck on earth during caveman days. He often caused trouble for Fred and Barney who were one of the few people who could see him. He seemed to be an all powerful being but ended just being a pain, in many ways he is a lot like Q from Star Trek.  Shortly after his introduction the show ended.

Klaatu Barada Nikto

The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the great Sci-Fi classics. I've never seen the 2008 remake but haven't really heard anything great about it.

The plot is that basically a spaceman comes to Earth to check us out along with Gort, a giant enforcer robot. In the end humanity learns that they are jerks.

Beep Beep Beep

I'll admit that I had a Tamagotchi when I was a kid. For those who don't know, Tamagotchi were the first of the "virtual pet" craze that swept across the world, not counting pet rocks of course (those things were soulless hellspawn) Basically little toys that demanded every moment of a kids time, kind of like Farmville for this generation. I eventually grew to hate the little buggers and even killed one of my cousins Tamagotchi by repeatedly flushing it down the toilet (not in real life but in game)

I never realized that the Tamagotchi were aliens though when I was a kid. I guess their story is that they came from a far away planet in eggs to grow and observe earth.  They start as little eggs and depending on how well you tend to their virtual needs they evolve into different critters, this version is called Masktchis.

Bossy Brain

Krang is an alien from Dimension X and one of the main antagonists in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved his voice despite kind of hating the character, Shredder was always the much cooler villan. I feel bad for anybody who didn't get to grow up with the Ninja Turtles.

Like anybody in my generation I could go on and on about the TMNT but I wanted to make this a quick drawing today so it's also getting a quick description.

With a name like Sinestro

Sinestro was a member of the Green Lantern Corps. who, surprise surprise, eventually turned evil. The only person to predict this was Obviouslon, and then Gostopem had to go stop him. But Gostopem was defeated and with his dieing breath gave his power ring to Ryan Reynolds to get revenge and kiss a girl for him.

At least that's what I think the story is, I grew up on Marvel comics. From what little I actually do know about Sinestro he seems like a interesting enough villain, that and the costumes of anybody associated with the Green Lantern Corps. tend to be pretty awesome.

In Blackest Day

In Brightest Night

Beware Your Fears Made Into Light

Let Those Who Try To Stop Whats Right

Burn Like His Power

Sinestros Might

First Prime

I really liked the Stargate film when I was a kid. What kid could resist cross-dimensional Egyptian aliens? I've seen a couple episodes of the television show SG-1 and found it entertaining enough. What man child could resist Richard Dean Anderson?

Teal'c here is kind of like the Worf character of SG-1. I decided to depict him in the traditional Space Egyptian armor instead of the more human jumpsuit thing he usually wears. The Teal'c you see here is actually just the host body for a little worm thingy called a Goa'uld. I like the word Goa'uld quite a bit, almost as much as the word Muad'Dib.

The Mad Titan

When I was a kid for some reason I thought Thanos was the baddest dude in the Marvel universe. I don't think I ever read any comics with him in it but I'm sure his trading card made out to be trouble. He reminds me a lot of Darkseid from DC comics but with enough chutzpah to wear primary colors, also I don't really know too much about Darkseid.

Thanos was born on Saturn's moon Titan. He was basically born with an evil gene and eventually was consumed with the idea of Death. I know there was a big to do about the infinity gems and making some super gauntlet.

One of his worse moments.

Decapod Alien

The Half-Life series is arguably one of the most beloved game series. It's innovations in narrative and character development (despite the main character never speaking) have cemented it as one of the most important First Person Shooters of all time.

The headcrabs are probably the most recognizable alien from Halflife. Gross little parasitic monsters that look like plucked turkey cadavers with fingery fangs. They are able to attach themselves onto humans and turn them into a sort of zombie.

I hate the venom headcrabs, not gonna draw one of those jerks.

Don't Blame me, I voted for Kodos

I'm one of those people who used to always watch the Simpson's. Having seen each episode dozens of times. Eventually the quality of the show started to wane and it's been a few years since I've seen the show. Despite it's flaws it had some of the best laughs in television.

Kang and Kodos are aliens from the Simpsons who've appeared in every single Treehouse of Horror Halloween episodes.
Here's a great clip from when the two disguised themselves as Bob Dole and Bill Clinton in an attempt to take over the country.

