Sustained Investigation #6

The main idea behind this drawing, or rather exercise, was to come up with as many more ideas for alien designs as possible. A personal pet peeve of mine that really influenced this work is the fact that the vast majority of aliens in pop culture are either humanoid or resemble some other creature from earth, simply with exaggerated proportions and/or one glued on unique feature. To put my own mind at ease I drew one humanoid alien then pushed myself to create creatures that truly looked out of this world. I figured out unique appendages and body structures. The non-creature things in this drawing are a robot suit designed for a human to use, an parody version of the NASA logo "NOSO" to use in the comic, and the very first ideas I had for "alien jewelry". 

I used the digital program Procreate to make this piece using an apple pencil as a stylist. I really like using a screen size canvas just as a sketchbook, things always come out crisper and its easy to move things around or put things on different layers if need be. Digital has always been my preferred medium and I enjoyed doing this exercise digitally very much. 

Why is the wired round creature in the bottom right corner like that? Its a mobile plant just like the one from the last sustained investigation, just this one is a different species and carnivorous. It uses its appendages to catch prey and throws it into its center to digest. Why did I design alien jewelry and why is one of them wearing some? That is the design of a very rich alien that is in charge of an unethical experimental genetics program, through design this is shown by it being faceless and rich.  The flat disc that splits apart is not important to the story or an intelligent lifeform, it's meant to be a background filler. The alien in what looks like a mask in the bottom left corner is one of the main antagonists, that's why he's mysterious and screaming.