#Acaprian

[askelectrochromic]

Some slightly more whimsical Castilla content for you bc I wanted to draw more cute goat lady. In her daily life she likes to dress pretty femme, but only for her own satisfaction. She gets prickly when other people lean too hard on the fact that she's cute.

Poses from Adorka Stock, limited palette "Wherever She Goes" from Colorpod.

[molagboop]

Fasteners? Polished. Whites? Freshly starched. Fucks? None given. Her demeanor is that of an arctic baclozen and her kill count is rumored in the thousands. All business, no shenanigans: Admiral Fuja is the face of calculating military genius.

And she's about ready to turn this frigate around.

Another sketch that has its roots in volume ii of Samus and Adam's Great Big Court Martialed Adventure, broadcast live from the mind of @sablegear0.

[sablegear0]

POV: You’re the new guy in Maintenance just realizing why nobody is ever scheduled in the GFS Xibalba’s AU chamber... and that the Xibalba doesn’t have an Aurora Unit...

IDK I just like inflicting existential angst on Adam and had some minor techno-gore stuff on the brain. I wanted to do more complex machinery in the background initially but didn’t have the patience. Rambly thoughts under the cut. (Also full-view for better quality obvs)

(colour set from @color-palettes - “Out there in the universe”)

I get a lot of these half-baked AU ideas (in the “alternate universe” sense) and never really know what to do with them. They’re rarely enough to write about and never usually worth even naming, so they just kind of make the rounds in my head for a while before fading back into the mists. So have some notes about this one!

This would be, oh, maybe 50-100 years post-canon? Adam is somehow still going, though his extended “lifespan” is taking a bit of a toll on him. He doesn’t emote much outwardly anymore (even less so than usual, anyway), not that he has many people to talk to directly at this point. He’s been shuffled around a lot to various ships, outposts, etc. since his expertise is still valuable even if he’s getting... weird... in his “old age.” His current position is replacing the Aurora Unit aboard the GFS Xibalba, the flagship of the supposedly “cursed” 13th Fleet.

The 13th is a GFMC Fleet that patrols the very furthest reaches of Federation territory. The fleet spends a very long time in standard flight between outposts, and sees a lot of strange phenomena in the wilder parts of space, and as such attracts a particular type of individual. Just about every crewman from the ensigns and mechanics up to the Admiral herself are some brand of eccentric. Due to their distance from major outposts, the 13th doesn’t have access to the supplies needed to support the nutritional demands of a proper Aurora Unit, but their friendly(?) neighbourhood computer-ghost Adam fits right in as a replacement. (There are some rumours among the Xibalba’s crew that the AI is either out here looking for something, or dead set on keeping something out of Federated space. Though nobody’s worked up the courage to ask him, and the Admiral certainly wouldn’t divulge that information...)

Over the years Adam has changed up his physical presentation a lot. He’s variously been totally digital, used a projected avatar, an actual android frame, and now this... construction. At some point just before or early on in his assignment to the 13th Fleet, his android frame took some pretty severe damage. He was resigned to being fully digital again until some slightly twisted individual was able to salvage most of the frame and rig it up to the machinery in the Xibalba’s AU chamber. Nobody’s sure exactly who (or how they got a hold of one of those ancient GF Police uniforms to slap onto it, those things are artifacts!) but Adam seemed thoroughly pleased with the solution, and uses the setup as his main method of physical interface with the crew.

Although “the crew” in this case is really just the 13th’s Admiral, as the rest of the crew (and especially the Maintenance team) find him extremely creepy to be around. Adam seems to cope with his situation by leaning into how uncanny he’s become, possibly for his own amusement but it’s extremely hard to tell. Only the Admiral finds his presence enjoyable let alone bearable. The Maintenance team especially dislike being around him as he’s become oddly territorial about the tangle of machinery that makes up the AU chamber and prefers to do his own repairs. 

A handful of the older Maintenance team refer to his attached partial android frame as the “sock puppet,” but only amongst themselves. If the Admiral overheard them, there would be hell to pay! There’s also a hazing ritual  custom on the Xibalba of scheduling new Maintenance workers a shift in the AU chamber, so they can get acquainted with the ship’s AI.

As to the art itself: I’m gradually learning Clip Studio as it has a lot of variety in tools and some very convenient features my ancient copy of PS lacked. I used a pre-made colour palette for this one, mentioned up top, because I’ve been hoarding them and need to use them for something. Took some inspiration from the Nightmare’s sprite and some of the concept art for the Aurora Units. Like I said up top, I wanted to do a more tangled, mechanical background originally but just... didn’t have the brain for it. Maybe I’ll add one in later when I figure out how not to ruin my attempt at composition with it.

[molagboop]

It's Acaprian Sunday, babey! Got the unseemly palpitations after some insurance shenanigans this afternoon, so I vacated my mind-hole by scribbling out how I saw Admiral Fuja of @sablegear0's Electrochromic in my head, then slapped out some alt palettes for good measure.