Soul of the Blob

Katamari Damacy was a great little creative game when it first came out. Based on a really simple (albeit odd) idea and a quirky world.

 
The King of all Cosmos accidentally destroys many of the heavenly bodies in the galaxy after a night of too much drinking. He tasks his son (controlled by you) to create new stars and planets. You do this by rolling up everyday objects, starting with tiny little thumb tacks and eventually working your way up skyscrapers and whole continents.

I wish I would have had more time to do a piece more fitting for one of my favorite games. The game has an amazing soundtrack and simply oozes style. Frankly I could go on and on about the games unique Japanese charm/insanity but I think the opening will do a better job.

Pokelien

I was just a  bit too old to get caught up in Pokemon fever. They seemed like fun enough games but I think a big part of their draw these days is nostalgia. Being that I'm a big nerd I feel like I'm missing out to an extent, that it's too late to jump in. I'll never have that attachment to my first starter Pokemon, or be able to remember 100s of little monster's names.

To my knowledge Deoxys is the only alien Pokemon. It arrived as a virus on a meteorite and continued to change into this form. I'm fairly sure it's a powerful antagonist of some sort.

Galactacat

I grew up with a steady diet of old live action Disney movies. Pretty much whenever my siblings and I wound up at our grandparents we would watch one. Not sure why we usually watched the live action ones instead of the cartoons, we just watched whatever VHS my grandma put in.

This is the feline hero from "The Cat from Outer Space" with his super space collar. His alien name is Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7 but you can call him Jake. His species decided to focus their evolutionary path on increasing their minds instead of growing opposable thumbs and walking upright. Not sure how they decided that but cats are pretty finicky. I watched a little bit of the movie while working on this and wasn't as charming as I remember.
I am looking forward to re-watching "Flight of the Navigator" though, that movie was awesome.

Chiana

I know absolutely nothing about the tv show Farscape. My guess it's about a ragtag group who have access to some type of advanced spaceship or some other crazy technology. They then go off on adventures thwarting evil aliens and crooked space governments.

This is Chiana, my guess is she's the quite and mysterious type but has some crazy fighting ability.

Washington

Kids growing up in the 80's had plenty of anthropomorphic superheroes to choose from thanks to the immense popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There were the Street Sharks, Biker Mice from Mars, Extreme Dinosaurs, the Cy-Boars (how the hell did I miss drawing those guys during my 365 Cyborgs?) and of course the Snailiens.

I had a couple of the Snailien toys and if I can recall correctly they were a team of little alien snail men who crash landed on Earth along with some enemy aliens (the Lunarticks) in a similar situation to the Transformers. The four snailiens took their names from the pieces of coin currency, Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. I bet if they were popular enough a female Sacagawea would have shown up at some point.

Pfhor Score

The Marathon Series was an early FPS created by Bungie. It introduced a full 'free look' system, allowing players to control the players view/aim with the mouse. Most people are unaware of Marathon and its influential gameplay due to the fact that it started life on the Mac.

Another interesting factor of Marathon was its fairly engaging narrative, involving evil aliens and computers that have lost their virtual marbles. It also has many similarities to Bungie's best known game; Halo. Many people view Halo as a kind of quasi remake or prequel/sequel to Marathon.

This is a Pfhor Enforcer, fairly deadly but if you manage to kill them you are able to use their gun.

Prot

K-Pax is about Kevin Spacey maybe being an alien. I always thought K-Pax was his name but turns out that's the name of the plant Spacey is from.

I never saw the movie but I remember him eating a banana, peel and all, in the trailer. Aliens are so crazy.

Schnoz

Anyone else remember growing up in a time when you could rent a videogame with your allowance money, have a blast getting through a good chunk of the game, and then save your progress when it was time to take the game back. Then once you got a chance to rent the game again you realized some other kid saved over your file. I'm guessing most kids these days will never experience this now that most games get saved on memory cards or hard drives instead of on the game cartridge itself.

I remember renting Earthbound for the Super Nintendo at least 3 different times only to have my save file lost. Usually it stinks having to go through the same parts of a game over and over but I really enjoyed Earthbound's quirky style and fun story.
This fella is Mr. Saturn, not sure how they fit into the story though. Pretty sure I never made it that far but I could be wrong. I do know them from the Super Smash Bros. series though. My friends lovingly referred to them as dick slaps, probably due to their similar appearance to our friend Dick.

Weirdos

I can't say enough good things about Bill Watterson's work on Calvin & Hobbes. His work has only grown on me more as I've gotten older. He's a fantastic draftsman and wonderful storyteller. I kind of view him as the J.D. Salinger of comics. He had a relatively short but immensely successful career only to become a bit of a recluse. Calvin & Hobbes only ran for 10 years

This is the martian from when Calvin & Hobbes flew into space after becoming disenchanted with the Earth.

Oh, I hate the Calvin peeing on things stickers. I hope anybody who has one of those on their truck gets struck down by an awesome T-Rex.

Koriand'r

I was originally going to draw Marvel comics Medusa today. Then I realized that Medusa is an inhuman not an alien. So instead of scrap the start of my drawing I decided to rework the piece into another comic book heroine with a penchant for purple and a shock of red hair.

Starfire is from DC comics and luckily for me is an alien from the planet Tamaran. I think her super powers involve flight, energy blasts, and flirting with Dick Grayson. I couldn't bring myself to draw Starfire in her classic costume, far too cheezy.

Four Lights

At first I was going to talk about the Cardassians from Star Trek. Maybe make a couple references to some of my favorite episodes with them.

But then I realized I could post the Picard Song video instead. Sure a Cardassian only makes a brief appearance but frankly more people need to hear this song.

X

I loved that X-Files when I was a kid. The goofy monsters of the week episodes got me into the show but the loose overarching narrative got me hooked. I think as the show went on the big story got a little sloppy but the show does have a couple great episodes/seasons.

I don't really remember much about this guy except he was awesome. He was some sort of alien Terminator,  big, unrelenting , and almost invincible. This guy has actually been in a lot of stuff but I always remember him as his X-Files role.

Evil Weevil

The last few aliens have been pretty cutesy and lighthearted so I decided to work on a big jerk today. Originally I was gonna do another Doctor Who alien, hopefully doing a better job this time too. After some poking around I instead decided to do an alien from the Dr. Who spin-off show Torchwood.

Torchwood is kind of like a British Men In Black. A secret agency who deal with alien threats. The Weevil is one of the first aliens introduced in the series. They live in the sewers and eat poo which tends to make them fairly ornery.

Wrencher & Clunk

It seemed like animals with 'tude used to be all the rage for a couple of years. From the peak of Sonic the Hedgehog to the horrible lows of Poochie. The Ratchet and Clank series came out quite a while afterward and made a couple tweaks to the idea.

Orb

The idea behind the Wario Ware games is really interesting. In a time when so many games are pushing the limits of what they can do with a huge cinematic narratives Wario Ware goes in the complete opposite direction. The game is actually a collection of a huge amount of micro games. Simple games that last just a few seconds. Part of the challenge is figuring out just what to do before the player is whisked off to the next little game.

Each collection of micro games has a host of sort, and Orbulon here is one of them. Wario Ware doesn't really focus on story so not sure what his deal is. My guess is he's a kooky alien who likes fun?

Alien Harem

One of the more popular genre of anime/manga is the idea of a harem. Often there is one male or female surrounded by a gaggle of members of the opposite sex who for some goofy reason end up living together. This often results in some weird love octagon, the most romantic shape in all of geometry. Imagine if the the cast of F·R·I·E·N·D·S· were all ladies except for Ross, then for some reason everybody was in love with Schwimmer. You get a rough idea of how these shows would play out.

One of the more popular harem series is Tenchi Muyo, which is made up of several different series, oavs, and movies. The protagonist Tenchi Masaki is a descendant of a space royalty which lets him wield a Japanese light saber. He ends up being the epicenter of several different ladies affection.
Featured here is Ryoko (which translates to bringer of demons) who fills the role of the aggressive troublemaker in the series.

Utinni

Jawas are some of my favorite aliens in Star Wars, I think it's the Utinni and their short stature that win me over. Jawa are technology scavengers with a penchant for bamboozling their customers.

I wonder how many of these little guys I could take down. They wouldn't have blasters or anything just their piercing glowing eyes. I figure I could take out at least 6 before they brought me down.

Since my name is Luke people always make jokes and references to Star Wars. Strangers upon finding out what my name is feel a strange urge to say "Luke, I am your father" even though that's not even the right quote. Curse you Lucas!!!