[askelectrochromic]

More acapriposting featuring an attempt at drawing Fuja based on @molagboop‘s designs. While headbutting as a form of instraspecific competition has largely been lost to time, Acaprians do still occasionally feel the atavistic urge to bash their heads against things and/or people. It’s a pretty versatile gesture that can be anything from a friendly bonk to a full-on bone-breaking smash. Despite coming from a lower-gravity planet, Acaprians have comparatively dense bones.

Original text here if it doesn’t enlarge nicely

[askelectrochromic]

Messy Castilla sketch/minor redesign. Colours simplified to save effort.

She’s splotchier in my head than how I drew her last, so this is a bit more accurate. It’s intentionally an awkward look; she’s not attractive by Acaprian standards, despite being adorable to human sensibilities. She doesn’t make much use of her natural mimicry abilities, but she will occasionally bust out dead-on impressions of her co-workers, or the odd beep. (Link to video upon which this sketched is based.)

[askelectrochromic]

Not sure if I ever specified what instrument Castilla plays. In my head it’s a violin or similar instrument of Acaprian origin.

But in my heart it’s this

via MusicalChaotic

[askelectrochromic]

Species Spotlight: Acaprian

A breakdown and reference for my Acaprian original species.

(Hand-drawn “Version 1″ reference sheet for the Acaprian species. This was mainly to nail down the general shape and proportions of the species.)

Acaprians are a mammalian bipedal sapient species, which bear a passing resemblance to Terran goats/ibex. Their legs are unguligrade and cloven-hooved, fingers are 3 on hand with opposable thumb and thick nails, tails are bobbed/vestigial. Their native homeworld has lower gravity than the Terran standard; homeworld Acaprians are slightly taller than the average human with slender builds, while offworld Acaprians grow more compact and are often shorter than the average human. Short fur covers the entire body, their coats are generally solid colours and neutral tones (black-brown-tan-white). A wide variety of patterns exist as well (cap/saddle/socks, tuxedo, painted, spotted, speckled/piebald, etc). Pointed and counter-shaded coats are extremely rare, no documented instances of striped coats. Eye colour range is similar to that of humans, skin colour tends to be light overall as the body is covered in fur. Dark coat colours are often reflected in skin pigment as well.

(Some example coat patterns for a typical Acaprian. Solid and Patterned coats are equally common. Mane length and horn size/shape also vary between individuals, I’ve just used a generic masculine body plan here to showcase the fur colouration.)

Acaprians are obligate herbivores, unusual for a sapient species. Their evolutionary ancestors were a prey-species on their homeworld. Highly derived vocalization and mimicry abilities used for deception/defense developed into a capacity for language, while their herding instinct evolved into cooperative tribal societies. Their earliest organized civilizations were pastoralist/gatherers. An early member of Galactic Federation, many Acaprians work as translators and ambassadors due to their natural capacity as polyglots and mimics.

The species exhibits minor sexual dimorphism; horns appear in both sexes upon reaching adulthood, though tend to be more prominent in males (still greatly reduced in modern Acaprians compared to their ancestor species). Horn growth is constant throughout the lifespan, accelerating as individuals reach sexual maturity and slowing as they age. As a result, horn growth can be enhanced/suppressed via hormone supplements. Horn etching/adornment is a common aesthetic modification, as is pierced ears. They have a cultural/special aesthetic preference for smooth, enclosed shapes and strong symmetry. Acaprians with jagged markings, broken patterns, flecks, or asymmetrical markings are generally considered “unattractive” among their own species.

[sablegear0]

Character Art: Castilla

Shoutout to the whole 2 people who read “Containment” and got an actual description of her. Left version was done with a pre-made palette for fun, right version has been corrected to be closer to her actual colours; her fur is (off-)white and her spots are black/dark grey.

Castilla is an OC of mine in the Metroidverse, an Acaprian (OC species) Galactic Federation officer and a friend of Adam’s. They’ve known each other since their trainee days and she is another alum of the classified “Project Icarus.” I’ll do a longer post/profile of her some day that goes more into her character and history. For now I wanted to show off that I’ve finally made actual art of her in an attempt to nail down her design (and figure out how the GFP uniform fits on a nonhuman body. This might also be my first public post of Acaprian art so yay, my girl pulling double duty)

[sablegear0]

“Height Difference”

Castilla (OC) and Adam Malkovich as sassy young recruits. Oddly enough, trying to draw a younger, slightly less angular Adam (before he got more grim and scowly, although in my head he’s always had some measure of that) ended up looking a lot like Ian. Which I suppose makes sense. I’m still not the best at drawing faces but I think he came out with a decent enough likeness.

Adam’s canon-ish height is about 6′0″/183 cm, Castilla stands around 4′8″/143 cm, which is a bit short even for an Acaprian. (By the way, don’t lean on your Acaprian friends like this, or you may find out the hard way that they never lost their ancestral reinforced skull/neck, and that they stand at around rib-cracking height. Castilla notably has built up a reputation for being “clumsy,” which really just means she tends to step on the toes of people who tick her off and blithely pass it off as accidental. Suffice to say Adam learned his lesson the first time he invaded her personal space.)

The uniforms here are based on the handful of cutscenes from Samus’s GFP era in Other M Colours pulled mostly from official art and @color-palettes​ set “Smiling Soldier” Pose ref from theposearchives on DeviantArt