The Shining

I've only seen one of the Riddick movies, the Chronicles of Riddick. Supposedly Pitch Black is pretty good but not sure if I'll ever get around to seeing it. The old xbox game was pretty fun though. Riddick is a pretty standard Vin Diesel character. Tough, beefy guy, who likes to punch stuff. When I first heard about Vin Diesel he actually sounded like an interesting guy. He popped up in Saving Private Ryan and I heard and interview with him where he sounded like a normal guy who was hoping to make good movies. Needless to say it turned out he's kind of a meathead.

Totally Radd

There is a being in the Marvel Comics universe named Galactus. He is one of the most powerful figures in the universe. One day Galactus came to the planet Zenn-La to consume it for energy. An astronomer name Norrin Radd convinced Galactus to spare his planet and in return he would become his herald. He would search for planets that would feed Galactus and provide notice to any sentient life of the coming destruction.

Galactus bestowed the power cosmic (which would be an awesome band name) upon Norrin and he became the Silver Surfer.

Well, enough of my rabble. If you want to watch Richard Gere talking about the Silver Surfer check out this clip.

Bandit Mask

Rocket Raccoon is a Marvel Comics character that comes from the planet Halfworld. I don't really know too much more about him so how about a little behind the scenes for this piece?

Asteroidea

So Marvel vs Capcom 3 came out today and I was planning on drawing Shuma Gorath. After doing some sketching and research I found out that Shuma Gorath isn't an alinen but instead some sort of demon. Luckily DC comics also has a eyeball tentacle monster, and it's name is Starro the Conqueror.

So since I've already done some research on one creature I didn't really feel like digging to deep into ol' Starro here. I think he has some sort of mind control and can create little duplicates?

Anyhoo, if you ever feel like fighting me in MvC3 my xbox gamertag is Steakys.

Gimmie a Hug

Happy Valentines Day!

This is a lonely little facehugger from the Alien movies. Nobody ever choo-choo-chooses him to be their Valentine.

Educational

I'm a big big fan of early PBS kids shows. Mister Rogers and Sesame Street were amazing shows for their time and I'd like to think they did some good in my formative years. I'm kinda saddened how ELMO! Sesame Street has become, too hyper and ADD,  not enough stop motion and the letter G.

Nanu²

Well I'm back from vacation. It was great to get away from work and just laze about the Oregon Coast. It's been seven days since I've worked on anything alien related so time to get back to work.

Mork and Mindy was Robin Williams breakout role, and it's basically the character he's gone on to play for the majority of his career. The plot of the show is that Mork, a goofy alien, is sent to Earth to learn about life here. He winds up living with a woman named Mindy who often seems more concerned about hiding the fact that Mork is living with her from her father than the fact that he is an alien being. The show is actually a spin-off of Happy Days. I watched a little bit of both while working on this and the eye rolls far outweighed the chuckles.

 Here's a video of Mork fighting the KKK, wait...what? I'm guessing this took place toward the end of the series around when it got canceled.

Time Out

Just letting everybody who lurks around here that I'm going to be taking a vacation out at lovely Cannon Beach. So there won't be any new aliens for awhile, I'm sure you'll manage somehow.

Tentacle Sprites

The Metal Slug video game series are pretty great. Straight up crazy 2D art side-scrolling shootin' action. It's really sad that there are fewer and fewer sprite based videogames, and often the ones that do show up are done in a simple 8-bit style (which are fun but totally different)
Back to Metal Slug though, it has a great art style and just oozes charm and of course packs a good amount of difficulty.

Alien Cop

Star Trek has it's share of funny haircut equals alien race, but they also had plenty of more involved species. Alien Nation on the other had only had one alien race and it was just a bald cap with some spots on it, pretty weak Alien Nation, pretty weak.

You are What they Eat

Have you seen the movie Gremlins? Well then you have a good idea what the movie Critters is about. Basically a small town is overrun by little monsters who are a mix of scary and kooky. Most people think Critters was a Gremlins rip-off but work actually started first on Critters. While Gremlins eventually had a sequel Critters cranked out 4 movies, the last one was set on a space station in the future ala Jason X and Jaws 6: Space Jaws.

They don't really make movies like Critters, or Puppet Master anymore (scary movies based on silly puppets) I'm not sure if that's due to the fact that CGI has become so prevalent or because they were often bad movies. But look, Nardo Di'Cap!

Are you a Banana or are you just Happy to see Me?

Looking back at the aliens I did last month I realized that the majority of the creatures were fairly humanoid. I'm gonna try and remember to draw more critters and not just face bumpy dudes. Speaking of which expect an actual Critter drawing some time soon.

Alien Soldier is one of the few games made by Treasure that I haven't played, which kind of sucks because it was supposed to be a pretty awesome game (as most Treasure games are) It was a mix of sidescrolling beat 'em up and shooter. Think Contra (or Gunstar Heroes if your awesome) mixed with Streets of Rage (or Mischief Makers if your awesome) and you have a rough idea of what Alien Soldier is.
The levels were mainly a place to wail on minor minions powering yourself up in preparation for a boss battle or two. There were 28 bosses and minibosses spread throughout the game. This little guy is one of the small baddies but I'm sure a boss or 2 will show up at some point down the line.

One Month In

Well, I'm done with the first month of this years drawings, 31 down 334 to go. I've got a pretty good list going of future aliens that I want to tackle, also a list of big aliens that I need to save for important times (100th drawing, halfway point, holidays (dang it, should have saved Lum for Valentines day), etc...) So far I think I'm off to a decent start. I've gotten a couple pieces I'm pretty happy with along with a few stinkers.
So time for a little look back on this first month...

Lum and Coke

Lum Invader is an anime about an alien invasion turned into a romantic comedy. The oni alien came to earth to conquer it and the only way for humans to stop it was to win a game of tag. The head aliens daughter Lum tried to avoid being caught for 3 days by a human named Ataru. After successfully catching Lum she fell in love with Ataru after a mistaken marriage proposal. Everyone thinks Lum is kind of awesome except for Ataru and his then girlfriend, so wackiness ensues.

Needs to go to Supercuts

I never watched Babylon 5 as a kid, it just seemed too diplomatic and Deep Space Niney for me. Though seeing some clips on youtube while making this piece make me kind of interested. It looks sufficiently interesting and cheesy for my taste.

Londo Mollari is a Centauri alien and appears to be one of the main antagonist and or protagonist, guess I didn't do enough research.
If sci-fi shows have taught me anything it is that alien species always have a unifying haircut and some type of uniform. I just hope that when it comes time for humans to choose the haircut we all have to have we don't vote for this Amadeus monstrosity.

Does he stay Crunchy?

It seems like most cereal aimed at kids is basically sugar flavored corn puffs of some sort. Not that this is the worst thing in the world, I still frequently eat kids cereal for my breakfast despite being in my late twenties. The main thing that differentiates these cereals tends to be the cartoon character on the cover.

The Lonely Captain

Pikmin was kind of a weird game when it came out for the Gamecube. It was a kind of a real time strategy game mixed with a bit of adventure. For the non-geek out there, that means you created stuff to fight bad guys and explore the world. The interesting thing about Pikmin was instead of building tanks or flamethrower units you befriended local creatures (the titular Pikmin) and taught them the horrors of war.

You played as Captain Olimar, whose spaceship crash landed on the earth like planet. Due to oxygen being poisonous to Olimar he had to plan his escape from the planet in 30 days. Depending on how many goals you accomplished through the course of the game you would get a couple different endings. Either Olimar would die (but be resurrected as a Pikmin yourself) or fly back to his planet while the Pikmin try to figure out how to satiate their bloodlust.

And the Space Oscar goes to...

Marvel comic's space gods are always kinda weird and interesting to me. Manifestations of space and time that just float around being omnipotent, occasionally revealing themselves to some Superhero if some weird cosmic imbalance shows up.

This is the Living Tribunal, the only force more powerful than him is The One Above All (i.e. God) So that's a fancy way to say that he could beat up the Hulk (even if the Hulk was really angry) and Ben Grimm combined. He has four rotating sides to his head that represent Equity, Vengeance, Necessity, and Nothing.

And my picks for the best picture Oscar this year....The King's Speech.
Even though I've yet to see it, the trailer looks quite good.

Titan

Saturn Girl is a telepath from Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Beyond that I don't really know, make mine Marvel and all...

And since I don't know to much about her enjoy a picture of her in her original costume with her boyfriend Lightning Lad.